Architecture

• Ancient Chinese Architecture


  • Walled compounds
  • Raised pavilions
  • Wooden columns and panelling
  • Yellow glazed roof tiles
  • Landscaped gardens
  • Careful application of town planning and use of space
• Many features of ancient Chinese architecture still play an important part in modern architecture across East Asia
• Architects were influenced by ideas from India and the Buddhism which originated there


  But the buildings of ancient China remained remarkably constant in fundamental appearance over the centuries
• Few ancient Chinese buildings survive today
• Reconstructions can be made based on clay models, descriptions in contemporary texts, and depictions in art such as wall paintings and engraved bronze vessels
• Chinese architecture has remained constant throughout its history
• Larger structures like temples, halls, and gate towers


  • Built on a raised platform compacted earth and faced with brick or stone
• Small private homes of the ancient Chinese

  • Built from dried mud, rough stones and wood
  • Plan was mostly square, rectangular, or oval
• Most common building type

  • Regularly spaced timber posts strengthened by horizontal cross-beams
• Chinese architecture was built chiefly using timber
• Very little ancient Chinese architecture had survived
• The small main hall of the Nanchan Temple, on Mount Wutai in Shanxi province is the oldest datable timber building
• Chinese architects had their ideas from India and the Buddhism which started there

  Ancient Buddhist temples have used dougong, a bracket joining the top of the post and horizontal roof beam, to support the wooden posts
• Developments in Buddhist temples

  1. Simplifying the roof beams to make the structure lighter

  2. Increasing the height of pillars

  3. Roofs made more curved in the corners

  4. Use of decorative tiles and figures such as dragons at the ends and ridges of roofs
• None of these Buddhist temples survived today
• Five types of ancient Chinese architecture

  • Imperial palaces (The Forbidden City)
  • Defensive walls (The Great Wall)
  • Pagodas (Big Wild Goose Pagoda)
  • Altars and temples (Temple of Heaven)
  • Mausoleums (Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang)