Major Architectural Forms of Chinese Residences, pt.I

Start to read Traditional Chinese Residences by Qijun Wang . Wang is an expert in Chinese vernacular architecture, he did a lot of on-site research on various Chinese traditional residence forms. I've read his book A Pictorial Analysis on Chinese Traditional Residences during this past summer.

I'll start to summarize the major architectural forms Wang talked about in his book in this and the following blog entries.

The Courtyard Houses of Beijing
The courtyard Houses of Beijing can be seem as the most representative type of Chinese traditional courtyard houses. It has a special emphasis on the buildings' layout. The layout follows the philosophy of symmetry along a central axis, showing the orderly atmosphere of the family, which embodies the traditional Chinese ethics of respect for elders.

Here's a birdview of the Beijing Courtyard House, from which we could clearly see the layout and arrangements of architectures.

Qixian County Residences, Shanxi Province
Qixian County, like Beijing, is also in the Central Plain of China. In history, people in Qixian County has been traditionally engaged in business, which provided them enough funds to build highly polished architecture. Architecture in Qixian County can be regarded as the best representative of vernacular architectures in Shanxi Province. They usually has the following features: 1) High surronding walls of 4 or 5 stories' high. These walls are usually made of bricks and are windowless, which serves as a strong defense purpose. 2) Main buildings have pent roofs, allowing rainwater to flow towards the courtyeard. 3) The rectangular courtyards are long from north to south while narrow from east to west, and the gate is often positioned in the southeast corner. Shanxi traditional residences are usually more highly decorated compared with the Beijing courtyards. They uses a lot of exquisite carving, which is different from the color painting decorations of Beijing courtyards.

Cave Dwellings, Shaanxi Province
The local nature environment is dry, windy and has a lot of adobe. This natural environment gives rise to the form and color of the vernacular dwellings of Shaanxi Province. There are 3 types of Shaanxi Cave dwellings. The first is constructed by digging horizontally into the loess cliff'; the second is built by digging into the ground to make a large courtyard and then digging caves in the walls around it; the third is an earth-sheltered brick house on the ground in the shape of a cave dwelling.

Southern Anhui Province Residential Buildings
The biggest feature of Southern Anhui residential buildings are white wall, black roof tiles and step gables. Its black and white tone blend harmoniously with the local nature of green mountains and blue ponds. The Southern Anhui residential buildings have a lot of emphasis on the planning of the overall village. They employed a lot of ideas of Fengshui in the village planning and also showed the strong sense of the order in family and society in traditional China.

Residential Buildings in the Southern Region of Rivers and Lakes, Jiangsu Province and Zhejiang Province (Jiangzhe Area)
The form of the residential buildings in Jiangzhe Area is very similar to that in Southern Anhui Province, with black and white colors. The local landscape of lakes and rivers makes residential buildings in that area pay more attention to its relation with water. Water as circulation path, water for daily use, water as natural dividors, etc. The architecture and planning of Jiangzhe Area are sometimes compared to "Oriental Vienice" by Chinese.