"Upper Pavilion, Lower Courtyard - Five Schools Joint Exhibition of Historical Building Surveying"

Author: None
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: As revealed by the title, this book is compiled from the content of the "Joint Exhibition of Five Universities on Historical Building Surveying," jointly organized by the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University, the School of Architecture at Tianjin University, the School of Archaeology and Museum Studies at Peking University, the School of Architecture at Southeast University, and the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at Tongji University (in the order of their participation in the exhibition preparation) in 2004. This exhibition, entirely featuring historical building surveying and research achievements, is the first of its kind since the founding of the nation. It was initially proposed by the School of Architecture at Tianjin University and the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University. Inheriting the long-standing tradition of regular exchanges between students of the two institutions, they decided to hold an exhibition of surveying achievements between the two schools immediately after the surveying internship in autumn 2004, aiming to enhance teaching and academic exchanges in architectural history and ancient building surveying, foster mutual understanding, share resources, and achieve common progress. During the preparation of the exhibition, the School of Archaeology and Museum Studies at Peking University, the School of Architecture at Southeast University, and the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at Tongji University joined one after another, expanding the participating institutions from two to five, and the exhibition was finally named the "Joint Exhibition of Five Universities on Historical Building Surveying." Among the five universities, four architecture schools have a tradition of historical building surveying spanning over half a century, and surveying courses have always been compulsory for architecture students in these four schools and other institutions. This exhibition featured 60 display panels, showcasing over 400 historical building surveying drawings drawn by students from the five universities over the years. The drawing methods and techniques, including pencil, ink pen lines, Chinese painting, ink wash rendering, watercolor rendering, computer-aided design, and model making, have made the drawings themselves valuable artifacts. The surveying subjects ranged from the Northern Wei, Five Dynasties, Liao, and Song Dynasty structures to the Qing Dynasty, Republican Era historical sites, spanning over a millennium. They included magnificent structures such as the Hall of Supreme Harmony and the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest in the Forbidden City of Beijing, the Imperial Ancestral Temple, and the Hall of Literary Glory in the Ming Changling Mausoleum, as well as delicate and sentimental ones like the numerous scholar's gardens in the Jiangnan region. The surveying work covered village houses, Buddhist temple complexes, floating pagodas, stone inscriptions, and stone beams, encompassing a wide variety of examples of traditional Chinese architecture in terms of rank, style, and purpose, displaying a dazzling and colorful array of forms. The surveying efforts of the five universities have nearly covered all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in China, and they have even ventured overseas to Africa. This book is divided into five parts, including contributions from the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University, the School of Archaeology and Museum Studies at Peking University, the School of Architecture at Tianjin University, etc.