What are the types of ancient buildings in China? (with pictures)

Main architectural forms of ancient buildings in Ming and Qing Dynasties

We often see five forms: hard mountain, hanging mountain, resting mountain, fairy hall and sword. In this most basic architectural form, there are temples with single eaves and double eaves. There are single eaves, double eaves, three dripping pavilions, large eaves, rolling sheds and so on. Hard mountain, hanging mountain, ordinary people have both one floor and two floors; There are many forms of pointed buildings, such as triangle, quadrilateral, pentagon, hexagon, octagon, circle, single eaves, double eaves and multi-storey eaves. [Edit this paragraph] The general rules of architecture in Qing Dynasty (also known as general rules) are the same rules that are followed to determine the scale and proportion of various construction departments. These laws stipulate the large proportion relationship and scale relationship between the parts of ancient buildings. It is a key and important principle to make all kinds of buildings have a unified style.

The general principles of Qing architecture mainly involve the following aspects: width and depth, column height and radial direction, width and column height, separation and lateral foot, up and down, stepping and lifting, platform height, closing the mountain, pushing the mountain away from the temple, and the balance and proportion of various components of the building.

1, width and depth

The plane of ancient buildings in China is rectangular. Rectangular buildings have two dimensions on the plane, namely width and depth. The long side is wide and the short side is deep. For example, a building with three north rooms is wide in the east-west direction and deep in the north-south direction. A single building consists of the most basic unit "room", and every four columns make up a room. The width of the room is "area width", also known as "area width", and the depth is "depth". The sum of the widths of several single rooms constitutes the total width of a building, which is called "total width"; The depth of several single rooms constitutes the depth of a single building.

The determination of the width of ancient buildings (indicating the width between floors) should consider many ethnic factors, that is, actual needs (so-called applicable principles) and actual possibilities (such as the length and diameter of wood), and is limited by the feudal hierarchy. In ancient times, the determination of the width of the Ming Dynasty was also bound by feudal thought. When considering the width, the size of the doorway must conform to the size of the auspicious words such as "official", "Lu", "wealth" and "righteousness" on the door ruler. The width of the second floor should be reduced, generally 8/ 10 of the width of the open floor, or determined according to actual needs.

2, column height and column diameter

There is a certain proportional relationship between the height and diameter of columns in ancient buildings, as well as the height and width of columns. For small buildings, such as long purlins or six purlins, the ratio of bay width to column height is 10: 8, which means that the width is one foot and the column height is eight feet. The ratio of column height to column diameter is 1 1: 1. For example, the Code of Engineering Practice of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce stipulates: "The height of each cornice column should be set to eight tenths of its width and seven tenths of its diameter (it should be seven percent). If the surface is ten feet and one foot wide, the column is eight feet and eight inches high and seven inches and seven minutes in diameter. " For a small building with five purlins and four purlins, the ratio of area width to column height is 10: 7. According to these regulations, we can calculate that knowing the surface width can get the column height and knowing the column height can get the column diameter. On the contrary, knowing the height and diameter of the column can also calculate the width.

3, points, side feet

The upper and lower ends of columns in ancient buildings in China are not equal in diameter. Except for short columns such as melon columns, any column is not a cylinder with the same diameter up and down, but the root (column foot and column root) is slightly thicker and the top (column head) is slightly thinner. This practice of thick roots and thin tops is called "closing slip" and "closing points" It is stable and light, giving people a comfortable feeling. The division size of various buildings is generally1100 of the column height. For example, if the column is 3 meters high and divided into 3 centimeters, assuming that the column root is 27 centimeters, then the diameter of the divided stigma is 24 centimeters. The division of columns in large buildings is specified as 7/ 1000 in the example of building calculation.

4, up and down (water, backwater)

The eaves of ancient buildings in China are far-reaching, and the size of the eaves is also stipulated. According to the Code of Qing Dynasty, the horizontal distance from cornice purlin to cornice rafters (such as no cornice to old cornice rafters) is the cornice size, which is called "upper cornice" or "upper cornice" for short. Because the eaves are downward, the upper eaves are also called "water outlets" figuratively. For buildings without bucket arches or small buildings, the overhang size is set to 3/ 10 of the height of the eaves column. If the eaves column is 3 meters high, the overhang is divided into three equal parts, of which 2 is the eaves rafter and 1 is the flying rafter.

The ancient buildings in China are all built on the abutment, and the exposed part of the abutment is called Tai Ming. The exposed height of small-sized buildings is 1/5 column height or twice the column diameter. The part of the terrace exposed from the eaves column is the exposed edge of the terrace, which corresponds to the upper eaves of the roof, also called "lower eaves". In the small-scale method, the size of the lower eaves is 4/5 of the upper eaves or 2 times the diameter of the eaves column, and in the large-scale method, the height of the lower skin of the cantilever beam exposed from the upper surface of the floor is 1/4. The exposed edge of the large platform is 3/4 of the upper eaves.

There is a scale difference between the upper and lower exits of ancient buildings, which is called "backwater" The function of backwater is to ensure that the water flowing from eaves will not be poured on terraces, thus protecting column roots and walls from rain erosion.

5, step frame, lifting frame

Walking platform: In the wooden frame of Qing-style ancient buildings, the horizontal distance between two adjacent purlins is called walking platform. According to different positions, the step frame can be divided into corridor step (or eaves step), golden step, ridge step and so on. If it is a double-ridge purlin shed building, the middle step at the top is called the "top step". In the same building, except the veranda (or eaves steps) and the top steps, the dimensions of other steps are basically the same. Small verandahs are generally 4D-5D, and each step of the golden ridge is 4D, and the size of the top steps is generally smaller than that of the golden steps. Taking the four-purlin rolling shed as an example, the method to determine the top step size is generally: divide the middle size of purlins at both ends of four beams into five equal parts, with one top step and two eaves steps, and the minimum top step size should not be less than 2D and the maximum top step size should not be greater than 3D.

Lifting frame: The so-called lifting frame refers to the coefficient obtained by dividing the vertical distance (lifting height) between two adjacent purlins of a wooden frame by the corresponding step frame length. There are five lifts, six five lifts, seven five lifts and nine lifts commonly used in architecture in Qing Dynasty. It means that the ratio of lifting height to step frame is 0.5, 0.65, 0.75, 0.9, etc. The eaves step (or corridor step) of Qing style practice is generally defined as five lifts, which is called "five lifts to take the head" Small houses or garden pavilions, eaves and steps also use four or five ladders, which should be handled flexibly according to the specific situation. Small huxing house steps generally do not exceed eight or five steps. Generally speaking, the steps of large buildings do not exceed ten steps, and the change of the lifting frame of the ancient building roof determines the quality of the roof curve, so we should pay great attention to the effect of the roof curve when using the lifting frame to make it natural and soft. For thousands of years, architects of ancient buildings have accumulated a set of successful experiences in the application of lifting frames and formed a relatively fixed procedure. For example, there are five steps on the roof and seven steps on the back of a small-sized five-purlin house. Seven rooms, the steps are five stairs, six or five stairs, eight or five stairs and so on. The steps of a large building can be five lifts, six lifts, five lifts, seven lifts, nine lifts and so on. [Edit this paragraph] Common ancient building construction mode 1, hard mountain building

There are only two slopes on the roof, the gables on the left and right sides intersect with the roof, and the buildings with all purlin beams sealed in the gables are called hard mountain buildings. Hard mountain architecture is the most common form of ancient architecture, and there are a large number of such buildings in houses, gardens and temples.

Small-scale hard mountain buildings are the most common. "Code of Practice for Engineering in Qing Dynasty" lists several examples of small hard-mountain buildings, such as seven-purlin, six-purlin and five-purlin, which are also common forms of hard-mountain buildings. Qi 'ao's front and back porch buildings are the largest and most prominent buildings in small-sized houses. They are often used as main rooms and sometimes as halls. The six purlins front porch can be used as a wing with a porch, an annex, or a main room and a back building without a porch behind it. The buildings without corridors in Wu 'ao are mostly used for rooms without corridors, back-built houses and inverted seats.

There are also many large-scale examples of hard mountain buildings, such as palaces, temples, annex rooms or rooms in the form of hard mountains. There are two construction methods of large-scale hard mountain: bucket arch and no bucket ridge. There are few examples of hard mountains with bucket ridges. Generally, only one bucket or two liters of marijuana leaves are used, and you don't have to step on the ridge. There are many examples of large-scale hard mountain without bucket, and the difference between it and small-scale hard mountain is mainly in building scale (such as width, column height and depth), roofing practices (such as laying green tiles on the roof, setting up beakers or using glazed tiles) and architectural decoration (such as painting oil on beams, unlike simple and elegant decoration on small buildings).

2. Hanging Mountain Architecture

There are two slopes on the roof, and the two roofs are hung outside the gables or roof trusses, which is called a hanging mountain (also known as a lift mountain) building. The purlin in the hanging mountain building is not wrapped in the gable, but outside the gable, and the selected part is called the "tip", which is the key point that distinguishes it from the hard mountain.

According to the architectural appearance and roofing practices, suspended mountain buildings can be divided into two types: large roof suspended mountain and rolled shed suspended mountain. There is a positive ridge at the intersection of the roof before and after the hanging mountain of the big roof, which divides the roof into two slopes. There are five purlin hanging mountains, seven purlin hanging mountains, five purlin hanging mountains and seven purlin hanging mountains (the latter two are mostly used as doors). There are double purlins at the hanging ridge of the rolling shed, but there is no positive ridge on the roof, and the front and rear slopes of the roof form a ridge at the ridge. The common ones are four purlins, six purlins and eight purlins. There is also a combination of two kinds of hanging mountains, called one hall and one volume. This form is often used for hanging flower doors.

3. Xiandian Building

There are four slopes on the roof of the Temple of Heaven. The front and rear slopes intersect to form a positive ridge, and two gable roofs intersect with the front and rear roofs to form four vertical ridges. Therefore, the Temple of Heaven is also called Si 'a Temple and Wuling Temple.

Fairy Temple is the highest type of ancient architecture in China. In the hierarchical feudal society, this architectural form is mostly used in royal buildings such as palaces and temples, and it is the most commonly used form of the main building on the central axis. For example, the Wumen Gate of the Forbidden City, the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Gan Qing Palace, the Dajimen Gate of the Forbidden City, the Appreciation Hall and its back hall, the Shouhuang Hall in Jingshan, the Shouhuang Gate and the Ling 'en Hall in Ming Changling are all temple-style buildings. In the feudal society, the building of the Fairy Hall has actually become a royal building, and other government offices, official houses, commercial ports, residential houses and so on. This architectural form is never allowed. The special political status of the Temple of Heaven determines that it has huge materials, magnificent volume, luxurious decoration and high cultural relics and artistic value.

4. Xieshan Building

Among all kinds of ancient buildings, the inclined mountain building is the most basic and common one.

Xieshanlou has a steep roof, gently sloping corners, exquisite appearance and extraordinary momentum. It has both the majestic momentum of temple architecture and the handsome style of architecture. Palace, Wangfu, battlements, temples, classical gardens, commercial port pavements and other buildings all adopt the architectural form of "resting on the mountain". Even the most famous buildings in ancient and modern times, such as the Yellow Crane Tower, Wang Tengting, and the Forbidden City Corner Tower, are mainly composed of "sloping mountains", which shows the important position of sloping mountain architecture in China's ancient buildings.

Externally, the inclined mountain building is an organic combination of fairy hall (or four-corner building) and suspended mountain building, just like a suspended mountain roof resting on the top of a generation hall. Therefore, it has some characteristics of hanging mountains and temples. If the roof is divided into upper and lower sections by the lower purlin of the building, then the upper section has the image and characteristics of suspended mountain architecture, such as the roof is divided into front and rear slopes, the purlin between the tips protrudes to the mountain surface, and the outer end of the purlin is equipped with grooved plates. In the second half, there are images and features of the Temple of Heaven. Whether it is single eaves, double eaves, three eaves (that is, three eaves), big roof and rolled shed, they all have these basic characteristics.

Although Xieshan architecture has certain image characteristics, there are many special methods to deal with the internal framework that constitutes this form, thus forming a variety of structural forms. These different structures are directly related to the column network distribution of the building itself, as well as to the functional requirements and purlin distribution of the building.

5. Save the spire

The roofs of buildings meet at the top to form a spire. This kind of building is called pointed building. There are many pointed buildings in ancient buildings. Different forms of pavilions in classical gardens, such as triangles, quadrangles, pentagons, hexagons, octagons and round pavilions. , are pointed buildings. There are also a large number of pointed buildings in palaces and temples, such as the Zhonghe Hall and Jiaotai Hall in the Forbidden City in Beijing, Biyong in imperial academy, Beijing, and Guanyin Hall in Xiaoxitian, Beihai, all of which are four-corner palace buildings. The Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City are typical circular buildings. There are also a large number of pointed buildings in altars and temple gardens in other parts of China.