I had this video playing in my sidebar for a while, but I’ve decided to start embedding videos directly into my posts so that they are easier to view and so that I can add more dynamic content.
Certainly Zhu Xie also included some photographs in his book, but it was the maps that were equally important, if not more so, than the textual verifications of the palace buildings, since he regarded the lack of maps thereof to be a common problem in early sources of palatial architecture. He based his maps on two primary textual sources: one major and one minor. The major source was Xiao Xun’s text, because as Zhu reasoned, “it was a record of field investigations,” [25] providing an experiential framework for his work; the minor source was Chuo Geng Lu, a late Yuan dynasty compilation of essays on various aspects of the Yuan society, with a section on its palatial buildings, which would provide, according to Zhu, “a contemporaneous framework of reference.” [26] Therefore Zhu’s method of working through Xiao’s text was very similar to that adopted by the authors of Clarifications of the Old Stories; in his own words, his maps “were based on primary materials, compromising various sources to create detailed [visual] verifications [of the Yuan palaces].” [27]
Zhu Xie also acknowledged the occasional inaccuracy of Xiao’s account. Here he copied, word for word, the text from the earlier Clarifications on Xiao’s mistakes, although without acknowledgement. He went further; when he copied also the reasons for Xiao’s inaccuracy, he did not entertain the speculative nature of the earlier editors. For Zhu Xie, it was simply a matter of fact that “When Xiao was dismantling the Yuan palaces, what he saw was only from a quick glance at thousands of doors and gates inside the compound. It is only natural that he would have been mistaken at times.” [28]
Other than the textual sources on which Zhu Xie based the creation of his maps, he also relied on earlier visual materials. One of these was a map from 1908 called Detailed Map of Beijing. He superimposed his map of the Yuan palaces on that map depicting Beijing of a much later time (Fig. 1). Another base for his visual work was one of Zhu Qiqian’s maps, although not without corrections to it. Although Zhu Xie criticized Zhu Qiqian for constructing his maps from descriptions of Chuo Geng Lu, whose account of the palaces “provided only individual dimensions, and not spatial distances,” and thus coming up with maps that were largely results of “estimation,” [29] Zhu Xie’s maps themselves were plagued and compromised in the same way. One of the most palpable examples is his map of the palaces western of the lakes, namely, the Xingsheng, Longfu Palaces and the Western Imperial Resort. He encountered the same problem here: “[These] three places have only individual dimensions, without spatial distances [between buildings]. And since there are 172 bays of the wu around the Yanchun Pavilion as there are around the Longfu Palace, I am taking it tentatively as that these two palaces are of equal size, and the rest of the palaces are estimated and mapped accordingly.” [30] (Fig. 2)
Inside the southern Lizhengmen Gate is called A Thousand Steps Corridor, which is about 700 steps. [1] [There is] a Lingxingmen Gate with screen walls. [The walls are] about 20 li in circumference. The locals call them the Hongmen Lanma Wall. About dozens of (another version says twenty) steps inside the gate is a river. Three white stone bridges, called Zhouqiao Bridges, are built on the river, with carvings of dragons and phoenixes and auspicious clouds, as bright as jade. Underneath the bridges are four white stone dragons projecting from the water, quite a splendid scene.
This is how a brief text, merely four to five pages long, on the palace complex of the fallen Yuan dynasty (1271 – 1368) was started by its author Xiao Xun, an official from the succeeding Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644), at the end of the fourteenth century. Entitled (Yuan) Gugong Yi Lu [Relics of the Former (Yuan) Palace], [2] this text would be considered by subsequent scholars of palatial buildings, or more generally, historic architecture from the Yuan period, and other related aspects of the Yuan dynasty, as one of the most valuable and reliable primary sources on their specific subject. Although during the long five to six centuries after the text first appeared in print,[3] there has been continuous suspicion expressed about the accuracy of it, the text nevertheless has – even to this day – been quoted and referenced over and over again, with the few occasional deviations seeming to buttress its relevance and validity just the same. My essay thus examines the process and means through which this particular text, Relics of the Yuan Palace, has been constructed into a reliable and valuable historic source on the Yuan palaces. I will pay close attention not only to the original text itself, but also, and more importantly, to subsequent citing and referencing, sometimes straight-forward copying (although not always with acknowledgment), more often editing and rewriting of the original. I intend to trace the development of the narrative as it goes through various interpretations, particularly in the more influential discourse. Through this peculiar example, I will argue that historic narratives, however ambiguous their origins and value might have been, gradually but steadily gain validity and credibility in time through the simple act of narrating, repeating and rewriting.
Xiao Xun’s account was presumed to have been written (though there was no exact indication of the time when it was written or first published in his own text) during the very first years of the Ming dynasty. One particularly curious aspect surrounding this account is the situation under which Xiao’s visit to or writing of the Yuan palace compound occurred. Just as shown at the beginning of this essay, Xiao Xun himself did not leave any note about the occasion, time, length or purpose of his visit to the Yuan palace. In fact, he never stated explicitly that he did in fact visit the palace. The only information we have on the circumstance of his “visit” comes from two prefaces which were added subsequently to the original text, one from the later period of the first Ming emperor Hongwu’s reign (1368 – 1398), in the year 1396; the other from much later, in 1616. Both prefaces stated that Xiao was able to visit the Yuan palace because he was an official of the Ministry of Works (Gong Bu) and was involved in the “destruction” of the Yuan capital/ palace.
Bibliographies in Print
陈春生/ Chen Chunsheng. 中国古建筑文献指南 1900-1990/ Sources on Traditional Chinese Architecture 1900 – 1990. 北京: 科学出版社, 2000.
Vance, Mary A. Gardens of China: books in English. Monticello, Ill.: Vance Bibliographies, 1980.
—-, Chinoiseries: a bibliography. Monticello, Ill.: Vance Bibliographies, [1985]
Doumato, Lamia. Chinese architecture: a bibliography. Monticello, Ill.: Vance Bibliographies, [1985]
Online Sources
China’s Vernacular Architecture: Ronald Knapp’s website
http://www2.newpaltz.edu/~knappr/
中国民族建筑网/ National Architecture Institute of China
http://naic.21cnbiz.com/journal.asp
A Selected Bibliography of Traditional Chinese Architecture by Jerome Silbergeld, Cary Liu, Nancy Steinhardt, Wei Yang (2004)
http://tang.princeton.edu/ChineseArchitecture2004.pdf
Smithsonian Art of China: Architecture and Landscape Architecture/Gardens
http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/freersac/chinarct.htm#Architecture
Jens Aaberg-Jørgensen’s website on China Dwelling: Links and Sources
http://www.chinadwelling.dk/
Tsinghua University library catalog
http://innopac.lib.tsinghua.edu.cn/search*eng/Y
Ai Weiwei, a contemporary Chinese artist, was widely reported to “literally” destroy
The article continues: “The urn is valuable only because the arbiters of taste and the art market have determined that this is so. In recording the act of its destruction, the meaning and value of the urn is transformed and co–opted into a contemporary, editioned art work that subverts and disrupts the prevailing value system to which it previously belonged.”
I am only highly suspicious of this kind of act towards their ends – whatever they are – because it rings so alarmingly similar to the rationale to destroy ancient architecture in 1950s’ Beijing (back to my topic of course). “When they decided to dismantle and demolish the city’s menlous (gate/ entrance towers) and pailous (ceremonial archways) in the 1950s, the government would gather the public in front of these structures to ‘denounce them for their evils’” (Fang, Ke. Contemporary Redevelopment in the Inner City of
The predecessors of Chinese architecture scholars in
Luo, Zhewen. Luo Zhewen lishi wenhua mingcheng yu gujianzhu baohu wenji/ 罗哲文历史文化名城与古建筑保护文集 [Essays on Preservation of Historic Cities and Ancient Architecture]
Fang, Ke. Contemporary Redevelopment in the Inner City of Beijing: Survey, Analysis and Investigation, Beijing: Zhongguo jianzhu gongye chubanshe, 2000.
Wu, Liangyong. Rehabilitating the Old City of Beijing: a Project in the Ju’er Hutong Neighborhood, Vancouver: UBC Press, 1999.
Wang, Jun. Cheng Ji/城记 [Tale of the City], Beijing: Shenghuo dushu xinzhi sanlian shudian, 2003. Continue Reading »
中国美术分类全集•中国建筑艺术全集 (以下四册) [Complete Categories of Chinese Art • Art of Chinese Architecture] (with the following four volumes)
侯幼彬 . 宅第建筑（一）（北方汉族）北京：中国建筑工业出版社. 1999. ISBN: 7-112-03803-0
陆元鼎. 宅第建筑（二）（南方汉族）北京：中国建筑工业出版社. 1999. ISBN: 7-112-03804-9
杨谷生. 宅第建筑（三）（北方少数民族）北京：中国建筑工业出版社. 2003. ISBN: 7-112-04793-5
王翠兰. 宅第建筑（四）（南方少数民族）北京：中国建筑工业出版社. 1999. ISBN: 7-112-03805-7
中国美术全集•建筑艺术编（袖珍本）: 民居建筑 [Complete Works of Chinese Art• Art of Architecture: Vernacular Architecture (pocket edition)] 北京: 中国建筑工业出版社, 2004. ISBN: 7-112-06873-8
中国美术全集•建筑艺术编: 民居建筑 [Complete Works of Chinese Art • Art of Architecture: Vernacular Architecture] 著译者：陆元鼎等 [ed. Lu Yuanding et. al] 北京：中国建筑工业出版社，1988. ISBN：7-112-00498-5
中国美术分类全集•中国建筑艺术全集: 古代城镇 [Complete Categories of Chinese Art• Art of Chinese Architecture: Ancient Cities and Towns] 著译者: 汤道烈等 [ed. Tang Daolie et. al] 北京：中国建筑工业出版社，2003. ISBN: 7-112-04789-7
Liu, Dunzhen, 1896- 劉敦楨, 1896- Zhongguo zhu zhai gai shuo = 中國住宅槪說,
Liu, Dunzhen, 1896- 劉敦楨, 1896- Liu Dunzhen wen ji. 劉敦楨文集.
Here is the second part of my bibliography: general Chinese architecture:
梁思成全集（共九卷，中国建筑工业出版社2001年4月版)[Complete Works of Liang Sicheng: Nine Volumes, Beijing: Zhongguo jian zhu gong ye chu ban she, 2001.] ISBN: 7112044251; 711204426X; 7112044278; 7112044286; 7112044294; 7112044308; 7112044316; 7112044324; 7112044332.
Liang, Sicheng (Liang Ssu-ch’eng) (1901 – 1972). A Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture: a Study of the Development of its Structural System and the Evolution of its Types, ed. Wilma Fairbank.
I could compare the two ways in which we think in Chinese and in English as “zooming in” and “zooming out” respectively. By these I mean the Chinese, myself as an example, are used to thinking in general terms, choosing a broad context to start our writing; whereas thinking in English resembles more closely a process of “zooming out”. I was made acutely aware of the difference in these two think patterns when many friends from an English writing class told me to “start with an object”, something that is more concrete and tangible to work with as a start. Another parallel example that reflects, or that is the product of the think patterns in these two languages would be how we write our addresses: in Chinese we start with the broadest context: the country, the province/area, the city and district, the street # and then the house/room #; while in English we do the opposite. I wonder if anyone else whose first language is not English has had similar experience.
What follows is far from being a completed bibliography, content- or style-wise. But I’m getting increasingly anxious to share whatever I have gathered so far with everyone. Please forgive me for (especially) the sloppy style; I found most of these titles online, and they come in all sort of styles. As for the content, I can not even imagine how many more significant works out there that’s not yet in these lists, but I’ll do my best to update them as frequently as I can. Please leave notes/make suggestions about my omissions or any other aspects of these lists. I appreciate any help you can offer; and many thanks in advance!
