Chinese architecture and planning : ideas, methods, techniques / Qinghua Guo.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Guo, Qinghua (Architectural historian)

Contributor:

Martin and Margy Meyerson Accession Fund for the Built Environment Collections.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Architecture--China.

Architecture.

China.

City planning--China.

City planning.

Physical Description:

166 pages : illustrations (some color), maps, plans ; 30 cm

Place of Publication:

Stuttgart : Edition Axel Menges, [2005]

Summary:

China possesses a long continuous architectural history, and architecture plays a distinctive role in Chinese civilisation itself, in which the concept of architecture and the way of construction are entirely different from those in the West. In the field of architectural history, a specialist study by a variety of distinguished scholars, both Chinese and non-Chinese, covered the style and aesthetics of Chinese architecture that has been recognised as timelessness and unchanging quality. The architectural diversity and variation, and technological innovation and evolution of Chinese architecture have largely been ignored.

This book presents a thematic discussion of architectural history and a critical evaluation of city planning, with a focus on the issues of ideas, methods and techniques in the context of the culture, politics and religion of the pre-modern China. In the book, Qinghua Guo establishes a broad periodisation for the architectural formation and development with a clear conceptual framework for it, and interprets its architectonics and typology in details. This study attempts to identify major characters of Chinese architecture and planning in order to understand how they were formed and why.

Contents:

Part 1 Architecture

1 Formation and early development: architecture in the north 7

2 Kang: characteristics of domestic architectural heating system 19

3 Tomb architecture: old and new questions 28

4 From tower to pagoda: structural and technological transition 44

5 Multi-storeyed pagodas: aspects of technological tradition in East Asia 57

6 Timber building structures in Choson Korea: a comparative approach 80

7 Yingzao Fashi: 12th-century manual for state buildings 90

8 The architecture of joinery: rotating sutra-case cabinets 97

9 Tile and brick making: a study on the Yingzao Fashi 108

10 Architectural drawing: graphic representation methods and techniques 115

Part 2 Planning

11 Shenyang: the Manchurian ideal capital city and imperial palace, 1625-43 131

12 Changchun: unfinished capital planning of Manzhouguo, 1932-42 138

13 The urban character of Seoul: Chinese perspectives on Choson planning history 147.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 157-164) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Martin and Margy Meyerson Accession Fund for the Built Environment Collections.

ISBN:

3932565541

9783932565540

OCLC:

63514310