Guangzhou's unique? Foreign? Architecture, Pictures of Guangzhou Cavalry

When we are in Guangzhou, we often lament the cultural characteristics of the Cavalcade architecture in Guangzhou, not realizing that most of these so-called Western-style buildings are built by unknown craftsmen in China, and that these so-called "foreign" buildings are constructed by the Chinese themselves.

These so-called "foreign" buildings were built by the Chinese themselves.

Although there is a "East meets West" architectural style, but because of the Riding House as a folk building form of commercial and residential functions, merchants on the one hand in order to cater to the customer's foreign mentality, on the other hand, in order to be new and different, and often use the "foreign-style storefront ". Most of its design and builders are not professional architects, but ordinary artisans, facing Western architecture.

In addition to absorbing some of the structural and layout methods, they see more of a variety of decorations. Craftsmen with rich practical experience, according to their own understanding of the "imitation", to take a free "fetishism" attitude. This creative imitation of Western architecture and boldly improve the formation of the lively and distinctive architectural style of the Guangzhou Riding House

On the origin of the Guangzhou Riding House, there are two main school of thought, one is that the Riding House is the Yue ancestors "dry bar" architectural legacy, according to the hot and humid climate of the Lingnan region, combined with the need to develop the commercial operation. The need for commercial business development. Another theory is that the riding building is a product of the combination of Western architecture and Lingnan architecture of the Guangdong people.

There is even a view that "the commercial buildings of the "Thirteen Houses" in Guangzhou can be said to be the prototype of the modern building, and Guangzhou is the birthplace of the modern riding street in China".

In 1918, Guangzhou set up the Municipal Office, and in the 1920s and 1930s, Guangzhou had a considerable scale and characteristics of commercial building streets, which were gradually formed in busy commercial areas, such as Yonghan Road (now Beijing Road), Taiping South (now People's South), Hui'ai Road (now Zhongshan Fourth Road) and Changdi, etc.

The People's Republic of China (PRC) was the first city in the world to have an official name for a building.

After the establishment of the People's Republic of China **** and the 1970s, Guangzhou's urban construction development is slow, the city basically maintains the old pattern, commercial development has been seriously constrained, the construction of the building greatly reduced. This period of construction of the riding street is mainly Yuehua Road and How Yin Road.

This period of the building in the volume, style and function of the street and the 20s to 40s of the last century, there is a clear difference between the riding street: the buildings along the street are mostly residential, the first floor of the store, the commercial function is weak, the scope of services is limited to the neighborhood;

The building is mostly 7-9 floors (22-30 meters), the street space is more narrow and depressing.

Most of the buildings are 7-9 floors (22-30 meters), the street space is more narrow and depressing; the building retains the form of the Riding House, but the modernist architectural style instead of the traditional Riding House of the "Western-style storefronts", the fa?ade is basically undecorated, the buildings along the street are neatly organized, and the streetscape is relatively homogeneous.

Since the end of the 1970s, Guangzhou's rapid economic development, the city continues to expand, the traffic has increased greatly, the old city is facing a large-scale transformation of the old city and infrastructure renovation. During this period, Guangzhou basically did not build a new complete cyclorama street, but in some of the original cyclorama street in the process of renewal and renovation of demolition of the old cyclorama, the construction of new cyclorama.

But because not the whole street to implement the overall transformation, in some sections of the road to form a new and old riding building staggered juxtaposition of the scene, such as Wanfu Road, Danan Road, Longjin Road, Changdi Avenida and so on. In addition, the widening and reconstruction of roads in the old city has also caused damage to some of the mounted streets, such as the construction of the People's Road Viaduct on Renminzhong Road, Renmin South Road, the impact of the style of the mounted streets;

The widening of Jiefang Road and Zhongshan Road and the construction of the People's Bridge and the Inner Ring Road dismantled the traditional mounted streets of Jiefang Road, Zhongshan Road 5, Zhongshan Road 6, Liuzhi Road 623, and Hongfu Road.

Conclusion "worship foreigners" more or less pejorative meaning, but more or less also because of this factor and the achievement of the current Western-style architecture with Chinese characteristics, we have absorbed the architectural style with Western elements and build our own Chinese architecture, which is the Guangzhou Riding House.