Overview of architectural features in China

China architecture, as the most remarkable independent system in the East, has a profound origin, but its evolution process is simple, with orderly clues. However, some people's basic structures have never been complicated by external influences. Not only in the three major departments of oriental architecture, but also compared with the other two departments-India and Arabia (Islamic architecture), it enjoys a long life and a broad road to the ground, and art is unique at the highest maturity point. In other words, it is a very special straight-through system among architectural factions in the world.

Generally speaking, a building has a long history and will be influenced by the outside world. However, in terms of structure, layout and even appearance, fundamental changes often occur, or the old system is gradually changed and the appearance of materials is changed due to the promotion and movement of geography. In its heyday, most of them broke away from the original fetal shape and had another format. China's unique architecture has experienced a very long time and is distributed in a vast area. In its heyday or the reproduction period of its descendants, all the important buildings have always maintained their original features, retained the inherent main structure and layout scale, and undoubtedly evolved to a very high level in art engineering.

What is more different is that the national history that produced this building is not simple, and there are many overlapping changes in religion, ideology and political organization; Have had many peaceful contacts with powerful foreigners or ideologies (such as the introduction of Indian Buddhism), or have had conflicts and struggles for practical interests.

This China building with simple structure and smooth layout will be so calm and enjoy the direct descendants after thousands of years of reproduction, and become the most special and respectable architectural family. It is a phenomenon worth studying.

Although the architecture in China has reached a very complex and exquisite level in structure and art, it still presents a simple and simple appearance. Most people often misunderstand that China's architecture is crude and has little development. Compared with other buildings, it is inferior and naive. This misunderstanding naturally stems from westerners' casual observation of oriental culture, and they often draw impetuous and rash conclusions, thus affecting China people's own extreme doubts and even contempt for their own art.

Fortunately, many profound scholars in Europe and America have studied and experienced the oriental culture carefully recently, and their views have changed from the past, and they will gradually fully realize the status and value of China's fine arts. However, the study of China art, especially architecture, is a recent trend. Outsiders have made few good contributions to China's architecture, and many places still need our architects to catch up in the future, collect materials for textual research, conduct valuable research and discussion, and correct many gaps and misunderstandings of outsiders.

In principle, a good building must include the following three points: practicality; Strong; It's beautiful. Practitioner: It is suitable for the living habits of local people at that time and the local geographical environment. Sturdy: it does not violate the principle of reasonable structure of its main materials, and contains quite permanent materials in ordinary environment. Aesthetics: there must be a reasonable choice (not to say that it is impossible to support; Or aloof or slender, etc., which violates the laws of nature), it is necessary to present a stable, comfortable and natural appearance, and more importantly, it is necessary to honestly show all or part of its functions, without covering up, affectation and reluctance. In other words, beauty is the natural result of combining practicality and firmness.

China architecture, no doubt, once contained the above three elements. The so-called former is questioned because of its practicality and firmness and because of the changes of the times. In modern China, the contact with European and Western cultures is getting deeper and deeper, and the living habits are completely different from those in the old society. Of course, many old buildings are no longer suitable. In terms of stability, due to the development of science, there have been more satisfactory substitutes for non-permanent wood and more economical and accurate structural methods.

It is an undeniable fact that architecture still retains its pure artistic value after experiencing the practical problems brought about by the passage of human life. Like the pyramids in Egypt and the Parthenon in Greece, the altars, temples, palaces and temples in Beijing will continue to enjoy this honor forever. Although their original practical functions have been completely lost. Although pure artistic value can exist without practical aspects, it can never be independent of firm and reasonable structural principles. Because the proportion of beauty and the number of aesthetic features are the natural results of people using rational skills to solve various problems in the structure under physical constraints.

The harmony between artificial manufacturing and natural trends to a certain extent is the foundation of art, and the facilities are carved in necessary structural parts, which is the icing on the cake; Reluctantly speaking, the structure is purely decorative, and it is superfluous, which is enough for artistic standing. At present, it can be said that the architectural beauty of China has been unconditionally recognized by ordinary people. However, the advantage of this building lies not in the color and carving on the surface, nor in the special style, but in the basic structural principle that produces this aesthetic feeling and the principle that China people absolutely understand the carving control.

If we want to praise China's brilliant architectural art, we should discuss its structural principle and basic technical facilities; It is not appropriate to dress up in any external form, learn from Ruskin, a British gentleman, and sing some high-profile songs with extremely abstract or superficial poetic beauty.

Architectural art is an honest creation under the extremely cold physical constraints. From putting two vertical pillars on the lintel, human beings can stand firmly on the ground and build a work with a thick floor. During this period, they made arduous progress, partly because of the entry of engineering science and partly because of the active and rich artistic ideas. These two aspects are closely related under the general theme of architecture development.

Although they stand on the side of artistic thought, they often betray the common goal-creating a good building-and deviate from the normal track, and try their best to cheat the project at the expense of the principle of structural honesty. In this case, the building itself is often implicated and its true value is damaged. There are many such examples in all generations of buildings in China, so the fine products in Chinese series of buildings are extremely rare.

All artistic schools are divided into creation, experiment, maturity, plagiarism and reproduction. In the period of depravity, so does architecture. The original works are particularly creative and experimental. When the experiment is successful, the result is satisfactory and reaches a perfect level, it will enter full maturity. After maturity, there will be a considerable period of time can not dare to go beyond the existing rules; This period is often the time to make rules and regulations. Then, in order to avoid monotony, I hope to change and add complexity and richness to trivial things. This is the time when artistic activities surpass their goals.

This period began to multiply, and then degenerated, losing the original backbone spirit and becoming meaningless. After the fall, the second trend of the revolutionary fathers emerged. In view of the advantages and disadvantages of previous works, the second trend is to study and discuss the essence of the first generation, which is the origin of textual research.

With our existing and extremely limited materials as reference, we can see the ups and downs of China in various periods. Now it's time to investigate and study. In this limited architectural remains of various dynasties, we can observe and discuss the characteristics of its structure and style to prove the spirit and skills of architecture in that era, whether good or bad. However, this part cannot be discussed before analyzing the basic principles of China architecture.

Before analyzing the structure, it is necessary to know the main building materials, because materials will fundamentally affect its construction methods. The main building material in China is wood, followed by a mixture of bricks and tiles. A Chinese building can be clearly divided into three parts: abutment part; Column beam part; The roof part. Abutment is a mixture of brick and stone. From the column foot to the structural part on the beam, the roof is directly supported by wood. The roof is naturally a tile except for a few thatch, bamboo chips and mud bricks. These three parts-abutment, column beam and roof-can be said to be the basic elements of our initial tire shape.

The Book of Changes says: "The ancients lived in caves and lived in the wild, while the later sages used palaces to build buildings and space. Wait for the wind and rain. " See also Historical Records: "Yao is the best in the world, and the hall is three feet high ..." It can be seen that this kind of "building", "space" and "hall" (foundation) occupies their position and power in most ancient buildings. Nature is a "building"-it's all made of wood, so pay special attention to it.

The characteristics of this frame system affect its appearance style in the following obvious ways: (1) It is highly intangible and restrictive, and it will never leave the possible range of wood. (2) Even a very solemn building presents an absolutely exquisite appearance. There is no need for a thick load-bearing wall in the structure, and no retaining wall is needed for any large building unless it is deliberately used to express grandeur (such as towers and other buildings). (3) Doors and windows can be unrestricted, and transparent joinery, such as door curtains and windows, can be completely installed between columns. In fact, before the invention of glass, there was plenty of light in the room. Because of the climate in the north, there are more walls than windows, but in the south, they are flexible.

This is only the basic aspect of this structure, a natural feature. There are many outstanding features that are completely realized through special artistic activities, which makes China's architecture occupy a very high artistic position and is also the spirit of China's architecture. The most important of these features are the roof, platform, chess, color and symmetrical plane layout.

The roof is the most practical and needed part of the building, and China has been perfect since ancient times. Besides meeting the actual needs, it also has a special artistic style. At first, the roof was not just the top of the house. Because of the need of rain and sunshine, the eaves have long been expanded. It is not difficult to make the eaves protrude, but the depth of the eaves is low, which hinders the light and the rain is rushing, so the problem of splashing water under the eaves appears. In order to solve this problem, we invented the cornice, using double-layer tile rafters to make the cornice slightly upturned and slightly bent. Because of the aesthetic relationship, the eaves in the corner are even more upturned. This kind of "cornice", which bends forward and turns back, has a very natural and reasonable arrangement in structure, which can almost be said to be contributed by structural methods.

How is it caused by structural laws? To put it simply: for example, the roof tile of the "Fairy Hall" has four slopes and five ridges. The front roof is usually called the roof, and its skeleton is the roof truss. The four inclined ridges are called "vertical ridges", and their skeletons extend from the oblique angle of the ridge truss to the eaves truss, which is called corner beams. Although the rafters pinned side by side on the truss are all parallel, because the left and right rafters are parallel to this "corner beam", the rafters gradually incline from real parallelism, like a skirt unfolding.

The corner beam is square and the rafters are round (the upper layer is square when there is a double layer, and the corner beam is square when there is a double layer). The wood size of the corner beam is almost twice that of the rafters. When the rafters and corner beams are side by side, they are different in height, so it is impossible to lay nail plates on them. Therefore, the rafters should be raised in turn to make the corner beam epithelium smooth, and a triangular board should be filled under the raised rafters, which is called "sleeper".

This kind of curve is almost incredibly simple and natural in structure, and at the same time it adds a lot of charm in aesthetics. The beauty of cornices absolutely needs no textual research experts to point out. However, we should pay attention to that excessive and extreme tendency, which often makes the original natural and reasonable structure tricky and complicated.

This excessive tendency, in appearance, naturally presents the weakness of fragility and emptiness. It is not adopted by aestheticians, but most people tend to think that the more technical and complex things are, the more beautiful they are, which invisibly encourages this tendency. In places with flexible technology in the south, there are too many cornices. Although it is a romantic gesture from the outside, it is easy to attract praise, but it is not as solemn and decent as the north. The truest and purest state suitable for aesthetics.

The roof curve is not limited to overhangs, that is, the whole tile slope does not incline downward from a straight slope, but the slope of the roof slope increases as it goes up. The origin of this slope is based on the heightening of beam stacks, and this system is called "lifting frame method". The principle of this lifting frame is extremely obvious, and the rules of lifting frame are extremely simple, but the melon columns on the beam frame are increased according to the number of stacks, especially the ridge melon columns are particularly high. The way to make the eaves bend upward is to add a second eaves rafter, which is very short, just carry it on the rafters, and then choose a section, so that the eaves can be extended without reducing the light blocking.

Generally speaking, the roof curve has always been regarded as extremely strange and mysterious, and there is nothing beyond the structural principle and unnatural skills. At the same time, it is very successful in the practical application of beauty. All the curves of this roof slope are held high in the upper part, and the eaves are as light as wings, making the originally extremely dull and clumsy roof part a beautiful crown of the whole building. In "Zhou Li", it is found that there is a saying that "if you want to be respected on it, you must be humble. If you want to be respected on it, you must spit and run away." This sentence can clearly write the actual effect.

Speaking of the roof, of course, we will still notice all kinds of decorations on the roof tiles. As mentioned above, carving is only valuable if it is installed in the structural part. What about the ridged tile kissing beast on our roof tile? Ridge tile can be said to be a method of wrapping the ridge seam where two slopes are connected. Of course, it's too complicated, but it's the longest point of China's architecture to decorate a structural part honestly instead of barely covering up the hinges or joints of a structure.

There is no doubt that the kiss and the beast on the tile are structural parts. At present, the "front kiss" of the faucet was called "ostrich's tail" in ancient times. At first, it must be the wooden key and ridge truss in charge of "supporting the ridge" This wooden key protrudes from the spine of the book and is slightly bird-shaped. Later, it was a natural change to carve the tail of an ostrich with a little embellishment. It is also symbolic, because it is said that ostriches can spit water and put it on the ridge of tiles to make a fire.

At first, the beast must be a big wooden nail, which passes through the tiles on the vertical ridge to "Youkun" and "Jiaoliang" to prevent the tiles on the inclined ridge from slipping. By the Tang Dynasty, it had become two "orbs" with the status of "god beast" and "immortal" today. The tail of the offspring turned into a dragon kiss, and the orb became a beast and a fairy. A series of beasts were added between the beast and the fairy, but the carving was changed. Moreover, the beast is bigger on the vertical ridge, so it is natural and reasonable to end the section of "relying on the beast" and decorate the next column of beasts on the corner beam to expose the basic structural section.

Adding extremely complex patterns to the south roof tiles is completely divorced from the structural task, and the pure display skills are very boring and not commendable. Foreigners pay more attention to the roof of China because of its special form, which is different from other departments in Europe and the West. There are many theories and wonderful ideas.

Some people say that the roof of China is based on the tabernacle of nomadic times, others say that it is pictographic pine branches that cover the sky, others say that the cornices in China are grotesque, and some people say that the buildings in China are child's play, and some of them are led by animals. There is no point in discussing the significance, and it is hardly worth wasting time here to disprove it. In a word, this kind of curved roof has been analyzed from the structure and inspected in principle from the carving facilities, and its aesthetic and practical aspects are obvious and undeniable. Our conclusion can simply admit its great success in art.

The second notable feature of China architecture closely related to the roof is the "chess game" part. At first, eaves were supported on rafters, rafters were supported on eaves trusses, and trusses were supported on beam walls. The beam end extends from the beam frame and beyond the column. However, the eaves of high-rise buildings are very deep, and it is bound to be invincible if they are supported only by beam ends. Therefore, overlapping timber will be supported under the beam ends. However, it is not enough to bear the weight of the whole roof simply by using wooden stilts, especially the bigger the building, the farther the distance between the two columns.