Ancient China's architecture is perfect, why did ancient China choose wooden buildings?

1. The History of Wooden Architecture in Ancient China

China is a vast multi-ethnic country, with great variations in geology, geomorphology, climate and hydrological conditions, as well as different historical backgrounds, cultural traditions, living habits, and so on, which have resulted in the formation of many distinctive architectural styles. Ancient society's slow development and closed transportation, but also make these characteristics to be preserved. Typical of such as: the southern hot and humid climate of the mountainous region has a hollow bamboo, wood building - dry appendage; northern nomads have a more convenient migration of light wood skeleton covered with felt room; Uyghur living in the arid and rainy areas of Xinjiang have earth walls and flat roofs or earth walls and vaulted roofs of the houses, mosques with domes and so on.

These have their own independent characteristics, but they are only a certain period, a certain region, a certain ethnic cultural background of the architectural form, does not have universality, did not represent the mainstream of China. And since the building has its diversity, at the same time there must be some kind of mainstream type of existence. Most parts of the country use wooden structure load-bearing building, this building is widely distributed in various ethnic areas, so that China's most widely used, the largest number of a building type, with universal significance. Its emergence, development and change throughout the development of ancient architecture, but also the main representative of the achievements of China's architecture.

Since wooden frame construction is the mainstream of ancient Chinese architecture, it is possible to boldly hail the Dry Rectangular Wooden Structure of Hemudu, Yuyao, Zhejiang Province, as the source of Chinese architectural culture. It is about 6,000 to 7,000 years old and is one of the earliest known examples of mortise-and-tenon technology used in China to construct wooden houses. The excavated part is about 23m long and 8m deep wooden frame building site, which is presumed to be a bar-shaped and fairly large volume of the dry-end building. The remains of wooden members include columns, beams, square and boards, etc. Many of the members have mortise and tenon joints, and some of them have many mortise and tenon joints. It can be said that Hemudu's dry-end wooden components have the prototype of wood building, reflecting the technical level of wood building.

2. Reasons for Choosing Wood in Traditional Chinese Architecture

2.1 Environmental Reasons

Archaeological excavation results tell us that the construction technology of ancient China developed along the direction of rammed-earth construction and dry-rail wooden structure construction from the very beginning, and then merged into the classical Chinese civil construction, which was in its first stage of development in the Xia Dynasty. This may be explained by the abundance of loess and timber resources in the Central Plains and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the relative lack of stone resources.

Ancient China's central plains, there is no good stone, as for the opening of the mountain to take the stone, is prohibited, for fear of destroying the feng shui, especially near the capital city of the mountains and rivers is strictly prohibited to destroy. As for mining, it is even more explicitly prohibited, that minerals are the essence of heaven and earth, should not be exploited. Of course, except for gold and silver and so on ......

2.2 Technical reasons

Chinese metal smelting technology appeared late in the ancient period, when the excavation and processing of stone is supposed to be a hard work (productivity reasons), so the ancient Chinese people naturally know the difficulty of doing easy, giving priority to the development of civil engineering construction technology. By the time the Shang Dynasty bronze technology was highly developed, the Spring and Autumn Period when iron tools were widely used, as well as later on the Western stone building structure technology into China, China's civil engineering construction technology has become an inherent part of Chinese culture, stone building structure can only do the supporting role.

Not only that, but the improvement of metal smelting technology contributed to the development of ancient wooden structures. The Xia, Shang, Zhou and Spring and Autumn periods from 2070 BC to 476 BC were a leap forward in architectural development. Especially in the Western Zhou period was more prosperous, densely populated and more wars. After the implementation of the feudal system, the building and palace system became more and more perfect.

476 BC period of the Warring States period to the end of the North and South Dynasties about a thousand years, construction technology has been a huge development, especially the application of iron tools - axes, saws, cones, chisels, etc., to promote the quality of wood frame building construction and structural technology greatly improved. During this period, the wooden frame system was basically formed, straight lattice windows and herringbone arches were widely used, and five basic forms emerged in the building system, such as hipped, overhanging, folded hiatus, saved tip, and hoarded roof. During this period, the great unification of the Qin and Han dynasties provided the conditions for the exchange of architecture in different regions, and the frequent exchanges with the western regions during the Wei, Jin and North and South Dynasties as well as the introduction of Buddhism had a significant impact on architecture.

China has a long history of war, so it was probably more practical and feasible to build a building that was convenient and easy to repair.

Li Zhuyi, in his "Preface to the Newly Revised 'Construction Methods'", said that "when five materials are used together, all the blocks will be built". Mr. Li Yun Her Chu, therefore, "'five materials and (with)' is the ancient Chinese choice of building materials to establish a basic point of view, in other words, the use of materials is really no preference." He believes that the "concurrent use of five materials" "is one of the most important practical principles, or the most fundamental spirit, of the structural and tectonic design of classical Chinese architecture." "'Five materials' would have the meaning of including all materials. Or, attached to it, it means the main materials used in construction, brick, tile, wood, stone, and earth. 'Five materials together' makes it clear that whatever materials can and should be used in the construction of a house, there is no favoritism, based on which 'all the hundred blocks are prospered'." Physically, his understanding is correct, "By the end of the late slave society, (China) has integrated the use of earth, wood, stone, pottery, copper and other materials on the building."

Mr. Li Yun Her Chu pointed out that Chinese architecture's "choice and application of materials were mainly based on the understanding and requirements of the time." He argues that "the structural design of Chinese architecture developed along the path of ...... aiming at 'protection', and in order to achieve better protection, 'five materials were used together (with) one another' for this reason. ' was the successive appearance for this reason." "Extending the life of the components was one of the aims of the development of the construction, and the general requirement was that the house should be able to achieve a long service life." In the case of roofs, the poor waterproofing and fireproofing properties of the mouz were gradually replaced by tile roofs, thus extending the service life of the house and improving the comfort of living. Different materials can also be used for the construction of foundations, from the point of view of sturdiness and waterproof performance, stone is superior to brick, and even better than earth and wood, so the highest grade of foundations are built with stone cladding, and the second most important and large number of foundations are built with bricks and, as far as possible, stone is used in the focal points, and, except for dry climatic areas and dry-appendix buildings, the foundations of earth and wood are no longer the mainstream. For walls, wood, earth, brick and stone were all available materials. On the issue of structural frames, Mr. Li Yun Her Chuen believes that "the use of wood as structural frames and all its constituent parts does not mean that there is a special abundance of wood in China, but it is just a confirmation of experience and knowledge that the performance of this material meets the requirements of the structure." Some scholars have argued that the use of wood framing in Chinese architecture is the result of a continuation of the original architectural state.

So the ancients probably would have had no choice in their selection.