The South Gate to Heaven is also called “the Third Gate to Heaven”, and is the most well-know symbolic Structure of Mountain Taishan. It is a tower with a stone arch gateway. There is a garret with double roofs above the Gate, known as the Skyscraping Garret. At the two sides of the gateway, a carved stone couplet is written “the gate keeps away the highest Heavens, facing upward the famous historical sites of Heaven; there are ten thousand worshipped steps and look upon one thousand marvelous spectacles of mountain peak.” The outstanding aesthetic value of the South Gate to Heaven depends upon the appreciation of the beautiful. Some experts think that “the concept of the South Gate to Heaven can be said to be an example of combining human landscape with landscape.”
The South Gate to Heaven is built at the lower level between the Flying Dragon Rock and the Flying Phoenix Ridge. The two ridges have set off by contrast its central position; joining with the blue sky, the structure's outline is very distinctive; the red wall is especially attractive with its ten thousand green clumps. The South Gate to Heaven is at the end of the long mountain-climbing stair, since visitors have walked all the way and passed the First Gate to Heaven, the Halfway Gate to Heaven and the Becoming Immortals Arch, they need a taller and bigger “Gate to Heaven” to climax ascending Mountain Taishan. The specially designed South Gate to Heaven brings acclaim as acme of perfection. |