Meiling Palace ( Chinese : 美齡宮 , aka Meiling Villa and Meiling Gong ) is a large villa in Nanjing , China , built by the chairman of the Chinese National Government , Chiang Kai-Shek , for his wife, Soong Meiling . It is known formally as the National Government Chairman Residence ( Chinese : 国民政府主席官邸 ).
3-662: The villa is located below Purple Mountain , about 6 km from Nanjing's city centre in the Zhongshan Mountain Scenic Area. It is the largest villa in Nanjing, with a floor area of more than 2,000 m. Meiling Palace was completed in 1934, as a residence for the chairman of the Chinese National Government . Chiang Kai-Shek gave the mansion to his wife on her birthday, 4 March, and the couple moved there in summer 1936. Later it
6-418: The roof tiles. The Chinese artist Chen Zhifo (1896–1962) painted the eaves with birds and flowers. Viewed from above, the trees surrounding the villa are in the form of a necklace. The interior was in a western style. The building has two main storeys, a basement, and a mezzanine between the first and second floors. In the basement, there is an exhibition of paintings by Soong Meiling. On the second floor, there
9-570: Was used as a base for officials visiting the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum , located nearby. After the end of the war between China and Japan in 1946, the National Government moved back to Nanjing and Chiang Kai-Shek used this villa as his official residence. The exterior of the villa was built in a traditional Chinese style with double eaves and a roof of green glazed tiles. There are more than a thousand phoenixes carved on
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