When we want to talk about architectural art and architectural culture, we often have to start with bricks, tiles, ash, sand, stone or wood, glass, steel and other building materials that are hard, do not have any emotional color, and may generally be more concerned by engineers. Because we have not actually seen any "architecture", we have only seen a variety of architectural components composed of building materials: columns of stone or wood, walls of brick plastering or stone, roofs of tiles or stone vaults... These materials are combined with the architect's ingenuity in line with the laws of science and art, condensing the wisdom of the architect and forming the whole of the building.
From left to right: 1 Guanyin Pavilion of Tianjin Dule Temple, 2 Shakya Pagoda of Yingxian County, Shanxi, 3 Temple of Heaven in Beijing, Taihe Hall of the Forbidden City of Beijing, 5 Pyramids of Kufu in Egypt, 6 St. Peter's Church in Rome, 7 Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, 8 Temple of Partillon in Greece, 9 Cologne Cathedral in Germany, 10 Pantheon in Rome, 11 Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris
The texture, color, luster and texture of the material itself are the elements of beauty that constitute the overall architectural image; the structural beauty (the transmission logic of the force) and the structural beauty (the logic of the interspersed and interspersed and interspersed components) of the components of the material are also important components of the architectural beauty; more importantly, the material is the most important element of the external or internal artistic image of the whole building - the shape and space, and only through them will the "architecture" be presented in front of our eyes.
Here, we will mainly introduce the shape and interior space of ancient Chinese architecture.
The shape is easy to understand, that is, the points, lines, surfaces and bodies that make up the architectural image are in accordance with the so-called laws of formal beauty, such as master and subordinate, proportion, scale, symmetry, balance, contrast, counterpoint, rhythm, virtual reality, light and shade, texture, color and light and shadow, and comprehensively use them to create a complete composition that is both diverse and unified, showing the beauty of the pattern and organic organization, and obtaining a certain style.
The appreciation of architectural shapes is like appreciating sculptures, which is the first impression of architecture, people can perceive it from a distance, and some buildings almost completely rely on shape to show personality. For example, the Egyptian pyramids are a simple four-sided pyramid, without much architectural surface treatment, but it is impressive.
Although most buildings also attach importance to the treatment of the surface, the shape still occupies an important position, such as Chinese stupas and European tower buildings, all have towering body shapes, but the former layers of eaves form many horizontal lines, the silhouette is full and full of tension; the latter is blindly thin and tall, highlighting the upward trend, showing different personalities. In a building or a group of buildings, large and small, shaped, and different directions are combined together, and the method of combination is still the law of formal beauty to form a diverse and unified organism.
From left to right: 1 Pyramid Complex of Giza, Egypt, 2 Pagodas of Dengfeng Temple, Henan, China, 3 Flowing Water Villas in Chicago, USA, and 4 Agra Taj Mahal Mausoleum in India
Volume is an important factor in form, and huge volume is one of the important characteristics of architecture that distinguishes it from other arts. The same shape, due to different volumes, will have different effects. It is difficult to imagine that under the contrast of the vast desert, the pyramids would have any artistic expression if they did not have a huge volume of tens of meters or even hundreds of meters high. But the size of the volume is not absolute, the appropriate size is the most important. European churches that emphasize the divine power of the superman are all surprisingly large, while Chinese architecture, which shows the rational spirit and humanism of Chinese philosophy and pays attention to its scale and is easy to measure and receive, is not too large. Garden architecture and residences are more important than the pursuit of small sizes to show kindness, simplicity and elegance.
The combination of different volumes still applies the law of formal beauty.
The internal space formed by the walls, roofs, floors and other architectural enclosures is actually an object of appreciation for architectural art. Lao Tzu said, "If it is an instrument, when it is nothing, it will be used as an instrument." ...... Chiseled to think of it as a room, when it is not, it is used for the room. ...... Some think it is profitable, but nothing is useful. "[The Tao Te Ching] means mixing clay to make pottery, and the only thing that is really useful is its empty part; building a house, opening doors and windows, and only what is useful is space.
Therefore, the entity is only used to enclose, and the space is used. Space is not only used, but also has great artistic expression, which is also a major difference between architectural art and painting and sculpture, and it is also one of its advantages. Some people even emphasize that space is everything in architecture, although this statement is inevitably a bit absolute, but it shows an important essential attribute of architectural art that is different from other types of art.
The shape, size, orientation, openness or closure, brightness or darkness of the space can all have a direct effect on emotions. A wide, tall and bright hall will make people feel cheerful and comfortable; a wide but low-pressure and dim hall will make people feel depressed and even terrible; a narrow and incomparably tall Gothic nave will remind people of the sublime of God and the smallness of mankind; a narrow and not tall corridor will make people feel a sense of anticipation and play a guiding role... All of this proves the artistic appeal of the space. If many indoor and outdoor spaces with different personalities are connected according to certain artistic ideas, blend and penetrate each other, coupled with the different treatment of architectural entities, people marching in it will produce a series of psychological and emotional changes.
All of this can only be created through building materials and their structures.
Looking at the seven major architectural systems that have appeared in the world, we can find a phenomenon that is not strange but worth pondering, that is, only Chinese architecture is based on wood structures, and the other six major systems, although they do not completely reject wood, are mainly based on masonry structures.
A beam and a pillar under each of the two beam heads are the simplest structure, and mechanically, this beam is called a "simple support beam", that is, a beam that is simply supported. This structure can be constructed of stone, and in fact, it was widely used in ancient Egypt and ancient Greece. But the stone is not good at this kind of task, the beam is slightly longer, longer than the pressure resistance but not bending stone beam, itself broken, even if there is not much external force on it. Since ancient Rome, this practice in the West has gradually abdicated and replaced it with arches, coupons or vaults.
For thousands of years, China has long been based on wood structures. The wood is light in weight, easy to process, and the fiber texture extends longitudinally along the tree, and when used as a beam, the lower edge fiber of the beam in the tension state can withstand external forces very well. Moreover, the wooden beam belonging to the flexible material has a certain deflection, that is, the middle of the beam can be slightly bent down without breaking (as long as the beam is made into a slightly upward bending shape in the middle before construction, visual correction, it is not easy to detect this deflection. In fact, unless it is for decoration, the wood beams that belong to the lightweight structure as a whole do not need this treatment). In this way, we can achieve a beam frame with a much larger span than the column diameter to meet the needs of the internal space.
The wooden structure beam frame is mainly of the lifting beam type, which is supported by two columns, the top of the beam head column supports the eaves, and two short columns are erected on the beam, and the shorter beams and purlins are placed on it, so that the layers are stacked, and finally, perpendicular to the purlins, the rafters are laid, and the roof is supported. The weight is passed down through the layers of beams and columns to the girders and then to the columns. The girder structure has a large span and is used in larger buildings such as halls (pictured below).
In addition, there is a bucket type, the purlin is thinner, and there are many columns under each purlin that reach the ground, or one or two short columns in the middle and then go down to the ground with long columns, and the columns are connected by multiple horizontal piercings. The short pillar between the two long columns rides to the piercing fang. The purlins and columns of the bucket type are dense and thin, and the structure is lighter, but there are more flooring columns, which are not suitable for large buildings that require large space, and are mostly used in smaller private buildings such as halls, especially in the south. There are also three or five rows of frame houses, the middle row of frames is a bucket type, and the left and right gables are raised beam type (pictured below).
There is no shortage of stone in China, and Chinese wood is not particularly abundant. "Shushan Wu, Afang out" is the Tang people's posthumous Qin Dynasty words, which can be ignored for the time being; but the large wood of the Sui Dynasty Emperor Yingluo Palace was collected from afar, with "two thousand people dragging a pillar"; the Song Dynasty built the Jade Qing Zhaoying Palace in Bieliang, and the big wood was collected from Yandang Mountain in Zhejiang Province; the Ming Dynasty Beijing accepted the big wood from the southwest provinces every year; the Qing Kangxi rebuilt the Taihe Hall, because of the Rebellion of the Three Domains, the southern big wood could not arrive, so it had to shrink the opening room... These are all in the book. Chinese had mastered the technique of masonry arches since the Eastern Han Dynasty at the latest. Still, China has developed a strong tradition of wooden structures that have lasted for thousands of years, and this can only be found in the cultural genes of Chinese.
Chinese, who are deeply influenced by Confucianism and have rather indifferent theological concepts, pay more attention to the immortality of an inner spirit, and always have a fairly realistic attitude towards "external things", including architecture, and do not pursue eternity. The West, based on its yearning for eternal divinity, has always pursued a realistic and visible immortality, and for a long time all important buildings have been built of stone. A church can take decades or even centuries, and it is time-consuming and Chinese think it is not worth it. At the same time, the Confucian concepts of "benevolent people love people", "thrifty and loving people, making the people timely", "rare servitude, no time to seize the peasants", and the pursuit of gentle and generous aesthetic tastes are all related to them. In short, it is the culture of Chinese that plays the ultimate role.
The vast majority of existing ancient Chinese buildings are religious buildings, and the halls are generally enshrined with statues of Buddha, Bodhisattva or gods, and how the buildings work closely with the statues makes the two fit seamlessly, becoming a prominent problem in the treatment of internal space. Generally speaking, the craftsmen have done the following points: First, try to make the statue in a position half of the plane depth and slightly behind, so that the space it is in is relatively tall, and emphasize its importance with the contrast of space; second, try to make the statue in a relatively independent space with a strong sense of integrity; third, the statue has as wide a foreground as possible, reduce the obstruction, facilitate the viewing and ensure that there is enough worship site.
If the temple adopts smallpox, more algae wells are installed on the main Buddha statues, which increases the space and further highlights the statues with its decorativeness. There are Altars under the statues, which increase the vertical perspective of people when looking up at the statues and increase the solemnity of the gods and Buddhas. Equally important, the altar created a special space that was relatively separate from the area where mortals moved, and reinforced the sense of community in the many statues. Generally, a fan wall is built on the back side of the altar, or the huge backlight of the statue is used to divide the space, and the space is more complete, such as the main hall of the Jinhuayan Temple in Datong Liao (see above).
◎ This article is excerpted from "The Artistic Conception of Architecture" (author Xiao Mo), the source network, the copyright of the picture and text belongs to the original author, if there is infringement, please contact to delete.