Set the state temple at the exact centre of the city, where the avenues from the gates cross, and the king’s palace to its north.
Zhou’s golden tower, the Bayon, stands where the four avenues from the gates meet, and he notes the bronze tower (the Baphuon) a little to the north and the palace beyond. The temple-mountain at the centre is Mount Meru, the axis of the world; the city round it is the world itself. The palace faces east onto a royal square, where the Victory Gate avenue arrives.
Set a vertical rod at the centre of the levelled site, draw a circle round it, mark where the tip of its shadow crosses the circle before and after noon, and join the two marks: that line runs east–west.
E–W = chord through the morning and afternoon shadow points; N–S ⟂ through its midpoint
Angkor Wat reverses the usual eastward orientation: its entrance, causeway and principal approach face west.
Enclose the capital in a square wall with a moat outside it; open five gates, crowned with the four faces of the Buddha, and bring the roads over the moat on causeways lined with giants holding the serpent.
Divide the ground inside the walls by embankments into a regular grid of blocks, each with its ponds and its raised mounds for houses.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The golden tower at the centre”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/zhou-city-centre. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.