Final Summary

People often call the problem of combining Chinese traditionalism and modernism in architecture “the big roof controversy”. As a result of the global-swiping modernism trend as well as an increasing awareness of showing nationalism, contemporary Chinese architecture world found itself in an embarrassing situation: there are more and more buildings built in modernistic geometric boxes but were capped with Chinese traditional big roofs. This somewhat awkward combination gave rise to “the big roof controversy”: if simply adding some traditional structure on a modern architecture without truly introduce the structure’s underlying function can make the building “Chinese”? With a firm objection to the “big roof approach” and a belief that functions and appearance’s close relationship is best shown in vernacular architecture, I started my independent study with an ambition of finding the essence of Chinese vernacular architecture that is applicable to our modern living pattern.

I set off by reading Peter Rowe and Seng Kuan’s book, Architectural Encounters with Essence and Form in Modern China. This book gave me an overview of the development of Chinese modern architecture since mid 19th century, and how the problem of “keeping Chinese identity and embracing modernism at the same time” has plagued to Chinese architects ever since the introduce of modernism in China. Then, I looked into the major architectural styles of Chinese vernacular architecture, and sorted them into four categories according to their major features. Next, I mainly focused on the vernacular architecture forms of southeast China and studied their origin, features and mechanisms. Four major examples I studied are Huizhou vernacular architectures, the water system planning of the buffalo shaped village in Huizhou, Jiangnan water towns and waterfront preservation today, Fujian earthen houses (Tulou). Interestingly, each of these different topic gave me a different perspective to look into architecture and design. As a result, I have touched different aspects of shaping the built environment, including architecture, urban planning, landscape design, water system planning and communal housing issues. I want to especially thank my advisor Professor Michael Davis, whom gave this independent study an extraordinary width by providing me many cross-cultural perspectives. Under his help, I viewed each issue in a broad way by comparing each vernacular form with similar projects around the world. This blog served as a journal to record my research process, where I’ve posted the pictures I took or collected, articles I like, drawings and analysis diagram I did, as well as the writings from my each sub research topic.

Through this independent study, I got a deeper understanding of the social, historical and functional context of different vernacular architecture design. I was also constantly amazed by the cleverness of people in the ancient time, how they could utilize the force of nature to achieve something that we need to achieve by machines today. I was taught an important lesson that a good architecture design is always based on a throughout understanding of the site and the nature.

At the same time, my study also gave rise to another question: when we can achieve the same thing by nature and by machine, should use machine or let nature to do it? I think there is no absolute answer to this question. Personally I believe that we should not object the use of machines if they can make the process quicker and more efficient, but if the efficiency is based on the sacrifice of nature resource and environmental pollution, we should really call the use of machine into question. Furthermore, there lies an even more complex question of how to calculate the cost and benefit of the “machine approach” and the “nature approach”. I guess that is also why those green building rate systems such as LEED are often put into big controversy today.

Furthermore, I feel the Modern Architecture class I took this semester also helped me a lot in finding an answer to the “big roof controversy”. By studying at the ideas, theories and projects of architects since late 19th century, I was excited to find that many architects, such as Antoni Gaudi, Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Khan, stand in the same line with me as turning to historical and vernacular architecture as their design inspiration. Meanwhile, I actually feel that the more I know, the less certain I am on my original view point that “big roof approach is superficial”. Le Corbusier, De Stiji and Bauhaus architects’ ardor in searching for a universal style should not be condemned simply because they were detached from history and localism; they are just some idealistic minds who want to bring human being a simpler, more equal and efficient. In the end, I found all my puzzles and wonders were best answered by Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture: architecture should look into history but borrowed them in a way that is suitable to the contemporary context. A big roof without particular function built in can still be considered useful as long as it can reminds people the historical meaning it wants to convey (the “vestigial elements” mentioned in Venturi’s book). Maybe in architecture, there is just no absolute cut line between right and wrong, and that’s exactly reason why architecture has been such an intriguing subject that constantly arouses people’s interest to seek for the “best possible answer”.

My final part of this independent study includes three recent projects in China which I personally believe that they combined traditionalism and modernism in a well-balanced way. They translated and abstracted the traditional elements into a beautiful modern language. I feel like I can’t wait to know more about architecture, both theoretically and practically, so that I could start my journey of searching my “best possible answer” to contemporary Chinese architecture.


p.s. It was a pity that I only got to looked into 4 out of 12 major forms of Chinese vernacular architecture in depth due to the time limit, but I was glad that I made a good start. After this semester’s independent study, I am more and more certain that there is actually a lot of research value in Chinese vernacular architecture. I think there is still much to improve in my current research and I am also thinking about turning this topic into my senior thesis topic.