The Borders of Chinese Architecture

The Borders of Chinese Architecture
Author: Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2022-01-11
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0674241010

An internationally acclaimed expert explains why Chinese-style architecture has remained so consistent for two thousand years, no matter where it is built. For the last two millennia, an overwhelming number of Chinese buildings have been elevated on platforms, supported by pillars, and covered by ceramic-tile roofs. Less obvious features, like the brackets connecting the pillars to roof frames, also have been remarkably constant. What makes the shared features more significant, however, is that they are present in Buddhist, Daoist, Confucian, and Islamic milieus; residential, funerary, and garden structures; in Japan, Korea, Mongolia, and elsewhere. How did Chinese-style architecture maintain such standardization for so long, even beyond ChinaÕs borders? Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt examines the essential features of Chinese architecture and its global transmission and translation from the predynastic age to the eighteenth century. Across myriad political, social, and cultural contexts within China and throughout East Asia, certain design and construction principles endured. Builders never abandoned perishable wood in favor of more permanent building materials, even though Chinese engineers knew how to make brick and stone structures in the last millennium BCE. Chinese architecture the world over is also distinctive in that it was invariably accomplished by anonymous craftsmen. And Chinese buildings held consistently to the plan of the four-sided enclosure, which both afforded privacy and differentiated sacred interior space from an exterior understood as the sphere of profane activity. Finally, Chinese-style buildings have always and everywhere been organized along straight lines. Taking note of these and other fascinating uniformities, The Borders of Chinese Architecture offers an accessible and authoritative overview of a tradition studiously preserved across time and space.

Chinese Urban Design

Chinese Urban Design
Author: Fei Chen
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2018-01-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317166957

The traditional Chinese city is undergoing an identity crisis. With the rapid development taking place, there is growing conflict between this new building and the existing urban heritage. An appropriate approach, both in design and in legislation, is urgently needed to deal with this problem. Furthermore, although Chinese cities have a remarkably long history, existing methods of urban form study in China are either descriptive or loosely structured, whereas a comprehensive methodology is necessary to 'read' Chinese urban forms in a consistent way, and thus inform designers and policy-makers. Chinese Urban Design targets these problems and offers an analytic and conceptual framework for both urban investigation and consequent design. Firstly summarising traditional urban design principles and how Chinese cities have transformed over time, it then introduces and offers a theoretic ground and scientific methodology for understanding the evolution of urban forms, initially developed in western countries. It demonstrates the theoretic model via real cases - from the city of Nanjing - and establishes a direct link between understanding of urban forms and design development. By providing a cross-cultural investigation on the theories and methods of urban typology and morphology, this book aims to suggest best future practice for urban design in China. It explores how urban designers and local policy-makers can produce culturally responsive designs and how they might better understand the formation and transformation of the built environment in which their creations sit. It also looks at how local residents' lifestyle, culture and demands might be reflected and respected in design process.

Tall Buildings of China

Tall Buildings of China
Author: Georges Binder
Publisher: Images Publishing
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2015-07-31
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1864704128

This breathtaking new book, compiled by tall buildings specialist, Georges Binder, showcases more than 100 of the tallest buildings in China across more than 25 cities, including those towering over the megacities of Beijing, Shanghai and emerging supercities, such as Chengdu, Guangzhou and Tianjin. Georges Binder summarises the history of the Chinese tall building landscape from the 1930s to the present day, and features the best in contemporary design, including emerging architectural trends, showcasing each project with beautiful imagery and detailed plans. The book also delves into the hard architectural statistics and buildings’ features with gritty detail. These skyscrapers are a fitting symbol of China’s new-found prosperity, ambition and architectural flair.

Tall Buildings: From Engineering To Sustainability

Tall Buildings: From Engineering To Sustainability
Author: Y K Cheung
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 1167
Release: 2005-12-06
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9814478873

A collection of papers presented at the Sixth International Conference on Tall Buildings (ICTB), this volume clearly explains the engineering and socio-economic aspects of tall buildings in specific areas of sustainability. The papers focus on Asian cities, where tall buildings have become a major feature of the built environment. A multi-disciplinary book, it also deals with the increasing complexity of inter-related problems that require knowledge integration from different disciplines. With interesting contributions from distinguished practitioners, academics and policy makers, the book addresses the development and application of knowledge in solving problems related to tall buildings.

Chinese Architecture

Chinese Architecture
Author: Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 925
Release: 2019-05-14
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0691191972

An unprecedented survey of the origins and evolution of Chinese architecture, from the last millennia BCE to today Throughout history, China has maintained one of the world’s richest built civilizations. The nation’s architectural achievements range from its earliest walled cities and the First Emperor’s vision of city and empire, to bridges, pagodas, and the twentieth-century constructions of the Socialist state. In this beautifully illustrated book, Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt presents the first fully comprehensive survey of Chinese architecture in any language. With rich political and historical context, Steinhardt covers forty centuries of architecture, from the genesis of Chinese building through to the twenty-first century and the challenges of urban expansion and globalism. Steinhardt follows the extraordinary breadth of China’s architectural legacy—including excavation sites, gardens, guild halls, and relief sculpture—and considers the influence of Chinese architecture on Japan, Korea, Mongolia, and Tibet. Architectural examples from Chinese ethnic populations and various religions are examined, such as monasteries, mosques, observatories, and tombs. Steinhardt also shows that Chinese architecture is united by a standardized system of construction, applicable whether buildings are temples, imperial palaces, or shrines. Every architectural type is based on the models that came before it, and principles established centuries earlier dictate building practices. China’s unique system has allowed its built environment to stand as a profound symbol of Chinese culture. With unprecedented breadth united by a continuous chronological narrative, Chinese Architecture offers the best scholarship available on this remarkable subject for scholars, students, and general readers.

Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts

Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts
Author: Jeffrey W. Cody
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2011-01-31
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0824834569

In the early twentieth century, Chinese traditional architecture and the French-derived methods of the École des Beaux-Arts converged in the United States when Chinese students were given scholarships to train as architects at American universities whose design curricula were dominated by Beaux-Arts methods. Upon their return home in the 1920s and 1930s, these graduates began to practice architecture and create China’s first architectural schools, often transferring a version of what they had learned in the U.S. to Chinese situations. The resulting complex series of design-related transplantations had major implications for China between 1911 and 1949, as it simultaneously underwent cataclysmic social, economic, and political changes. After 1949 and the founding of the People’s Republic, China experienced a radically different wave of influence from the Beaux-Arts through advisors from the Soviet Union who, first under Stalin and later Khrushchev, brought Beaux-Arts ideals in the guise of socialist progress. In the early twenty-first century, China is still feeling the effects of these events. Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts examines the coalescing of the two major architectural systems, placing significant shifts in architectural theory and practice in China within relevant, contemporary, cultural, and educational contexts. Fifteen major scholars from around the world analyze and synthesize these crucial events to shed light on the dramatic architectural and urban changes occurring in China today—many of which have global ramifications. This stimulating and generously illustrated work is divided into three sections, framed by an introduction and a postscript. The first focuses on the convergence of Chinese architecture and the École des Beaux-Arts, outlining the salient aspects of each and suggesting how and why the two "met" in the U.S. The second section centers on the question of how Chinese architects were influenced by the Beaux-Arts and how Chinese architecture was changed as a result. The third takes an even closer look at the Beaux-Arts influence, addressing how innovative practices, new schools of architecture, and buildings whose designs were linked to Beaux-Arts assumptions led to distinctive new paradigms that were rooted in a changing China. By virtue of its scope, scale, and scholarship, this volume promises to become a classic in the fields of Chinese and Western architectural history. Contributors: Tony Atkin, Peter J. Carroll, Yung Ho Chang,Jeffrey W. Cody, Kerry Sizheng Fan, Fu Chao-Ching, Gu Daqing, Seng Kuan,Delin Lai, Xing Ruan, Joseph Rykwert, Nancy S. Steinhardt, David VanZanten, Rudolf Wagner, Zhang Jie, Zhao Chen.

Constructing a Place of Critical Architecture in China

Constructing a Place of Critical Architecture in China
Author: Guanghui Ding
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2016-03-09
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1317161599

For the past 30 years, The Chinese journal Time + Architecture (Shidai Jianzhu) has focused on publishing innovative and exploratory work by emerging architects based in private design firms who were committed to new material, theoretical and pedagogical practices. In doing so, this book argues that the journal has engaged in the presentation and production of a particular form of critical architecture - described as an ’intermediate criticality’ - as a response to the particular constraints of the Chinese cultural and political context. The journal’s publications displayed a ’dual critique’ - a resistant attitude to the dominant modes of commercial building practice, characterised by rapid and large-scale urban expansion, and an alternative publishing practice focusing on emerging, independent architectural practitioners through the active integration of theoretical debates, architectural projects, and criticisms. This dual critique is illustrated through a careful review and analysis of the history and programme of the journal. By showing how the work of emerging architects, including Yung Ho Chang, Wang Shu, Liu Jiakun and Urbanus, are situated within the context of the journal’s special thematic editions on experimental architecture, exhibition, group design, new urban space and professional system, the book assesses the contribution the journal has made to the emergence of a critical architecture in China, in the context of how it was articulated, debated, presented and perhaps even ’produced’ within the pages of the publication itself. The protagonists of critical architecture have endeavoured to construct an alternative mode of form and space with strong aesthetic and socio-political implications to the predominant production of architecture under the current Chinese socialist market economy. To rebel against certain forms of domination and suppression by capital and power is by no means to completely reject them; rather, it is to use thos

Geo-Space Urban Design

Geo-Space Urban Design
Author: Gideon S. Golany
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 412
Release: 1996-09-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780471162520

Visit any large metropolitan area in the world, and you'll feel theurgent need for innovative solutions to the many problems that facethe modern urban center. Geo-Space Urban Design offers a revolutionary proposal that willlead future urban growth quite literally in a differentdirection--down. Gideon Golany and Toshio Ojima clearly demonstratethat subsurface urban expansion is not only practical and feasible,but also that it can reverse many of the negative effects normallyassociated with urban expansion. They present a comprehensive andsystematic plan for developing underground spaces fortransportation, delivery systems, infrastructure, residences,shopping and commercial spaces, and social and cultural activities.The authors focus on integrating geo-space with existingabove-ground structures and offer well-illustrated examples ofspecific design theories and methods. They also anticipate avariety of contingent issues, such as land ownership, legal rights,and psychological adjustment to underground living andworking. Three case studies of Japanese projects that use underground spacefor shopping, transportation, and infrastructure explore the entirespectrum of issues surrounding the design, construction, andongoing operation of the facility, including form, function, andefficiency; health, safety, and comfort; legal issues; and specialmanagement and security considerations. Geo-space projects inMontreal and Paris are also examined. Geo-Space Urban Design appeals to a broad range of professionals,all of whom have important roles to play in the creation andoperation of the cities of the future. For urban designers,architects, and civil and architectural engineers, this book offersboth an eye-opening vision and a challenge to create viable spacesthat will revolutionize urban life; landscape architects,geographers, and environmentalists will find opportunities toredefine the relationship between society and the natural world;and psychologists, social scientists, and government officials willdiscover new levels of human adaptability, interaction, andcooperation. In this revolutionary book, two leading figures explain howgeo-space design and construction will enable urban planners tocope with the most difficult challenges posed by the continuedexpansion of metropolitan areas, including * Land preservation--conserving precious agricultural land in theface of rapid urban expansion * High urban land prices--making economical use of limited space inurban centers with soaring property values * Efficient urban scale--shrinking overextended and inefficientutility networks * Response to stressful climate--reducing energy consumption inregions subject to extremes of hot or cold weather The authors explore every facet of geo-space and point out thechallenges and opportunities these projects will hold for urbandesigners, architects, civil engineers, architectural engineers,landscape architects, geographers, environmentalists,psychologists, social scientists, and government officials.