At the eastern gate of the Summer Palace, where imperial Beijing pressed against one of the Qing dynasty's most elaborate garden complexes, a cluster of pavilions that once served as a guest reception compound for the imperial court was converted into Aman Summer Palace — arguably the most historically freighted address in the Aman portfolio. The structures themselves date to the reign of the Guangxu Emperor, their grey-tile roofs, vermillion columns, and bracketed eaves executed in the same northern palatial grammar as the buildings visible across Kunming Lake. What the conversion required was not architectural invention but an act of restraint: Ed Tuttle, Aman's longtime design collaborator, allowed the ceremonial architecture to carry the spatial argument while pulling the interiors toward something quieter and more habitable. Inside the 51 rooms and suites, Tuttle translated the vocabulary of classical Chinese joinery into a register that functions as contemporary living rather than museum recreation. Latticed timber screens — the same fretwork geometry visible across the eaves and window surrounds of the pavilions outside — recur as headboards, room dividers, and wall panels, rendered in warm walnut-toned wood against cream plaster. Polished dark stone floors ground the rooms, Ming-influenced armchairs and low daybeds providing the furniture lineage, while red-shaded bedside lamps offer the one deliberate note of color against an otherwise restrained palette. The dining spaces carry the same logic: lacquered hanging lanterns and scholar's-table consoles arranged beneath exposed beam ceilings, the lattice screens filtering borrowed garden light throughout.

No travel notes provided yet.

No description provided yet.