What kind of traditional residence in China has houses on all sides and a yard in the middle?

Siheyuan, also known as Siheyuan, is a traditional quadrangle-style building in China. Its pattern is a courtyard surrounded by houses, so it is named quadrangle.

Siheyuan is a house with a concierge in front of Sanheyuan. If it looks like a "mouth", it is called a courtyard; The shape of "sky" is called binary courtyard; The shape of "wood" is called Sanjinyuan. Generally speaking, in a big house, the first entrance is the gatehouse, the second entrance is the hall, and the third or last entrance is the private room or boudoir, which is the activity space for women or their families. Ordinary people are not allowed to enter at will. No wonder the ancients said that "the courtyard is as deep as a person." The deeper the courtyard, the less you can see its hall.

Historical evolution of quadrangles

Siheyuan has a long history. As early as 3000 years ago, there were complete quadrangles in the Western Zhou Dynasty in China. The remains of Jin Liang quadrangle unearthed from Joo Won? site in Feng Chu village, Qishan County, Shaanxi Province, are the earliest and most orderly quadrangles known in China.

The quadrangle architecture in Han Dynasty has been updated and developed. Influenced by geomantic omen theory, quadrangles have a whole set of views of Yin-Yang and Five Elements from site selection to layout. In the Tang Dynasty, quadrangles inherited the Han Dynasty and the Song and Yuan Dynasties, with a narrow front and a narrow back.

However, the quadrangle that prevailed in ancient times was a corridor courtyard, that is, the central axis of the courtyard was the main building, surrounded by cloisters, or houses on the left and right, rather than houses on all sides. In the late Tang Dynasty, quadrangles with cloisters appeared, gradually replacing cloisters. After the Song Dynasty, cloisters gradually decreased and disappeared in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.