Architectural differences between residents in the north and south

1 Overview of Architecture in North and South China

1.1 Architecture in the North

Compared with the southern region, the northern region of China has a colder climate, a relatively loose land use, a flatter topography, a relatively single building material, mostly materials such as earth and wood, and a relatively pure, simple and rugged human and folk style. It is the natural style, cultural practices and building materials and other factors, making China's northern residential buildings generally emphasize the sun, and presents a simple, thick architectural features, in the group layout, it shows a general neat, square pattern.

The northern region can be divided into two regions, the North China Plain and the Loess Plateau, and their architectural layout and style are different.

1.1.1 North China Plain

North China Plain from the west of the Taihang Mountains and the western mountains of Henan, east of the Yellow Sea, Bohai Sea and Shandong hills, north of the Yanshan Mountain Range, southwest of the Tongbai Mountains and the Dabie Mountains, south-east of the Soviet Union, Anhui Province to the north, including Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei Province, Shandong Province, Henan Province, Anhui Province, Jiangsu Province and other provinces and municipalities, an area of about 300,000 square kilometers.

The North China Plain is the cradle of ancient Chinese culture, and there are many ancient cities with square and regular architectural clusters, large courtyards, and atriums and corners of which are usually left with small-sized patios for ventilation and light. Building layout is generally discrete, each single building is relatively independent. The architectural shape is not undulating, with a low, flat roof and a gently curved roof. Building materials are mostly bricks and tiles, wooden structures with large materials, most of the decoration is relatively simple.

The siheyuan is a square or rectangular courtyard that is one of the most common combined architectural forms of residential houses in the North China Plain. It is characterized by a regular appearance and a symmetrical center line, but its usage is extremely flexible. The simplest siheyuan has only one courtyard, the more complex ones have two or three courtyards, and the deep houses inhabited by rich and noble people are usually composed of several siheyuan side by side, with partition walls in between.

The gate of the courtyard is usually opened in the southeast or northwest corner, the north room in the courtyard is the main room, the main room is built on a masonry foundation, larger than the other houses, is the owner of the courtyard room. On both sides of the courtyard are the east and west compartments, which are the housing of other family members. There is a corridor between the main house and the chambers for people to walk and rest. The walls of the courtyard and the houses facing the street generally do not open windows to the outside, so the courtyard is closed and quiet.

1.1.2 Loess Plateau

The Loess Plateau includes the vast area west of the Taihang Mountains, north of the Qinling Mountains, east of the Riyue Mountains in Qinghai, and south of the Great Wall. Spanning the provinces and regions of Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Henan, it covers an area of about 400,000 square kilometers, and is the cradle of ancient Chinese culture.

The Loess Plateau architectural compounds are very closed, with low roofs, low sloping roofs, and a considerable number of buildings using flat roofs. Building materials, rarely use bricks and tiles, mostly adobe or rammed earth walls, simple decoration. Kiln buildings are often built on the Loess Plateau, and the overall style is simple and dignified. But in the Hui settlement, there are many mosques, they are tall, steep roofs, gorgeous decoration, colorful, and general folk architecture is obviously different.

1.2 Southern architecture

Compared with the northern region, the southern region of China's hot climate, narrow land, hills, plains, rich and varied building materials, the overall style of residential architecture is fresh and transparent.

The southern region can be divided into two regions: the middle and lower plains of the Yangtze River and the Lingnan region, whose architectural layouts and styles are again different.

1.2.1 Middle and Lower Yangtze River Plain

The Middle and Lower Yangtze River Plain is located along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River to the east of Yichang in Hubei Province, and consists of the Two Lakes Plain (Jianghan Plain and Dongting Lake Plain), the Poyang Lake Plain, the Jiangsu-Wanzhou Along-river Plain, the Lixia River Plain (Central Anhui Plain) and the Yangtze River delta Plain, with a surface area of about 200,000 square kilometers. Since the conflict of small land and large population has always been more prominent in this region, the building groups are denser and the courtyards are narrower. The roofs have steep slopes and high corners, and the decoration is exquisite and rich, with many carvings and paintings. The overall style of the traditional architecture of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River plains is beautiful and dexterous.

1.2.2 Lingnan Area

Lingnan, refers to the area south of the Five Ridges in the south, which is equivalent to the whole territory of Guangdong and Guangxi now, as well as parts of Hunan and Jiangxi provinces. The residential buildings in this region are relatively regular in plan, with small courtyards, tall houses, and narrow doors and windows. The roofs were steeply pitched, and the wing angles were larger than those of the plains in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The buildings in the towns and villages are densely packed and closed. The decoration, carving and painting of the houses are equally rich, complicated and delicate. The general style of architecture in the Lingnan region is light and delicate.

2 Historical Evolution of North-South Architecture

2.1 Overview of the Development of Chinese Architecture

The historical evolution of Chinese architecture is closely linked to the development of Chinese culture. Ancient people who lived under different natural conditions made use of different materials and practices to create ancient buildings with different structural methods and artistic styles according to local conditions.

As early as one million years ago in the Paleolithic Age, Chinese primitive people have known to use natural caves as shelter, Anhui, Chongqing, Shaanxi, Beijing, Liaoning, Guizhou, Guangdong, Hubei, Zhejiang and other places have been found in the cave where primitive people have lived.

By the Neolithic Age, the Huaxia tribes in the middle reaches of the Yellow River used layers of loess for walls, and built semi-cave dwellings with wooden frames and grass mud, which in turn developed into buildings on the ground and formed settlements. The Yangtze River basin, because of the wet and rainy, often flooding and animal damage, and thus the development of pole-and-post construction. In this regard, there are many ancient documents, "the construction of wood for the nest, in order to avoid the group harm" ("Han Fei Zi" - "five"), "the top for the nest, the bottom of the camp cave" ("Mencius - Teng Wengong next") records.

From the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Wei, Jin, and North and South Dynasties, the architectural form of China's residential buildings has been more complete development. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, tall palaces and quadrangle layouts had already appeared, and the use of bricks and tiles had begun. During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, the interior and exterior beams and arches of the palaces were decorated, and the walls were adorned with frescoes. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, the wooden buildings were magnificent, richly decorated and beautifully stretched, with the emergence of huge architectural groups such as the Afang Palace and the Weiyang Palace.

Sui-Tang period is China's rapid development of the art of architecture, wood technology has made greater achievements, platforms, masonry, roofing styles and other architectural elements also tend to mature. Ming and Qing dynasties is China's ancient architecture into the last big development period, the North and South have been the basic development of architectural forms mature, in terms of type and characteristics of the basic formation of customized. At the same time, with the frequent economic and cultural exchanges between various places and even China and foreign countries, new types of residential houses also continue to emerge.

Overall, after thousands of years of development, ancient Chinese architecture has formed a wooden frame structure as the main way, the reasonable use of architectural proportions, scale, rhythm, balance, hierarchy and other artistic means, and its overall style is simple, elegant and quiet, showing the unique temperament and aesthetic tendency of Chinese culture.

2.2 Representative Architecture of Ancient North and South

There are many types of ancient Chinese architecture, mainly palaces, altars and temples, temples, pagodas, houses and gardens. Among them, the achievements of palace and garden architecture are the most prominent. In this paper, the Forbidden City in Beijing and Suzhou Garden are selected as the representatives of ancient China's north and south architecture to analyze their characteristics.

2.2.1 Qiao Family Residence in Qixian County, Shanxi

Qiao Family Residence is located in Qiaojiabao Village, Qixian County, Shanxi Province, covering an area of more than 8,700 square meters, with a floor area of more than 3,800 square meters, which was built in the Qianlong Period of the Qing Dynasty. The Qiaojia compound is not only a typical form of Shanxi residence, but also a typical form of ancient northern Chinese architecture.

It is a complex of exquisite structure and grand scale. The whole compound is located within a square enclosure, surrounded by a fully enclosed, brick masonry inside the wall, more than 10 meters high, the upper level is a palisade in the form of a daughter wall. From the outside, one can also see one more tower and overlook pavilion, which are like the enemy towers on the city wall. Overall, it seems that under the cover of the solid wall, the Qiao family compound is like a solid castle. Qiao family compound plan layout is a double happy word, *** there are six large courtyard, a ten small courtyard, interspersed, interlaced, *** 313 houses. Such a complex layout, composed of a grid of changing architectural space.

While it now seems that the building in the Qiao family compound is a whole, in fact, six courtyards building there are first and second, not created in the same period. The largest courtyards in the Qiao Family Compound are the No. 1 and No. 2 courtyards. Their layout form is a typical Qixian area "in five outside three through the heart of the House", specifically, that is, the main house, the East and West rooms are five open, outside the East and West rooms are three open, in the outside of the House is connected to the Hall through the heart. In addition to the compartments, the inverted room, the hall and the main room are all two-story houses. In the overall composition, the roof of the Qiao Family Residence is very rhythmic. The roof from high to low, undulating changes, rhythmic and staccato, in the repetition, connection, interlacing, intermittent, but also get the best performance.

2.2.2 Suzhou Humble Administrator's Garden

The Humble Administrator's Garden, a representative of the Jiangnan Gardens and the largest classical landscape garden in Suzhou, is now listed as a national key cultural relics protection unit. This place was first the residence of the Tang Dynasty poet Lu Guimeng, and was the Dahong Temple during the Yuan Dynasty. In the fourth year of Ming Zhengde (1509 A.D.), Wang Xianchen, a scholar of Hongzhi in the Ming Dynasty and imperial historian during the Jiajing period, bought it after he had lost his career and retired to Suzhou, and hired Wen Zhengming, a representative of the Wumen School of Painting, to participate in the design of the blueprints, which took 16 years to complete.

The whole garden includes three parts: the middle part, the west part and the east part, of which the middle part is the essence of the whole garden. The layout is sparse and natural, which is characterized by the water as the main part, the water surface is vast, and the pavilions and the Xuanshi are built around the pool, which are connected with the leaky windows and the corridors, and the space inside the garden is communicated everywhere and interspersed with each other, forming a rich hierarchy.

Because the south is densely populated, so the garden area is small, but also because of the river and lake, garden stone, evergreen trees more, therefore, the garden scenery is delicate, exquisite, winding, deep, and the northern pattern of grand palace architectural style is completely different.

3 cause the reasons for the differences between the north and south of the building analysis

The shape and development of the building is closely related to a variety of factors such as natural factors, social factors and regional culture. China's vast territory, affected by a variety of factors, the form of traditional architecture in the north and south of a variety of gestures, with distinctive regional characteristics.

3.1 Climatic factors

Northern China is mostly in the middle temperate zone, the climate is relatively cold, residential need sufficient sunshine, therefore, the main house are striving to sit in the north to face the south, the internal composition of the mansion is also mostly discrete. The higher the latitude, the lower the temperature, the more generous land, the more obvious the degree of this discrete. The cold climate also requires the building to have heavy walls and heavy roofs, making the building entity is very bulky, not easy to concave into the convex, the building space by the strict shackles of the entity, had to present a regular form.

On the contrary, the hot climate in the south, the walls and roofs of residential buildings can be made thin and light, the building space is in a more active position, and can be free to expand and contract, concave and convex, and easy to extend and penetrate.

3.2 Topographic and geomorphological factors

The plains and plateaus in northern China are widely distributed, and the population density is relatively sparse, so the settlements and buildings are often located in flat areas, most of which belong to the plains-type composition. The looseness of the lot and the flatness of the terrain provided strong conditions and foundations for the regular layout of villages and mansions in the north. Therefore, the vernacular architectural form of the same region is very uniform.

3.3 Human Factors

The difference between the North and South architectural styles and styles is also due to the North and South residents of cultural customs, preferences and aesthetic concepts have certain differences. The South by a variety of factors **** with the role of the complexity and freedom, the North performance in the regular, simple, consistent, due to the different human traditions, but also led to the two in the architectural decorations on the many differences between the South's more realistic decorations, while most of the North's traditional residential decorations are more abstract. This is the so-called "southern complexity and northern simplicity" and "southern extravagance and northern simplicity" of the decorative features.

4 Modern North-South Architecture

With the rapid development of science and technology in modern society, the expansion of regional space and the revolution in the mode of production, people have been liberated from the closed environment of generations of dependence, the traditional concept of the region of the spatial and temporal significance of the concept of the continually be broken. The difference between modern north and south architecture has not been as big as before, but due to the climate, topography, geomorphological factors and the influence of customs can not be completely eliminated, so the modern north and south architecture, whether it is from the layout, architectural style, or from the building materials, architectural decorations, there are also still some differences.

4.1 Architectural space and window and door design

Northern winter cold and long, in the winter heating period, to try to make the building hall space heating heat can reach all corners of the hall, if the heat is not enough, not only consume energy, but also make the occupants frozen. Therefore, the design of the hall space of the northern residential buildings is generally smaller, more square, and the semi-outdoor space of the building is also less. In the south, the climate is warm and humid, so it is possible to make a variety of halls and semi-outdoor spaces with different spatial experiences.

Northern buildings are usually equipped with double windows, winter is coming, we have to close the windows; into the spring, we have to open the windows. Therefore, in the window and door design is only required to meet the general requirements of natural lighting, focus on practicality, large ribbon windows are rare. Southern buildings set up single-story windows, in addition to pay attention to practicality, but also focus on aesthetics, mostly large area of the ribbon window.

4.2 Architectural design and facade design

By the influence of traditional humanistic factors, the shape of the northern building and facade design, more emphasis on the heavy, simple, on the use of materials, try to choose some of the brick, stone-based materials. While the South emphasizes the fresh and transparent, fa?ade is mostly light-colored, the choice of building materials, with more paint, wood structure, wood-like structure, steel structure, etc..

4.3 Attic and basement

Because the climate is relatively dry, hard soil, sunshine time is shorter than in the south, so the modern buildings in the north are mostly built with basements and attics, which can make use of more space and have the advantages of warmth in winter and coolness in summer. The southern climate is hot and humid, with strong sunshine, so the role of the attic is mainly to provide insulation for the space on the floor below the attic, rarely actually used. At the same time, due to the very high cost of moisture, the basement of modern buildings in the south is also relatively rare.

5 Trends in Chinese Architecture

Through the previous analysis of Chinese architecture in the north and south, we have gained a further rational understanding of its existence, development and continuity. We should treat traditional architectural design elements with a critical eye. Neither can we affirm all of them and use them directly, which will only build some antique buildings that do not meet the aesthetic orientation of modern people. A return to antiquity, there will be no innovation. At the same time, can not be rejected, because the traditional Chinese architecture is the root of our design of modern architecture.

Therefore, the development trend of Chinese architecture should be to combine the natural and humanistic environment, respect the history and national traditions, and realize the combination of regionality and contemporaneity. In particular, it should draw on the spatial layout, modeling vocabulary, color and detailed decoration of traditional architectural culture, pursue the coordination between architecture and natural and humanistic environment, and construct excellent buildings that meet the aesthetic characteristics of modern people and have the flavor of Chinese culture through the flexible and appropriate use of modern materials, technology and construction methods.