During her 1956 trip to China, Margarete Schütte Lihotzky did an in-depth study of the traditional Chinese courtyard housing typology, the Siheyuan.
Even though a number of low-rise settlements had been erected after 1949 in Shanghai in the first phase, this typology was later considered a waste of space and subsequently replaced by multi-story buildings.
Since the emergence of Lilong housing in the British concession in Shanghai, where English working class construction techniques were combined with features of the traditional courtyard typology into a two to three story atrium typology to house a large part of the Chinese population, the old courtyard houses had not been used by the new regime for urban housing schemes. In 1956, in light of the anti-waste campaign, a shift from Soviet row housing schemes to local, economical low-rise courtyard typologies took place as seen in the 1958 national housing competition. Some of the proposed layouts were based on the Lilong typology. (Zhao 2007:161)
From 1860 on, a transcultural typology, the Shikumen or Lilong houses, developed in the British concession in Shanghai with elements taken from the Chinese courtyard house as well as the British worker’s housing. The combination of industrial pre-fab construction methods, imported materials like cement, plaster, or US pine wood and the integration of sanitary facilities with an inner courtyard, south-facing doors, and vernacular motifs resulted in a distinctive form of 2-3 story dwellings and neighborhoods.

Although Schütte Lihotzky’s task was to gain an understanding of the current state of architecture and urban planning during the journey, she was taken with the courtyard house and spent a considerable amount of time and effort studying its features in depth. Having been engaged in the settlers’ movement in the 1920s in Vienna with Adolf Loos and Otto Neurath, Schütte Lihotzky was enthusiastic about the courtyard houses that had made Beijing a natural garden city. (Zogmayer/Lihotzky, 2007: 37)

In her book “China’s Megacities,” she proposes adapting the traditional courtyard houses into a new settlement form, as illustrated by her friend Werner Hebebrand’s design for an unknown location. This design was meant to be a present to his Chinese hosts from Hebebrand, who traveled to China one year after Schütte Lihotzky in 1957. It was published in the Werkbund magazine “Werk und Zeit” in 1957 and in China’s Jianzhu Xuebao in 1958.

Traditional housing is also featured in Hoa Leon’s “Reconstruire la Chine.” According to the Feng Shui (wind, water) principle, the rectangular courtyard houses are oriented strictly along a north/south axis with the main entrance located in the south. Depending on the size of the compound, a front yard leads to the main yard, where the main house of the patron is flanked by “ear buildings” inhabited by extended family. (CL)


Sources:
Zogmayer, Karin [ed]/ Schütte Lihotzky Maragarete (2007): Milionenstädte Chinas: Bilder und Reisetagebuch einer Architektin (1958). Wien: Springer.
Hoa, Léon (1981): Reconstruire la Chine : trente ans d'urbanisme 1949-1979. Paris: Moniteur.
Junhua, Lue/ Rowe, Peter G/ Jie, Zhang (Ed.) (2001): Modern Urban Housing in China. New York. Prestel München New York.