Can you tell me about our Chinese architecture?

Chinese architecture is one of the major categories in the history of world architecture. It is divided by region and roughly includes China, Japan, Korea, and Indochina. It is called the Oriental architecture. The Western architecture is called Europe and America. There is also Islam. , other Soviet systems.

Chinese architecture is characterized by its wooden building system, which is unique in the world and has spread to East Asian cultural areas such as Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam.

In early Chinese architecture, rammed earth was the main load-bearing structure, supplemented by wooden frames for reinforcement.

After the Tang Dynasty, Chinese wooden architecture gradually matured, and all-wood frames became popular, with structural components connected using mortise and tenon structures.

China’s wooden architecture has strong regional characteristics. The new trends brought about by the change of dynasties interact with local folk techniques, and the architectural characteristics of the north and south are distinct.

The mainstream architecture after the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China was replaced by Western-style architecture.

Foundation period: Zhou Zhi, Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States (Western architectural divisions during the same period: Egypt, Greece, Xiyao) Mature period: Qin and Han (Western architectural divisions during the same period: Greece, Rome) Convergence period: Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties ( The division of Western architecture in the same period: the early Christian period, the Byzantine period) The heyday: Sui and Tang Dynasties (the division of Western architecture in the same period: the Byzantine period, the early Goethe period) The continuation period: Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan Dynasties (the division of Western architecture in the same period: the Goethe period) Period of stagnation: Ming and Qing Dynasties (the division of Western architecture in the same period: after the Renaissance)

Prehistory

The earliest compositions included "building earth structures, wood structures, and building frames" because they used local materials. There are roughly the following three forms

Pole-rail type - Yangtze River Basin, humid and rainy, residential upstairs wood-frame mud wall type - Yellow River Basin, umbrella frame type, circular structure rammed earth wall - --The slave age, related to the Bronze Age system

Qin and Han Dynasties

Representative buildings: Great Wall, Afang Palace, Mishan Cross Valley, Weiyang Palace

Architectural works: Kao Gongji,

Southern and Northern Dynasties

No architectural relics of the Southern Dynasty have survived, and unlike the buildings of the Northern Dynasty, its image can be known from Dunhuang murals and Buddhist grottoes. Only a small number of tomb murals and Its image can be indirectly inferred from the flying bird pattern passed down to Japan through Baekje. It is generally believed that due to the warm and humid climate, the Southern Dynasty buildings were prone to wet rammed earth, so they were earlier than the Northern Dynasty buildings to get rid of the load-bearing load of civil-wood hybrid structures. The early Southern Dynasties were also more technologically advanced and became the object of imitation in the Northern Dynasties architecture. Most of the wooden structures of the Southern Dynasty buildings are exposed, without rammed earth walls, and the style is beautiful and strong. According to historical records, a large number of pagodas were built in the Southern Dynasties, most of which were five-story pagodas similar to the flying birds of Horyu Temple. They were pavilion-style pure wooden structure pagodas with the core pillar as the center and surrounded by wells, dry walls and brackets. The architectural tradition of the Southern Dynasties is different from that of the Northern Dynasties. The main hall of the palace is easy to use even numbers of bays, inheriting the habits of the Han and Wei Dynasties. "Tongdian" records that the Song Dynasty built the ancestral temple with fourteen main rooms and one east and west storage rooms totaling sixteen. "Tongzhi" also records twelve bright halls. In addition, the middle gate of Horyuji Temple in Japan also has four bays, which can be circumstantial evidence. In the Southern Dynasties, buildings were mostly painted red and white, wooden structures were painted vermilion, and walls, arches, etc. were painted white and gray. Some luxurious Buddhist temples, such as Jiankang Tongtai Temple, are painted red with red stone and fat mud. The upright columns mostly use shuttle columns, and there are also octagonal columns and other systems. Most of the pillars are made of wood, but some are carved from black stone and painted with gold or made of copper pillars in the palace.

Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties

Representative buildings: such as Buddhist temples, pagodas, grottoes, Foguangfeng Hall in the north of Mount Wutai in Shanxi, Mogao Grottoes, Yungang Grottoes, and Zhaozhou Bridge

Architectural works: Tang Dynasty's "Ying Repair Order" and Tang Dynasty's "Zi Ren Biography"

Sui and early Tang Dynasty

The Sui Dynasty unified the country, and Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty Yang Jian recuperated at the beginning of the founding of the country. The economy is developing rapidly. In the Sui Dynasty, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty carried out a large-scale construction project and built a large number of palaces and villas such as Renshou Palace. He also built a large number of temporary palaces in Jiangdu, which not only wasted people and money, but also promoted the development of construction technology. Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, once criticized the palaces of the Sui Dynasty for being too extravagant and burned down some buildings such as the Zetian Gate in Luoyang. This shows that the palaces of the Sui Dynasty were very gorgeous. Except for masonry pagodas, the architecture of the Sui Dynasty has no inheritance. Its image can be seen from tomb murals, Dunhuang murals and unearthed artifacts.

The early Tang Dynasty inherited the style of the Sui Dynasty. During the Zhenguan period, the national power was greatly improved. The architectural culture of the north and the south merged and developed greatly. The largest construction activity in the early Tang Dynasty was the Chang'an Daming Palace built in the second year of Longshuo.

After Wu Zhou usurped the Tang Dynasty, a great deal of construction was carried out. The Mingtang Hall was built in Luoyang, the eastern capital, with a square meter of 88 meters and a restored height of about 86 meters. It is extremely large. After the excavation of the site, it was restored to an all-timber building, not an early rammed earth load-bearing structure. This shows that the wood construction technology was very mature at that time. In the early years of the Tang Dynasty, international exchanges were frequent. Japan sent Tang envoys many times to introduce Chinese culture. The architectural style of the early Tang Dynasty also spread to Japan through Sino-Japanese exchanges. Japanese architectural history is called Hakuho-style.

Buildings in the Sui and early Tang Dynasties mostly have brackets on the columns, supporting an arch and a buttress. The columns are connected by double-layered balconies to form a vertical frame. Most of the jumping arches are made of a single material and can be used for up to three jumps. The outermost jump should be arched without the head, the tail of the beam should not jump, and the vertical cut should not make a head shape. Tween paving is mostly a single-tween curved-leg herringbone arch, ostrich peak or Shu column. Examples of upright columns include shuttle columns, cylinders, square columns and octagonal columns. In the early Sui Dynasty and early Tang Dynasty, the wooden building structure could not be completely separated from the civil-wood hybrid structure. Large-scale buildings such as the Hanyuan Hall and the Linde Hall of the Daming Palace all used thick load-bearing walls. The roof eaves have soft curves and no obvious warping. In the Sui Dynasty, some gable roofs still used the two-stage method of the early Han and Wei dynasties. There are also examples of continuous curved curves, which are parallel methods. Most of the tiles used are gray pottery tiles, and carburized and polished green tiles are often used in palace buildings, and lotus pattern tiles are often used. Palace buildings mostly use green glazed tiles for trimming, and occasionally yellow glazed tiles or three-color tiles are seen. The two ends of the main spine are decorated with owl tails. In the early Tang Dynasty, the owl tails have a simple shape and the ends are curved inward. The wooden components were painted red and white many times, and some buildings were decorated with colorful paintings on the outside.

The Prosperous Tang Dynasty

After the rule of Kaiyuan, the national power of the Tang Dynasty reached its peak, and construction technology also developed rapidly. The progress of construction technology during this period was unprecedented. The structure of the brackets is becoming more mature. It can be seen from the Dunhuang murals that the problem of three-way jumps at the corners has been solved, and forms such as skip-by-beat calculation of seven pavilions to make heavy arches and tween jumps have emerged. The maximum number of jumps can be up to four jumps, double copy, double jump. Ling Gong began to show off his skills. The buttresses still use one arch and one fang, just like the system in the early Tang Dynasty.

Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan Dynasties

Jin Dynasty

The architecture of the Jin Dynasty inherited the northern architectural tradition of the Liao Dynasty, but incorporated the delicate Song style, making the architecture of the Jin Dynasty better than that of the Liao Dynasty. The architecture is more beautiful and lacks the majesty of the Liao Dynasty architecture. The architectural structure of the Jin Dynasty made extensive use of column reduction and column shifting. A typical example is the Wenshu Hall of Foguang Temple in Mount Wutai. In addition, some techniques of Jin Dynasty architectural style, such as inclined arches, are not found in the French style, and can be regarded as a local characteristic.

Xi Xia

The wood structure of Xi Xia buildings has no inheritance, and only a few masonry towers remain. Its image of wooden architecture can be seen from the Dunhuang murals. It can be seen from the third cave of Yulin in the late Western Xia Dynasty. The Buddhist temples in the Western Xia Dynasty often use double eaves, and there is also a turtle-headed building that hugs the building. The combination is very complex. The roof is very steep, with obvious warping, the brackets are small and dense, Pubai Fang is used, the forehead railing is large in cross-section, the color of the paintings is green, and the influence of the Song and Jin Dynasties is obvious.

Yuan Dynasty

The large wooden paving layers of buildings in the Yuan Dynasty were further simplified, the materials used were further reduced compared with the buildings of the two Song Dynasties, and the tweened paving exceeded the limit of two in the Song style. Northern buildings in the Yuan Dynasty preferred to use unprocessed log components, and curved beams were commonly used. The southern architecture of the Yuan Dynasty inherited the local traditions of the Southern Song Dynasty and developed individually. Large-scale Buddhist temple styles such as five mountains and ten temples in Jiangsu and Zhejiang continue to influence Japanese Zen-like architecture.

Ming and Qing Dynasties

The Ming and Qing Dynasties had more systematic regulations on feudal hierarchy, such as: capitals, palaces...

Representative buildings: Hall of Supreme Harmony, Forbidden City Architectural Groups

Architectural works: Ming-Luban construction formalities, Qing-style construction rules, Ministry of Industry engineering practice rules, construction section construction records

The Ming and Qing Dynasties saw the official style of architecture move towards stylization era.

The materials used in official-style arches were greatly reduced in the mid-Ming Dynasty, and the number of brackets increased. A room often used more than five brackets.

The corresponding bracket structure overhangs the load-bearing function and becomes dispensable, reducing it to a purely decorative product.

The roof has also been changed from the Song style of first folding and then lifting to first setting the height and then setting the height of each frame, making the roof steeper than the previous one to compensate for the reduced height caused by the shrinkage of the brackets.

In addition, extensive use of pushers is used to extend the main ridge, making the roof curve different from that of the previous generation.

Official-style buildings often use Hexi color paintings and Xuanzi color paintings, with dragons and geometric figures as motifs, and they also tend to be more stylized.

In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, post-official architecture tended to be finalized, and the development of large wooden structures was slow.