In 1960 the Jianzhu Xuebao architecture magazine in China, the official channel for exchange on debates on design and planning, started publishing a number of articles on vernacular architecture. Though this was the first time studies of vernacular architecture were published to such an extent, the relationship of the vernacular and planning discourse had played an ambiguous (leading) role for more than a decade. The encounter between practicing architects on the one hand and the state government on the other led to a complex network of relationships, and the vernacular and traditional style traversed through a number of shifts in meaning through the years. Like with many other newly independent nation states, questions on how to involve the local forms of expression within the framework of a socialist state economy and modern governmental structures were also debated in architecture.
[A grand survey] The understanding of Chinese architecture as it exists today is intrinsically linked to the reformist movement at the turn of the 19th to 20th century in the attempt to modernize China from
“‘being all under the heaven’ (tianxia) to being a ‘country in the world’ (guojia)” (Li, 2003:470) by writing modern historiography, developing a philological approach, and creating history. (Li 2003:476) One of the protagonists of this Hundred Days’ Reform movement was the cultural thinker Liang Qichao, who understood that modernizing China did not mean modernization solely in terms of mechanical and technological improvements, but rather to form a nation it was necessary to form a scientific body of historical knowledge that included architecture.
Although a distinct building culture had existed in China for centuries, it had always been regarded as craftsmanship rather than an art form. Research on the topic had only been conducted by non-Chinese researchers from Japan, Europe, and the U.S., and, as a result, in his “architecture of the world” Banister Fletcher classified Chinese and Japanese architecture into “non-historical” styles. (Li, 2003: 481)
The re-print of a builder’s manual from the Song dynasty (960-1127) that Zhu Qiqian, an official and driving force in the modernization and Hundred Days’ Reform, had found in a collection of antique books in the Jiangnan library in 1918 played a crucial role in raising Chinese architecture from its ahistorical status.
“The Yingzao fashi is a construction manual that was printed in the Northern Song dynasty. Its thirty-four chapters set out rules of construction in masonry, structural and non-structural timber, tiles, and painted decorations. The text is illustrated extensively with drawings in chapters 29 to 34 […]” and is based on “the crucial idea of a modular unit. The central concept is the “timber unit” […], which establishes modular systems for all timber building components. On this basis, the “work unit” […] measures the amount of work required for all types of skilled and unskilled construction, and the “quantity unit” […] measures quantities of materials. […] What he provided was a uniquely complete record of building construction of the Song dynasty and the modular system central to Chinese construction, information conveyed both in text and in drawings of orthographical projections of plans, elevations, and sections, as well as close-to-axonometric views.” (Li, 2003:147)
For Zhu the discovery of the manual brought a unique opportunity to not only re-imagine Chinese architecture, but also link it to the formation of a strong Chinese national consciousness.
He had the manual reprinted in the same fashion as Chinese literary classics, using ink, calligraphy, binding, and selected paper resembling the style of the Song dynasty, which “attracted the attention of many scholars in Chinese art and architecture throughout the world.” (Li, 2003: 481)
In 1930 Zhu founded the Society for Research in Chinese Architecture and hired young architects and researchers who had just returned to China after being educated in the United States, Europe, or Japan. Among these proponents of the first generation architects were Liang Qiqao’s son Liang Sicheng, his wife Lin Huiyin, and Liu Dunzhen. They discovered that the built environment of the country had not yet been examined by Western standards and began to survey temple architecture throughout the country in the 1930s. All three had been educated at Penn School in Philadelphia under a strict Beaux Arts curriculum and were now able to use their skills in practice, and extensive architectural surveys were completed during these years. Ernst Boerschmann, a German architect and Sinologist who became one of only two foreign members of the Society, shared the archeological approach.
In 1935 he went on a lengthy study trip and was accompanied by Hsia Changshi, who later played a decisive role in the formation of climate-adaptive architecture in South China. During these study trips the focus was clearly on historical temple and palace architecture. The quest to find the oldest and most authentic structures as possible led the young upper class architects to the most remote parts of China and inevitably led them to vernacular building methods in the various provinces. Though none of these initially found their way into publication or were studied like the sacred architecture, rural vernacular dwellings drew the attention of the architects, as is visible through the abundance of archived photographs. These images were published many years later in the 1980s after research on vernacular architecture had been institutionalized.
The outcome of the 1930s’ architectural surveys culminated in Liang Sicheng’s publication “Chinese Architecture, A Pictorial History” and other publications from the Society of Architectural Research in China. They included many depictions of the layout, structural logic, and ornamental motifs drawn to scale in the Beaux Arts style, making this newly gained knowledge more accessible and allowing young architects to create a national style by integrating it with modernist building technology. During the republican period and the communist era until 1955, large traditionally shaped Chinese roofs were used for a number of official buildings as well as housing projects. However, due to the cost of these roofs and the increasing pressure from state government to enforce industrial productivity, the roofs were abandoned and became a rightist feature that was frowned upon.
In the coming years, the anti-waste campaign focused more on economical and rational building methods, and the use of local material was rediscovered and even promoted by officials.
“[…] what deserves to be more appreciated is the appearance of innovative thinking and experiments with building materials and techniques. Liu Xiufeng, Minister of Construction, was the first person to promote the extensive use of bamboo, a fast growing and widely spread plantation in many regions of China. In his June 1955 report, he promoted bamboo to replace wood and steel. Within a year, a 24-meter spanned gymnasium built with a bamboo structure appeared on the campus of East China Normal University in Shanghai. Another bamboo experiment was the introduction of ‘bamboo-concrete’ in floor panels, where bamboo strips replaced iron bars. Other audacious ideas included the attempt to make door and window frames with a special type of clay.” (Zhao, 2007:146f)
The interest in local materials and their methods of manufacturing triggered by the rise of thriftiness was furthered through the decentralization of a major sector of construction work:
“Starting from 1959, each province, city or autonomous region took over the responsibility of organizing standard housing designs from the State Construction Commission.” (Zhou Jinxiang, 1985, 348 in: Lü/Rowe/Zhang, 2001:xx) Accordingly, research groups on local housing were installed throughout the provinces and sparked a much greater understanding of Chinese architecture, which is reflected in the Jianzhu Xuebao issues from the years 1960-1963. Among them are a “survey of folk dwellings in Chiekang Province” (No.7 1962), an article on “the dwelling houses of Pai Tribe along the lake “Er Hai” (1963/1), “a brief description of the ‘Malan’ Architecture of the Chwan Tribe, Kwongsi” (1963/1), “Dwelling Houses of Chuang Zou in the Eastern Tsinhai Province” (1963/1), “Characteristics of the Regional Architecture of the Uigur Tribe, Sinkiang” (1963/1), “Tibetan dwellings on the snow-clad Mountains and Meadows” (July 1963), and “Dwellings of the Tai Tribe on Yunnan Frontier” by the Tribal Dwellings Investigation Group of the Building Design Department, Yunan Province. (November 1963)
However, the vernacular became a central subject in the early 1960s after the Great Leap Forward, an era of immense scarcity when almost all building activity came to a halt. While the Walking on Two Legs campaign was initiated from the official side, promoting the combination of modern industrial production and low-cost traditional techniques, many architects had been sent out to rural areas to support the transformation of rural settlements into people’s communes. As their colleagues before them had encountered the rural parts of China for the first time in the 1930s, the experiences of the younger generation might not have been very different. According to Zhang Jie*, their rural circumstances, isolated from any access to research resources in their field, made them turn to what was there, and many of them started to study local vernacular architecture.
The government continued to increase its focus on vernacular and local building practices as the budgetary constraints and general economic circumstances tightened. The 1958 national design competition constituted a “clear return to the local context. […] A nation-wide standard design approach, which required the considerable support of a modernized building industry, was no longer stressed. Instead, local dwelling traditions were encouraged, including their spatial organization, building technique and materials.” (Zhao, 2007:161) In the same year a conference on local design was held and turned into a national exhibition later focusing on buildings “constructed with materials other than steel, iron, cement, wood or brick in Harbin.” (Lü/Rowe/Zhang, 2001:153) Other conferences followed in Zhangjiang in 1961 and in Wuxi in 1963 where, “based on the investigation of local geographical conditions and climate, some designs with local features also appeared. Research on traditional construction skills also brought some changes to the practice of copying the Soviet experience.” (Lü/Rowe/Zhang 2001:159)
Experiments took place and local building elements were integrated into multi-story houses, such as the Kang, a traditional bed-stove from Northern China. The case of the Daqing oil field received national recognition and was exploited from 1960 onwards despite the economic imbalance. For the construction of the worker’s houses “because of bad weather and difficulties with transportation and in obtaining materials, an improved version of the local pressed earth-wall house was built. […] From then on, lauded as a successful experience, simple pressed earth-wall houses were built in other places in China, and the Daqing spirit of self-reliance became an example for others to follow. […]”
(Lü/Rowe/Zhang, 2001:161f)
The manifold roles and adaptation of the vernacular in Chinese architecture, starting as a vehicle for the formation of national identity and becoming a model for modesty, low-cost, and efficiency, have been intrinsically linked to the emergence of modernist thought since the beginning. First used by planners, architects, and governmental forces as a tool to constitute a common national history and later as an instrument of the latter to constitute a form of recognition of the diversity of ethnic minorities, as a study subject to stress its inherent modernist rationality, and as an example of the economic use of space and technology, the vernacular proved to be applicable to the concerns of the time and was integrated (absorbed) into the dominant discourse. Other than in the CIAM discourse on Habitat, the vernacular was not understood as a counter model to modernism, but vernacular studies occurred in the spirit of nationalism, development, and progress. In the Chinese Architecture Magazine Jianzhu Xuebao, types of vernacular dwellings were published in China’s Architectural Journal along with examples of regional adaptations of architecture in other third world countries. While the West had its eye on ancient building traditions, these depictions focused on modern developments in these nations. (Lu, 2006:123) How close the vernacular and modernism came in China can be seen in the Zheijiang study mentioned by the architect Hoa Langhong in his book Reconstruire La Chine, when the study of hundreds of vernacular houses was eventually used to create a Chinese version of architectural data (Neufert’s Bauentwurfslehre) or when the “Walking on Two Legs” campaign, a combination of both modern and traditional methods, was launched. Architects and planners were called on to come up with efficient and resource-friendly construction and review old techniques. (CL)
Sources:
Jianzhu Xuebao Volume 1958; 1959; 1960; 1961; 1962; 1963
Li Shiqiao (2003): Reconstituting Chinese Building Tradition: The Yingzao fashi in the Early Twentieth Century In: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 62, No. 4. pp. 470- 489. University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural Historians. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3592498
Linortner, Christina (2011): Interview with Professor Zhang Jie. Tsinghua University. 20/10/2011
Lu, Duanfang (2006): Remaking Chinese Urban Form: Modernity, Scarcity and Space 1949 -2005. London: Routledge.
Lü, Junhua /Rowe, Peter G./Zhang, Jie (Eds.) (2001): Modern Urban Housing in China. New York: Prestel.
Zhao, Chunlan. 2007. Socio/Spatial transformation in Mao’s China. Settlement Planning and Dwelling Architecture Revisited (1950s-1970s). PhD thesis. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
