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From the white-walled Jiangnan houses of Dewa to the magnificent palace Cui Wei and the majestic Great Wall, the variety of categories presents different aspects of Chinese architectural culture. As the window of the architectural "air outlet", as the door of the "face" of the building, and the column that plays the role of the heavy load, it has also undergone vicissitudes over the past thousands of years, presenting the time and space imagery and beauty of different eras.
How did the ingenious mortise and mortise evolve into a magnificent city? When did the colorful glass start to become a building material? How was the ancients' idea of "feng shui" embodied in architectural concepts? The Surging Q&B invited Wang Zhenfu, professor and doctoral supervisor of the Department of Chinese of Fudan University, to be a guest to appreciate the beauty of ancient Chinese architecture.
The "Love Wood Complex" of Ancient Chinese Architecture
@ Salty and salty: Why are there few tall and magnificent buildings in Chinese history like the European stone church palaces?
Wang Zhenfu: Since ancient times, Western culture has had a complex of "boulder worship". Ancient European architecture, such as cathedrals and palaces, has a strong and consistent tradition of stone making, and the cultural origins of this tradition are many aspects. One of them, derived from the "worship of megaliths" in ancient times, followed by the construction of "megalithic buildings". Its shape is diverse, which can be roughly divided into six categories: "three stones", "table stones", "stone tombs", "standing stones", "column stones" and "ring stones". At the end of the Neolithic period, this "megalithic building" appeared to varying degrees in the fields of today's Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, northern Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom, and some "ring stones" arrays, which can stretch for 3,000 miles, seem to block harmful gods and obtain "safe" artificial "space". A large number of ancient Greek temples such as Parthenon and its columns are made of stone, a large number of temples and large colosseums, squares, royal palaces and baths in ancient Rome are made of stone, and the cathedrals of the Middle Ages and later are all stone buildings, with the pursuit of high height, and some cathedrals are even as high as one hundred and sixty or seventy meters, and their spires point directly to the firmament, symbolizing the spiritual presence with God.
Chinese culture has had a worship of the earth since ancient times. The earth is revered as "mother earth", and the Zhou Yi takes Kun Gua as the symbol, calling the great virtue of Kundi "straight, square, and large"; there is also the worship of plants, according to archaeology, the earliest places where the original Chinese people lived were in the Yellow River and Yangtze River basins. The middle reaches of the Yellow River have many loess slopes, which are easy to dig burrows; the trees south of the Yangtze River are luxuriant and easy to nest. The former wants living space to "earth"; the latter wants living space to "wood". The civil engineering structure of Chinese architecture is the only choice between culture and history. Since ancient times, China has established itself with agriculture and agriculture, and agricultural culture is a civil culture in a broad sense. The hardness and stiffness of rammed earth as the foundation and fired into bricks are far inferior to that of stone; with wood as columns and beams, although there is exquisite mortise and tenon technology, due to the limited length and thickness of naturally grown wood, it is difficult to build tall and magnificent buildings. When China's primitive "faith culture", including primitive mythology, totem and witchcraft, achieved cultural "disenchantment" in the Spring and Autumn Warring States, it did not transmute like The Ouxi culture, but realized a strong and lasting "historical" cultural tradition, that is, the feudal monarchy in which the earthly human king was the supreme authority, and the emperor was the absolute authority of the Chinese. Chinese think that since the happiness of life is in this world, on this shore and on the earth, it is not necessary to make the building as high as possible. Therefore, in addition to the relatively tall stupas built by the pre-Qin part of the Lingtai and the Buddhist Donglai, traditional Chinese architecture emphasizes group combination. What was sought was the majestic momentum of the building community spreading out on the ground. But see the Forbidden City of the Ming and Qing dynasties in Beijing, the central axis is symmetrical, the grandeur is grand, orderly, a brilliant momentum, how vast and majestic.
@ Phi Xing Dai Yue EatIng Cantaloupe: Why was the tenon structure used in ancient times to build houses, but now it seems that it is not used much?
Wang Zhenfu: The tenon and tenon structure is a unique creation of Chinese wooden frame architecture, because Chinese architecture uses wood as a frame, and only then did it have the invention of tenon and tenon. Tenon is a convex and concave part of the joint of ancient Chinese architectural structures, which is a combination of mortise and tenon. The end of the wooden component is made into a protruding part, called the mortise (mortise, bamboo shoot head); the recessed part is called 卯 (卯眼、 卯口). Tenon and tenon, all the on-demand processed materials scattered in tight combination, there is a creation of the entire building. In 5000 BC, in the yuyao Hemudu architectural site in Zhejiang Province, the remains of the tenon and tenon wood structure were excavated, just imagine that there were no iron tools at that time, only stone knives and axes, and even invented the tenon and tenon technology, how clever and great the Chinese ancestors were. Before the invention of iron nails, copper (for copper alloy) nails and steel nails in ancient China, it was necessary to build wooden structures, and the tenon and tenon technology came into being.
Assembly of tenons in traditional furniture components
According to archaeology, the wooden pagoda of Yingxian County, Shanxi, which still stands on the land of China, is a relic of the Sui Dynasty, and many centuries have passed, but it has not fallen after several earthquakes, but it is a large stupa that does not use an iron nail and is structured by mortise and tenon technology, which can be described as a miracle in the history of architecture. Modern construction, those high-rise buildings, etc., are generally made of reinforced concrete as a material for the structure, and it is not necessary to apply tenon technology.
This does not mean that there is absolutely no tenon application in the building and its interior decoration and interior furniture production. The manufacture of Chinese-style wooden furniture, the combination of various parts of the material, often use mortise and mortise technology. There are many aspects of the uniqueness of ancient Chinese architecture. The humble book "The Unique Land Culture and Philosophy of the East" (Taiwan's "Space" Magazine, No. 2, 1994) once summarized the unique features of ancient Chinese architectural culture into four aspects: "the affinity between man and nature, the temporal and spatial consciousness of the unity of nature and man"; "less than religion, thicker than ethics"; "pro-earth tendency, love wood complex"; "reasonable and reasonable". Recorded here for criticism. The Royal Garden, more politically ethical than the Jiangnan Literati Garden, is particularly evident in the Yuanmingyuan, which was burned down by The British and French invaders in 1860, as well as the existing Summer Palace. The 108 views of the Yuanmingyuan, whose main landscape, follow the Philosophy and Aesthetics of Taoism without a doubt. Among those gardens, there are also some imitations of Jiangnan gardens, which shows the emperor's love and appreciation for Jiangnan literati gardens. This kind of aesthetic imitation, called "moving the heavens and shrinking the earth in the junhuai", while aesthetically pleasing the garden, still does not forget the politics of "king's landing in the world" and "king's mercy on the world". Moreover, in addition to the embodiment of Confucian, Shi and other concepts, there is also the participation of Western garden culture, the so-called "big water law" (fountain) from the West, which has changed the traditional Chinese garden in line with the Taoist practice of "to the virtual pole, keep the quiet" and watch the "still water". In the Summer Palace, in the natural beauty of the catharsis, with its large-scale scale landscape scale and architecture, it wonderfully and fully shows the royal weather of the world. For example, the construction of the Buddha Xiang Pavilion and its aesthetics are also the large-scale "writing" of the Sensibility of Expository Thought in the garden landscape.
@Dumpling OQ: Is our Forbidden City still mainly loaded with wooden structures? Why has it been preserved intact? How long could such timber-framed palaces exist under natural conditions without dedicated maintenance?
Wang Zhenfu: Traditional Chinese wooden structures include the existing Forbidden City in Beijing, with wooden structures as the main load-bearing. Civil structures, group combinations, and axial symmetry in the plane are the main features of the Forbidden City architecture. This does not mean that all buildings in the Forbidden City are wooden, and some buildings or components that use stone or other materials exist. The Jinshui Bridge is made of stone, and the base of the three halls is the Sumire Seat, which is built of Han white jade. Regarding the protection of buildings, it is a broad and profound knowledge, and I am definitely a layman. For China's timber architecture to be protected for a long time, special and targeted safeguard measures must be taken. In general, wood buildings have a shorter lifespan than stone buildings. Made of stone, the Egyptian Pyramid of Khufu is one of the oldest buildings on earth and is still well preserved. The ancient Greek parthenon temple and its stone pillars are also well preserved. All this is mainly due to the use of stone as a material. Traditional Chinese architecture may be an example of the Pagoda of Dengfeng Songyue Temple in Henan during the Northern Wei Dynasty, which existed on the ground. Previous ground buildings, because civil engineering is susceptible to wind and rain, the wooden structures in it are easily burned by fire, mothed by termites, and so on. Therefore, the long-term protection of traditional Chinese wooden buildings is an important task.
The popularity of "imported" glass
@Chelsea: When did glass start to be used in architecture? Does building a house with it really guarantee solidity?
Wang Zhenfu: According to the book "Ancient Chinese Glass Studies" by Mr. Jiang Xuanling (the late professor, painter and scholar of liuli culture of Tongji University), Liang Sicheng and Liu Zhiping edited "Glazed Tiles", which pointed out: "Liuli, in China, was still extremely precious in the Han Dynasty, and its use for roofs may have begun in the Northern Wei Dynasty. According to the Book of Wei, there were merchants from the Western Regions of the Great Moon Clan who brought small glass products to China for sale, and then China was able to imitate them. "Ancient Chinese Glass Research" also quoted Zhang Hongzhao's "Shi Ya" as saying: "Chinese glass was first introduced from Eastern Rome, and began to manufacture itself in the Northern Wei Dynasty. According to the Liuli Commentary, the Liuli person, originally called "Bi Liu li", sanskrit vaidurya, was not seen in ancient China, "is the entry of Si wu, when it began in the Han Dynasty." Li Qiaoping's "History of Chinese Chemistry" Yun: "The western glass input is imitated in Guangdong after the Great Moon Glass." In fact, the liuli input was the beginning of the Han Dynasty, and was undoubtedly manufactured in the time from the Six Dynasties to the Sui. ”
The theories are different and quite consistent, thinking that Liuli was originally "imported", introduced around the Han Dynasty, and was first created in the Northern Wei.
Zhang Cui, the editor of the book "Ancient Chinese Glass Research", "Editor's Note" Yun: "Liuli, the earliest is an ancient Chinese title for glass. It is generally believed that glass is a kind of artificial crystal glass, because of its high refractive index to light, it is presented as a crystal clear effect, and the ancients took it as a valuable work of art. "Glass should be a type of glass, and its scope is much smaller than glass."
Song Li admonished "Building the French Style" Cloud: "Where the system of glazed tiles and so on is made, the medicine is mixed with huangdan, Luohe stone and copper powder, and the water is evenly mixed." "The Tiangong Kaiwu records how to burn glass: glass into blanks. Fired in a kiln. "The color is colored with unnamed, palm hair and other decoctions to dye green daisy; ochre, rosin, pugrass, etc. are dyed yellow, and then enter other kilns, reduce the fire, and force it into a glazed color." Glazed tiles, generally yellow, green, blue and black, have become the landmark tiles of high-grade chinese political and ethical buildings in the old times. Royal palaces, mausoleums or some high-level buildings of officials and eunuchs are generally covered with glazed tiles. Yellow glazed tiles, dedicated to royal buildings. The tiles of the Forbidden City (now the Forbidden City in Beijing) in the Ming and Qing dynasties are a large array of yellow glazed tiles. Yellow is the special color applied by imperial palaces, mausoleums, royal temples, etc., but it does not mean that all royal buildings are covered with yellow glass, and the Prayer Hall of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing is covered with blue glazed tiles. Some of the buildings approved by the emperor and the imperial court, such as the tile roof of the Dacheng Hall of the Confucius Temple in Qufu, Shandong, are yellow glass.
Ancient Chinese civil architecture, with foundations, columns and beams as load-bearing components. Glazed tiles are covered with roofs, not load-bearing components, and generally have no impact on the firmness of buildings.
"Building China: Half a Brick and Tile to a Ten Mile Terrace", by Wang Zhenfu, Zhonghua Bookstore, July 2021.
Editor-in-Charge: Ju Wentao
Proofreader: Luan Meng