DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE in the BEIJING AREA. I860-I93Q Thesis
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DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE IN THE BEIJING AREA. I860-I93Q Thesis submitted for the Ph.D. degree of the University of London by Elisabeth Frances Wood School of Oriental and African Studies September, 1983 18 0087422 3 ProQuest Number: 11010632 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11010632 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 4 8 1 0 6 - 1346 <JX cr 1—so ''■0 1 Abstract This thesis describes the appearance, construction and function of the small courtyard house in the Beijing area, i860-1930- In the context of Chinese architecture as a whole, domestic architecture is distinguished by its non-regulated nature. It may thus be contrasted with palace and temple buildings which were constructed according to rules of proportion and sumptuary law. The literature, both Western and Chinese, is discussed in Chapter One. In Chapter Two, three houses, whose measurements were taken, are described in detail and the measured drawings included. Three further houses in central Beijing are described to provide further material, relating to the arrangement of the courtyard. Chapter Three lays out the full programme of construction from the purchase of land and hiring of labourers, the terms of contract between owner and foreman of the building workers to - the building process itself. In Chapter Four, various possible determinants of form are discussed, including the principle of enclosure, structural relian££-'t5niwood, climate and geomancy and orientation. In Chapter Five, the small house is set in its context for domestic architecture in China also comprises the grander ’mansions' of the rich. All houses, whether large or small, are linked in terms of function but economic position determines the size which, in turn, determines the possiblities of the house. The conclusions relate to the size of the construction, sizes being drawn from the measured houses and literary sources. Though the house is potentially unregulated, the buildings of a small house tend to vary very little in terms of size. This adherence to a 'traditional' norm is contrasted with the strict regulations determining the size and design of grand buildings and it is demonstrated that there is a relationship between grand and small buildings based on aspiration within a tradition. 2 Table of contents Abstract.............................................. p. I Introduction P- 3 The choice of Beijing as a subject of study.......... p. 5 Selection of houses for study p. 6 Restriction in time................................. p. 7 Chapter Ones Literary sources 1. Chinese p. 10 2. Early Western accounts of Chinese architecture: stress on the bizarre............................. p. II 3. Twentieth century Western writing p. 17 Chapter Twos Three houses 1. Three houses measured p. 20 2. Courtyard houses in central Beijing p. 26 3* Measured drawings p. 30 Photographs....................................... p. 44 Chapter Threes The Construction process...................... p. 51 Chapter Fours Development of the main features of the courtyard house ’ I. Enclosure .................. p. 74 2. Structural reliance on wood p. 80 3. Climate and variations p. 82 4. Orientation and geomancy.......................... p. 89 Chapter Fives Functions of the houses size allows differentiation p. 94 Chapter Six: Conclusions............ p. 112 Appendix Ones Jian measurements.............................. p. 120 Appendix Twos Lu Ban, the patron saint of carpenters............ p. 121 Notes....................................................... p. 124 Bibliography................................................ p. 175 Introduction The headings of the first chapter of Abbe Hue's L'Empire chinoise indicate the importance of Chinese architecture in the formation of the idea of China in the minds and eyes of' early European visitors. "Le pays prend definitivement le caractere chinois - Arcs de triomphe et monuments eriges en l'honneur des vierges et des veuves - Palais communaux pour les grands mandarins en voyageIt also suggests that the most striking architecture noted by travellers was monumental and official, and the concentration on this aspect of architecture has dominated western writing on the subject ever since, to the detriment of a knowledge of traditional Chinese housing. "...Ils connaissent l'univers avant la maison, a (2 ) l fhorizon avant le gite."v 7 In order to redress the balance, this thesis sets out a descrip tion of the northern Chinese house of the Beijing area, based on measurements taken in 1976 a,nd observations of several courtyard houses.. Phe process of building in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is described, and the use, function and develop ment of the courtyard form in beijing are discussed. Conclusions drawn particularly from the dimensions of the houses measured point to a real division between grand buildings such as those mentioned by Hue and the houses which have received so little attention. This lack of attention is apparent both in western and Chinese sources. The foremost historian of Chinese architecture, Chen Kingda, expressed surprise that anyone should want to work on courtyard houses as he considers that it is now "too late, there are no pure examples left." The courtyard in which he lives (a few hundred yards west of the Great Hall of the People) is an example of this loss of purity. A lean-to has been constructed in the court, pushing the flower beds aside and Chen himself has extended his study and bedroom by building out over what was once a verandah. Though he was careful to re-use the original la.ttice windows, and preserve the appearance of the facade, 3 the originally spacious courtyard has shrunk. ( )' Together with the lack of pure buildings, he emphasised the lack of source material. In the course of a long meeting in his study which is crammed with Chinese and Japanese books on Chinese architecture, he could think of only four books on domestic architecture. One was Liu (L) Dunzhen's short monograph on the history of Chinese domestic architecture'1 which in considerably less than a hundred pages surveys the history of domestic building from the stone age to the QLng, including minority forms; another was Liu's history of Chinese architecture which covers a comparable time span and devotes only a few pages to domestic architec- ( S') ture.'-^ He also mentioned Werner Blaser's book of photographs of courtyard houses^^ which demonstrates the author's ingenuity in the use of very scanty access and Wang Qiming's book on Beijing courtyard (7) houses which was published m the late 1950 s. Wang Qiming's book, the only monograph devoted solely to the domestic architecture of Beijing, is not available in the west, nor in Beijing University Library, nor in Qinghua University (where the copy once held in the architecture department is missing). The author herself, who works for the Architectural History Society, no longer has a copy since most were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and the single re maining copy was lent to someone who never returned it. She said that it was very short and "not worth bothering about" which may be modesty. Thus recent political events in China have combined with the pressure of population and the ravages of time to make the study of the Beijing courtyard house even more difficult, and even more urgent. The choice of Beijing as a subject of study Restriction of the study to one city and its environs was not merely dictated by practicalities. The houses of Beijing represent only one style in the remarkable regional diversity to be found in China. Certain factors, aspects of the cultural and functional role of the Beijing house are common to many other housing types which differ only in details of plan and ornament, '^he Beijing house is, like those of the North-east and northern coastal regions, one of the simplest types to be found in China and may thus be useful in providing the basis for the examination of more complex structures found elsewhere. The simple courtyard plan, characteristic of Beijing, is also found very extensively in other parts of China; single-storied courtyard houses with little ornamentation and flattish pitched roofs dominate in the eastern parts of rural China, from the Yangtse northwards into Dongbei. In the Northwest, in Xi'an and down towards Luoyang, the same simple courtyard plan is found but the structures are often two-storied with a single-pitch roof sloping down into the courtyard at an acute angle. In rainy Sichuan, roofs have longer, deeper eaves with simple L-shaped supporting brackets. The houses are often white-washed with darkened timbers, creating an effect reminiscent of Japanese domestic archi tecture or English half-timbering. In the areas south of the Yangtse, the courtyard is increasingly enclosed, with a small opening in the roof offering light and limited ventilation. These southern buildings are often two-storied and show much more elaborate roofs. These range from the smooth inverted 'U' Dutch gable found in Guangdong, Sichuan and Yunnan and the stepped gable found in Jiangxi (and less often in Yunnan), (9) to the elaborately curved and carved roof ridges of Fujian, 7 In plan, these apparently different house forms are all related to the simpler Beijing courtyard house. Thus, leaving the distinctions of detail for 6 later studies, an examination of the relatively undecorated Beijing house with its clear, open courtyard and single-storied buildings grouped in the almost universal plan is fundamental.