Being similar to the lou both of who are of two or more storey buildings, the Chinese ge has a door and windows only on the front side with the other three sides being solid walls. Ge is usually enclosed by wooden balustrades or decorated with boards all around. And usually Ge is above the water, seats in the forest, in the temple, or at the peak and so on. The whole beautiful scenery of the far distant can be seen clearly and easily from the storied pavilion (ge). Ancient people liked to live in the storied pavilions, because they thought the ge is the immortal club and for the immortal as well as for the elegant and noble.

Storeyed pavilions were used in ancient times for the storage of important articles and documents. Wenyuange for instance, in the Forbidden City of Beijing was in effect the imperial library. Kuiwenge in the Confucius Temple of Qufu, Shandong Province was devoted to the safekeeping of the books and works of painting and calligraphy bestowed by the courts of various dynasties. Visitors to the city of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, can still see Tianyige, which houses the greatest private collection of books handed down from the past. Monasteries of a large size normally have their own libraries built in the style of a ge and called cangjingge to keep their collections of Buddhist scriptures. Some of the ge, notably those erected in parks, like other pavilions or towers (ting, tai and lou), were used for enjoying the sights.

Tengwang Pavilion

Located on the shore of the Hanjiang River, Tengwang Pavilion is one of the three most notable pavilions on the south side of the Yangtze River. It has therefore been widely admired by visitors from all over the world. Yellow Crane Building and Yueyang Building are the other two famous superstructures to the south of Yantze River. Long and splendid history endowed Nanchang with many cultural relics, among which the Tengwang Pavilion is the most famous. The pavilion was built by a brother of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) Emperor Taizong in A.D. 653 about 2,000 years ago, when the Tengwang (King) Li yuanying, a younger brother of the Emperor Taizong of Tang Dynasty was the governor of Hongzhou (now Nanchang). It had been crowned with eternal glory. Since the "preface to a banquet in Tengwang Pavilion" was written by Wangbo, a noted poet in the early years of Tang dynasty. The building has been ruined and rebuilt as many as 29 times. The latest reconstruction was completed in 1989. The new Tengwang Pavilion (29 times) is towering loftily at the bank of the Ganjiang River, in style of Song Dynasty. The nine stories pavilion is 57.5 meters high and construction area of 13,000 square meters, with its special charm of green tiles and double eaves roof. Its elegance and simplicity is set off by the jade-green tiles on the roof, pretty eaves and red pillars. Engraved screens also enhance the beauty of the interiors. It is now attracting guests from all corner of the world.

Tengwang Pavilion was a place where educated men used to gather to write articles and hold banquets, making it a place where cultural and literature are greatly highlighted. Kuiwenge in the Confucius Temple of Qufu, Shandong Province was devoted to the safekeeping of the books and works of painting and calligraphy bestowed by the courts of various dynasties. Visitors to the city of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, still can see Tianyige, which houses the greatest private collection of books handed down from the past.

The name of ge is also used to describe the towers which shelter the colossal statues one finds in some great monasteries. A prominent example is the Guanyinge of Dulesi Temple in Jixian County of Hebei Province. Twenty-three meters high and housing the huge idol of the Goddess of Mercy (Guanyin), it is the oldest exitsing multiple-storeyed structure of its kind in China. Built in the Liao Dynasty (916 - 1125 A. D.), it has withstood twenty-eight earthquakes including three of a devastating nature. When all the houses in the area collapsed, it was the only one that survived the disaster. This goes to show how well its wooden frame was structured. Other well-known religious buildings housing Buddhist statues, big or small, include Foxiangge in Beijing's Summer Palace, Dashengge in Chengde's Puningsi Temple and Zhenwuge in Ronxian of Guangdong Province. All of them, tall, graceful and dignified, can be listed as representative works of classical Chinese architecture.