History of Chinese Architecture

Author: Liang Sicheng
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2003-01-01
Features: A History of Chinese Architecture is a seminal work in the field of architectural studies. The book is divided into eight chapters. The first chapter, titled Introduction, provides an overview of the characteristics of Chinese architecture and its historical periods. It also briefly introduces Treatise on Architectural Methods and Regulations of the Ministry of Works in the Qing Dynasty. The chapters from the second to the eighth discuss various eras from ancient times to the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. Each era is generally presented by first outlining architectural activities from documents, then describing existing artifacts, and finally analyzing the specific characteristics of each period. The book's greatest achievement is that it brought Chinese architectural history into the realm of systematic scientific research. By combining historical documents with field investigations, it reveals the design principles, technical highlights, and the achievements of Chinese architecture, as well as the main characteristics of each era. This book transformed Chinese architectural history from obscurity to science, establishing it as an independent discipline and opening up a brand-new academic world for the world to explore. Chinese architecture is the only building system in the world that primarily uses timber. Compared to masonry structures, timber construction has been less preserved due to its perishability, making structures older than a thousand years extremely rare. Therefore, to understand the millennia-long evolution of Chinese architecture, documents become an indispensable source. However, ancient official histories often focus on architectural conventions and regulations, with few detailed and practical accounts. Poems and prose tend to emphasize grandeur and ornate descriptions, often lacking specific details. The two ancient official architectural books and numerous folk technical manuals primarily concentrate on construction techniques. Moreover, as time passes, many ancient architectural terms, once familiar, now seem like ancient scripts. Thus, despite the vast amount of documents available, only a small number can be directly applied to summarize historical patterns, making the task of citation extremely challenging. A History of Chinese Architecture demonstrates Liang’s deep expertise in the application of documents. His citations are not only extensive but also precise, and his writing is both concise and profound.