This is a reconstruction of Knossos in Ancient Crete
which was originally built around 2000 BC
This is the Greek Parthenon, built around 440 BC
This is the Colosseum from Ancient Rome, built around 70-80 AD
Ok, but what about China? And, being from China, why do I know so little about the
history of Chinese art and architecture? Wanting to learn more about Chinese
architecture, I scrolled the Stanford course catalogue for
an hour, only to find this one course, which isn’t even about China or even
even East Asia. Sure, the Americas, Europe, Middle
East, and South Asia are equally interesting (though I wondered why the
course doesn’t cover Africa), but this means that to answer my
question at Stanford i would need to
commit to a five unit course that isn't
even particularly interested in the
question that i want to ask
and so i thought why would i look to an
american university to teach me about
chinese architecture?
And so i switched strategies, and after a
one minute search on BiliBili, which
is completely
free by the way, i found videos of a
course
offered by Tsinghua university called the
history of chinese architecture
and the question that the first overview
lecture focuses on is indeed
"so what about china" and so here i want
to share
with you my study notes from this
awesome first lecture
so starting from the beginning (which is
kind of ironically modern times)
professor Liang Sicheng, who is often
referred to as the father of modern
chinese architecture,
proposed that chinese architectural
history can be divided into six time
periods
so the first time period would be the
ancient or primitive period which is
pre-200 BC
here we had scarce written documentation
and material remains but
we can kind of infer the scale of what
used to exist from, for example, the
foundations that were discovered at
陕西岐山周原遗址
(the Zhouyuan site
in Qishan County, Shaanxi province)
which was dated to around 1100 to 701 bc
we can also make some inferences based
on the designs and inscriptions that
were found on
unearthed bronze vessels and oracle
bones so for example
from bronze vessels unearthed from the
same Zhouyuan site,
we can already infer that they already
had Dougong, which is kind of like
interlocking wooden brackets and is a
unique foundational element
in traditional chinese architecture. We
can also see motifs like windows and
doors
the western comparison for this time
period as i mentioned before would be
ancient crete, Mycenae, and ancient greece, with examples
of architectural remains being Knossos 
and the Greek Parthenon
The second time period would be the two
Han dynasties which spanned from
approximately 204 BC to 220 AD.
Here we had a decent amount of
literature but still not that many
material remains
but we do have some pottery models from
which we can see
that Han architecture already showed
some hallmark characteristics of
traditional chinese architecture,
like the shape of the roofs and like
the Dougong. The western comparison for this time
period would be ancient rome
with an example of architectural remains
being the colosseum.
The third time period would be
三国，两晋，南北朝  (three kingdoms,
two Jin dynasties and the southern
and northern dynasties)
and this spanned from approximately years
220 to 590.
in this time period we had a lot of
outside influence so for example
glazed roof tile technology came to
china at that time
and  鸱尾 (chi wei) which is the practice
of um
having carved mystic beasts on top of
roofs,
also appeared at this time. A
particularly big influence during this
time was buddhism
and we saw many buddhist temples built
during this time
that were influenced by india and the
western regions
here again wooden structures don't last
but again we can infer
what they may have looked like from the
beautiful art that was left behind from
this time period
so for example from the 天龙山石窟
or Tianlongshan Grottoes,
we can see how advanced the Dougong were
at the time
from the famous Dunhuang Frescoes we can
get
a glimpse of the architectural style at
the time
from the 云冈石窟 (Yungang
Grottoes), we can also get an idea of what
the buddhist temples look like
and of course there is also the 龙门石窟 (Longmen Grottoes).... so i just wanted
to take a moment to let the beauty of
these sink in....
the western comparison for this time
period would be the early christian
period
and here we can see an example of
architecture from that period
So then the fourth time period spans
Sui, Tang, and Zhou dynasties going from
approximately
year 581 to year 906. During this time
period ancient chinese architecture
quickly matured.
The design of cities and palaces reached
a peak of sorts
and the capitals were some of the
biggest, most developed cities in the
world at the time
we can get an idea of the architectural
magnificence of that time period
from the restoration of a Ming Tang, kind
of like an imperial ceremonial hall,
from Tang dynasty built in year 669,
and here i'm showing you another
restoration of a ceremonial hall of
Wu Zetian (china's
only female emperor) built in year 687
and situated in Luoyang
there were also super impressive
buddhist and taoist temples built
as well as extraordinary imperial
gardens
actually besides imperial gardens just
in general
gardens both public and private started
appearing a lot
during this time period. And now going
back to the wooden buildings there were
now well-matured design principles as we can see here from the 大雁塔门楣石刻
or
stone carvings on the giant wild goose
pagoda
built around year 652. For comparison in
europe during these years we
transitioned from early christian
architecture
to a period of romanesque architecture
and here i'm showing you Lorsch Abbey (~760AD), which is an example of Romanesque
architecture.
The fifth period would be 五代，宋，辽，金
(Five dynasties period and
Song, Liao, Jin dynasties) which span from
approximately 906 to year
1280 and this was a period of transition
both in terms of architectural style
and the design of cities towards being
more elaborate, detailed, and diverse.
There was also more use of bricks and
carvings also appeared on bricks
here we can appreciate the intricate
beautiful meticulous design
of 滕王阁, Pavilion of Prince Teng
from
Song dynasty. we can see another example
of this elegance and detail
from a drawing of 黄鹤楼, Yellow
Crane Tower,
also from the Song dynasty. Cities in
this period adopted systems of streets
and became more commercial
here from 清明上河图 (Qing Ming Shang He Tu) we can see an
example of a bustling Song dynasty city
Gardens also matured and transitioned
towards more leisurely purposes
some imperial gardens were even open to
access by the common people
As another example of the emperor
"joining the fun of the commoners"
here is 瑞鹤图 , or simply Cranes, painted
by emperor Huizong of Song dynasty in
year 1112. not only can we see an
example in the middle
of a palace it's also pretty cool that
it was painted by the emperor
it can be found today in the Liaoning
museum
another important thing during this
period is the publishing and
dissemination of 营造法式, Treatise on Architectural Methods,
which is a monumental technical treatise
on architecture written during the Song
dynasty
This indicated that chinese architecture
was now at the review stage
for comparison in europe during this
period we transitioned from romanesque
architecture to gothic architecture
with notre dame de paris as an iconic
example
Last but certainly not least we have the
sixth period spanning
Yuan, Ming, Qing dynasties so approximately years 1279 to
1911.
during this period the techniques were
mature the designs were more structured
and there was more regional variation in
architectural style
Yuan was a transitional period where outside influence led to innovations
such as
a roof design called 盝(lù)顶(dǐng), as we can
see here.
Here we can see 永乐宫 (Yongle Temple) an example of
Yuan architecture.
And here is the same temple (永乐宫)  as
depicted in murals
from these murals we can see for example
that they really liked using
white glazed tiles. The ming dynasty
underwent
a Renaissance of sorts because after the
Yuan dynasty,
Ming wanted to revive the styles of
Tang and Song dynasties.
They rebuilt a lot of cities that were
destroyed in war and used mostly bricks
in their rebuilding
they also valued ceremonial venues a lot
here is an example of Ming/Qing
architecture -- a restoration slash
rebuilding of the hanging temple
in Shanxi. The building style
transitioned towards
a simpler elegance and the Dougong system
became
almost purely decorative. Qing
architecture, in addition to adopting
Ming legacy,
also had tibetan influence and we can
kind of see examples of that
from temples in the Chengde mountain
resort so (外八庙) in Hebei,
and 雍和宫 (Yonghe temple) in beijing. Building grades
and guidelines became more rigid and
something notable is that
Qing dynasty gardens reached a peak of
sorts
and one of the reasons for this is the
active participation of emperors
in the design of gardens. An iconic
example would be Yuanmingyuan
which i talked about in my previous
videos. The western comparison for
Yuan and Ming dynasties so from 1279 up
to 1644
was the gothic to renaissance transition
whereas the western comparison for the
qing dynasty so from 1644 to 1911
is the transition from renaissance to
baroque to rococo
to neoclassical to modern.... so the west
went through
a lot of transitions during the tang
dynasty
so while i was watching this lecture a
question lingered in my head like okay
so ancient chinese architecture looked
gorgeous but it seems that they were
really bad at making structures
last. i mean, why even make them out of
wood
does this mean that ancient china wasn't
as advanced in knowledge about materials?
as if he was reading my mind, professor
Guixiang Wang answered that question in
the second part of his first lecture but
because i don't want to put you to sleep
i'll cut this video here
and that question will be the topic of
my next video
on the history of chinese architecture
with the preview being the chinese
saying 是不为也，非不能也.
what does that mean? that means it's not
that
they were incapable but rather that they
chose not to
and in the next video i will tell you
more about this. So to leave off here's
once again a summary of the six periods
that i discussed,
their european counterparts, as well as
some names of
examples in chinese architectural
history that you can google yourself
i will consider my video a success if
something i said in there got you to run
even one search
about chinese architectural history so
with that
please hit subscribe if you like my
videos
如果喜欢这个视频的话请...点赞？投币？收藏？
uh thanks for watching and see you next
time
