Ancient Chinese buildings why wood

There are many reasons:

1, before the Shang and Zhou dynasties: low productivity, tools are difficult to mine other materials other than wood, coupled with China at this time, water is very rich, wood is easy to transport, so it is widely used by the various population centers.

2, Zhou Dynasty ~ Sui Dynasty: frequent wars, farmers fixed farmland less, most of them are migrants, wood is widely distributed, easy to build, and has a better seismic resistance, coupled with the need for migrants to cut down forests to build the field, timber has become the main body of the building.

3, after the Sui dynasty, society is more stable, but the class gap between rich and poor increased, timber, brick and mud cost less, plus carpentry process has been relatively mature, timber belongs to cater to the market needs.

4, the extensive use of wood, suppression of the use of other materials and exploration, the use of stone during the Shang and Zhou dynasties has been relatively common, but the frequent wars, quarries of the country's unified allocation and transportation costs, the use of stone into a distinction between the rich and the poor intuitive embodiment, forcing the masses to give up the use of stone as a building material, China's stone in fact, very extensive, but the loss of the market, and ultimately turned into the sculpture! Material and symbol of power and wealth.

5, wood structure technology is advanced, China's very early mortise and tenon structure, so it is natural to be willing to use technically mature wood structure, while China's stone structure technology in the creation of the cemetery has been played.

6, according to the local conditions, China since ancient times, abundant production of wood, wood production is large, and easy to process, the natural choice of wood, this argument in comparison with the Roman building is particularly valuable, the Roman soil is easy to process into the original cement, so the Roman stone structure will have a very good adhesive (China with rice syrup and other things.... Paste).

7, the culture said, the five elements, to wood is valuable, so the wooden structure would rather use complex mortise and tenon also do not use iron nails (gold grams wood).

8. Wood is cheap to collect, transport and build. A big stone from the mountain mining is a lot of trouble, and transportation cutting and so on. Not everyone can afford to spend it. Wood is relatively easy. Bring an axe to lead the cow. Just go to the woods and pull it back. And processing is much easier.

Also ancient China mastered the technology of firing bricks very early, firing loose clay into hard bricks. It also made it very cost-effective to use blocks of stone for general construction.

Expanded Information:

p>1, relative to the Western ancient architecture of masonry system, China's ancient architecture is an independent institutional system, its most important features are:

Wooden structure system is the main. Wooden structure system has a lot of advantages: such as maintenance structure and support structure is separated, high seismic performance; easy to take materials, construction speed and so on. At the same time, wood structure also has a lot of disadvantages: easy to suffer from fire, termite erosion, rain corrosion, compared with the masonry building maintenance time is not long.

The timber is in short supply due to the increase in construction; the beam system is more difficult to realize the complexity of the building space. However, there were also a few masonry and metal buildings in ancient China.

For example, the "Historical Records Suoyin" says: "The stone room and the golden chamber are all places for the state to hide books." ; such as the "Water Classic" has a number of records, "Wei Shui Chuan": "Panxi next to a stone room, cover Tai Gong lived also. Masonry is mostly used for tower buildings. Metal buildings are mainly copper, the famous examples of copper buildings are Beijing Summer Palace Baoyun Pavilion, Hubei Wudang Mountain Golden Palace and Kunming Taihe Palace Golden Palace.

2, the Chinese wooden structure system has always used the structural principle of the frame system: four columns, plus beams, vertical square and constitute the "between", the general building consists of an odd number of rooms, such as three, five, seven, nine rooms. The more room, the higher the grade, the Forbidden City, the Hall of Supreme Harmony for the eleven room, is the highest grade of the existing ancient wooden buildings.

The facade is divided into three parts: the foundation, the body, the roof. One of the official building roof is large, out of the deep is the most important part of the architectural shape. The form of the roof according to the grade is divided into: single-slope, flat roof, hard hill, hanging hill, hipped, hiatus, rolled shed, save the tip, heavy eaves, helmet roof and so on a variety of systems, but also the heavy eaves hipped for the highest level.

3, the arch is a key part of the Chinese wooden frame structure, its role is to extend the cantilever beam on the column to support the weight of the eave part.

4, special external contours: multi-storey pedestals, brightly colored curved sloping roofs, courtyard-style clusters of buildings, showing the vast empty. More than two thousand years ago, the Han tomb brick paintings already have courtyard building performance, and to the Ming and Qing dynasties, the most grandiose architectural complex - the Forbidden City, also used the complex form of enclosure.

5, in the architectural ideology, China's ancient architecture embodies a clear idea of ritual, focusing on the hierarchy: form, color, scale, structure, components, etc. are strictly regulated, to a certain extent, perfect the architectural form, but also at the same time limit the development of architecture.

At the same time, the idea of the unity of man and heaven is also reflected in the development of ancient Chinese architecture, promoting the mutual coordination and integration of architecture and nature. Focusing on architecture, the city site; construction of the local conditions, according to the mountains, the garden embodiment is particularly obvious, emphasizing feng shui.

References:

Baidu Encyclopedia - Ancient Chinese Architecture