Lasting influence

Crew members spent the whole of 2022 in shooting the production, since they wanted to show the beauty of the Qing architecture in four seasons, of which the family members had joined the construction, according to Huo Ming, general director of the documentary.

"Ancient Chinese architecture highlighted the combination of architecture and natural environment, which means the change of seasons helped the architecture show different beauty and charm," says Huo.

Materials from the Yangshi Lei archives are now stored at the National Library of China in Beijing, as a reference for the production and the research of many scholars on the family and ancient architecture.

Zhu Qiqian, who started to record Chinese architectural history in a systematic manner, made a great contribution to ensuring the archives didn't get lost in the turbulent time of the 1930s.

In 1930, when the offspring of the Lei family were selling the ancestral architectural archives and models to support their family, Zhu ensured the archives and models would be collected by the National Library of Peiping, the precursor of the National Library of China. In this way the archives were kept safe.