China is an ancient civilization with a long history. It once created a splendid ancient culture and made great achievements in science and technology.China is also a multi-ethnic country, and all ethnic groups have developed and grown together through long-term economic and cultural exchanges and integration.Architecture is not only material construction, but also a kind of cultural construction.Among the various ethnic groups, the Han ethnic group has the largest number of buildings and the widest distribution. At the same time, the architecture of each ethnic group also has its own characteristics, thus forming the rich and colorful architectural features of the Chinese nation.Many excellent works have been created from cities, architectural groups to individual buildings. They are the crystallization of the wisdom of the ancient working people and reflect the high achievements of ancient Chinese architectural technology and art.During the long historical development, these buildings have gradually formed their own characteristic system, which is unique in the world architecture and has become a precious heritage in the treasure house of human architecture.

What are the characteristics of ancient Chinese architecture?What are the aspects of its unique system?In a nutshell, it is mainly manifested in the following aspects. (1) The structure of the wooden frame.Ancient Chinese architecture adopted the wooden frame structure a long time ago.That is to say, the skeleton of the house is made of wood.Its basic form is to stand on the ground with wooden pillars, erect wooden beams and wooden beams on the pillars, erect roof frames also made of wood on top of these beams and beams, and lay tile roofs on these frames (Figure 1).This form of wooden frame can be seen in the architectural models in the tombs of the Han Dynasty two thousand years ago, and a large number of buildings preserved in history are mostly of this structure.This type of timber construction has many advantages.First, there is great flexibility in use.We often say that Chinese houses are "the house never collapses when the walls fall down", because these houses use columns instead of walls to bear the weight on them. If the walls fall down, the houses still stand there.So both the exterior and interior walls of the house can be handled flexibly.The outer wall can be a solid wall. In the cold area of ​​the north, a thick wall can be used, and in the hot area of ​​the south, a thin wall made of wood or bamboo can be used; doors and windows can also be installed without walls; Walls; in this way, the different needs of various buildings such as palaces, pavilions, corridors, etc. are met.In the room, it can be divided into different spaces according to the purpose with wooden walls, screens, and fans.Second, the shockproof performance is good.Because most of the parts of the wooden structure are connected by mortise and tenon, these joints are flexible connections, and the toughness of the wood itself, so when encountering a sudden attack force like an earthquake, it can reduce Fracture and collapse, strengthen the safety of the building.There is a 60-meter-high Buddhist pagoda in Yingxian County, Shanxi Province, all of which are made of wood. It has a history of more than 900 years. It has encountered many large earthquakes, but it still stands tall.Third, the wooden structure is convenient for construction.Wood is a natural material. It does not need to be fired with clay like bricks and tiles. Compared with stone, which is also a natural material, it is much easier to collect and process.At the same time, in long-term practice, craftsmen have also created a modular system, which is to use the size of a component in a wooden structure as the basic scale, and the columns, beams, doors and windows of the house are all calculated based on this scale. In this way, craftsmen can process different components at the same time according to the specified size, and then assemble them on site, which is less restricted by seasons and weather, and speeds up the speed of house construction.Of course, wooden structures also have disadvantages.For example, its firmness and durability are not as good as masonry structures; wood is afraid of fire, moisture, and insects. In history, countless buildings have been destroyed by fire due to lightning strikes.Therefore, wooden buildings have a much shorter lifespan than masonry buildings, which is why few ancient buildings with a long history have survived.

(2) Group arrangement of buildings.The ancient Chinese buildings we see always appear in groups, ranging from a large palace or temple to a small house.Let’s analyze the most common houses first. The courtyard house in the north is the most common form of houses (Figure 2). It is surrounded by four houses in front, back, left, and right sides to form a yard, with the owner’s house in the middle and children’s rooms on both sides.This arrangement of housing into a courtyard, with the main building in the center and the secondary buildings on both sides in a balanced and symmetrical arrangement has become the basic form of the plane layout of ancient Chinese buildings.This is true of palaces, and so is temples, except that the individual buildings of palaces and temples are more particular, and the enclosed yards are larger.The basic unit of Chinese architecture is the "room" composed of four pillars. The "room" forms single buildings of various shapes, and the single buildings form groups of courtyard buildings of different sizes. A city is also mainly composed of these buildings. It is composed of many building groups with different purposes.

This regular building group is the main form of ancient Chinese architecture, but it is not the only form.In mountainous areas or places with complex terrain, it is impossible for buildings or courtyards to be arranged neatly and symmetrically in front, back, left, and right, so we can only adopt arrangements and combinations tailored to local conditions.In the garden, in order to create changing scenery, sometimes the buildings are scattered and flexibly arranged intentionally, breaking the regular format.Of course, these buildings in mountains and gardens are still a part of the group. They do not exist independently, but their combination is different from that of palaces and residences. It is precisely because of this that ancient Chinese architecture presents a rich and colorful appearance.

(3) The artistic treatment of architecture.The artistic treatment of ancient Chinese architecture has its distinct characteristics, which are mainly manifested in: it is good at artistically processing various components of the building itself into distinctive decorations, ranging from the overall shape of a building to a small beam head , Wadang are like this.The roofs of Chinese buildings are huge and clumsy due to the relationship between the wooden structure, but the ancient craftsmen made the roof into a curved shape by using the characteristics of the wooden structure. It is curved, the ridge is curved, and the eaves are also curved.In the long-term practice, various forms such as Lu (wuwu) hall, Xieshan, single eaves, and double eaves have been created, and the components on the roof ridge have been processed into various interesting small animals, making the huge roof into a shape. An important part of Chinese ancient architecture with a special artistic image (Figure 3).The beams and fang heads of the wooden structure of the house are also made into various interesting forms such as grasshopper heads and hemp leaf heads. interest.In order to protect the wood, the exposed part of the wooden structure is painted with oil paint, which provides a place for decoration to be widely used, creating a unique "color painting" decoration of Chinese architecture.

In Chinese architectural decoration, not only dare to use but also good at using color.Strong and vivid colors have become a major feature of ancient Chinese architecture.An important palace building, the roof is covered with yellow glazed tiles, and the roof is painted in turquoise tones. The body of the palace is made of red walls, red pillars, red doors and windows, and the white stone platform and dark ground below, set against the blue sky Glittering down.Such a bold combination of yellow and blue, red and green, white and black contrasting colors makes the whole building dazzling.Ancient craftsmen not only dared to use heavy colors, but were also good at using light brushes.In some gardens in the south, white walls and blue-gray tiles are mostly used for buildings. The dark coffee-colored wooden structures are often not painted, and green bamboos and plantains are planted around them, forming a light-colored garden environment.

According to different purposes, Chinese ancient buildings are divided into six categories: palace buildings, mausoleum buildings, altar and temple buildings, religious buildings, garden buildings and residential buildings.