Walled compounds, raised pavilions, wooden columns and panelling, yellow glazed roof tiles, landscaped gardens, and a careful application of town planning and use of space are all notable features of the architecture of ancient China, with many of them still playing an important part in modern architecture across East Asia. Architects were influenced by ideas from India and the Buddhism which originated there, but the buildings of ancient China remained remarkably constant in fundamental appearance over the centuries, inspiring much of the architecture of other neighbouring East Asian states, especially in ancient Japan and Korea. Unfortunately, few ancient Chinese buildings survive today, but reconstructions can be made based on clay models, descriptions in contemporary texts, and depictions in art such as wall paintings and engraved bronze vessels.
Main Features
Chinese architecture remained remarkably constant throughout the history of the country. Beginning in the Yellow earth region, the same types of materials and structure were employed for centuries. Wood was always preferred rather than stone, and the roof material of choice was glazed ceramic tiles. The most typical building, at least for larger structures for the elite or public use such as temples, halls, and gate towers, was built on a raised platform made of compacted earth and faced with brick or stone. The earliest examples date to the Shang dynasty (c. 1600 - 1046 BCE) and as time goes on they become larger with more levels added to create an impressive stepped terrace. Examples of earth foundations at Erlitou sites, which date to between c. 1900 and c. 1550 BCE, range in size from 300 square metres to 9,600 square metres and often include underground ceramic sewage pipes.
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The most common building type had regularly spaced timber posts which were strengthened by horizontal cross-beams. In order to better protect the building from earthquake damage, very few nails were used, and joins between wooden parts were made to interlock using mortises and tenons which gave a greater flexibility. The wooden posts supported a thatch roof in earlier architecture and then a gabled and tiled roof with the corners gently curving outwards and upwards at the corners. By the 3rd century CE hip and gable roofs are common. There is no evidence of the dome in Chinese architecture, unnecessary in any case with wooden structures, although stone and brick tombs of various periods do have arched doorways and vaulted or corbelled roofs.
Buddhist temples followed the same basic formula as described above. Although none survive today, examples may be seen in the 7th-century CE Horyuji temple complex and the Kofukuji complex, both near Nara in Japan, which faithfully copied the temple architecture at Chang’an, the Tang capital. Most temples were built on a precise compass orientation and the buildings set on a raised platform of no less than one metre in height. Subsidiary buildings were arranged symmetrically around the main temple building which could have more than one storey, a rarity in Chinese architecture.
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Pagodas were made from wood around a central wooden column, and only later were stone and bricks used, although wood made a comeback when it was realised a greater height was possible using that material. It is likely pagodas were covered in lime plaster to imitate the stone structures they copied from India. The pagoda also provided the idea for monumental towers to mark tombs. These are typically square, multi-storeyed structures often with windows on each level, again to provide the illusion of accessibility and not having any particular function except to impress the viewer from a distance. A good example is the 8th-century CE tomb pagoda of Xuan Zang in Henan province.
Town planning was of particular concern to the Chinese and was best seen in their two longest-serving capitals of Luoyang and Chang’an. There the cities were laid out with wide avenues and smaller secondary streets crossing each other at right angles to create a carpet of precise rectangles. The entire area, some 8,000 hectares in the case of the larger cities, was surrounded by a sloping wall which could be up to 10 metres high. Towered gates gave access to the city, with Luoyang, for example, having 12.
The location of individual buildings was often decided based on the surrounding geography. Many important buildings and royal palaces were aligned on a north-south axis with the main entrance facing south. If a building was composed of different parts joined by intervening courtyards, these were all aligned on the same axis one behind another. Less important structures were built on the east and west sides of the main buildings.
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Regarding the imperial palace complexes of successive dynasties, the movement from outer to inner involved crossing a number of intervening courtyards, and at each new perimeter officials would have met and vetted the visitor, with the right of access becoming ever-more limited. Thus, not for nothing would the emperor’s palace eventually acquire the name, the “Forbidden City” with the consequence that, "Power and prestige were marked by the ability to move ever inward into the holy of holies that was the imperial presence" (Lewis, 164). The huge and impressive royal palaces, then, dominated the capital city and became a symbol of the presence yet invisibility of the Chinese emperor.
Domestic Architecture
The small private homes of the ancient Chinese were usually built from dried mud, rough stones, and wood. The most ancient houses are square, rectangular, or oval. They had thatch roofs (e.g. of straw or reed bundles) supported by wooden poles, the foundation holes for which are often still visible. House remains excavated at Neolithic Yangshao period sites (5000-3000 BCE) indicate houses were built with a subterranean level. Houses at Banpo in Shaanxi were sunk some 60 or 70 cm below the ground surface, but examples elsewhere (e.g. at Anyang) were up to three metres below ground. Often villages consist of a cluster of five dwellings built around a shared courtyard. Some houses are quite large, measuring 16 x 15 metres. The interiors have a hearth and raised surfaces for beds, sometimes the floor was covered with white or yellow clay, and many have storage pits. Houses in areas prone to flooding, such as the lower Yangtze River, region were built on stilts. Raised houses of this type are depicted on engraved bronze vessels.
There is evidence of alternatives to the common wood and dried mud-brick architecture. Wall spaces between wooden columns may in some cases have been filled with lacquered wood panels rather than mud. Such panels were carved and inlaid; surviving examples have been found at Xiaotun. Alternatively, Henan tombs during the 2nd and 1st century BCE were built of hollow clay bricks, as were fortification walls and watchtowers of the period, and it seems reasonable to suppose that the same material was employed in some domestic architecture, even if wood was preferred.
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Private Chinese houses in imperial cities had several rooms all interconnecting with each other and the whole building screened from the street by a high wall. Heating was provided by underfloor pipes. Houses in more rural areas and warmer regions had rooms which opened directly onto the street or fields.
Cave Architecture
Chinese cave shrines usually consist of a single rectangular chamber cut deep into the rock face and many niches cut into the walls. The facade was approached by a stairway cut into the rock or made of wood, and many caves are connected to each other by walkways and verandahs.
The Longmen Grottoes (aka Longmen Caves) are perhaps the most famous group and consist of hundreds of mostly Buddhist shrines and sculptures created from the 5th century CE onwards. Located near the former capital Luoyang, the grottoes were carved, used, and extended by several Chinese dynasties, notably the Northern Wei and Tang. Carved out of the limestone cliffs which border the Luo River, the site boasts cave shrines, larger-than-life-size figure sculptures and countless inscriptions of eulogies and prayers. The figures carved into the rock face at Longmen can reach a height of over 17 metres and depict Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and demon guardian figures.
Another impressive group of shrines and Buddhist sculptures can be seen at the Yungang Caves near the modern city of Datong. Also created by the Northern Wei, the first group of the 53 caves at the site were carved from the sandstone cliffs even earlier than the Longmen Caves, sometime between 460 and 494 CE. The site boasts over 50,000 Buddhist images.
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The Great Wall
The most famous architectural achievement of the ancient Chinese is undoubtedly the Great Wall of China, largely built during the reign of Qin Emperor Shi Huangti in the closing decades of the 3rd century BCE. The wall incorporated many stretches of older defensive walls and was extended again during the Han dynasty using stone and bricks. Stretching some 5,000 kilometres from Gansu province in the east to the Liaodong peninsula (although not without breaks), it was designed to help protect China’s northern frontier against invasion from nomadic steppe tribes. Square watchtowers were built into the wall at regular intervals, and fast communication between them was possible by chariot riders having enough space to ride along the top of the walls.
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