Building a Chinese Vernacular Architecture Bibliography

Posted by Wencheng Yan on Sep 28th, 2007

I’m currently putting together a bibliography on Chinese vernacular architecture, in Chinese and English, since I don’t read another language. While there seems to be a lot of books available in China about Chinese vernacular architecture: the ubiquitous travel guides about “famous” villages and towns, which have been isolated in geography and whose architecture has been “frozen” in time until very recently when the first wave - and then, wave after wave after that - of tourists started swarming, tramping and trashing every corner of the country; the lightweight “cultural /historic/architectural heritage” series (fast-food versions of knowledge acquisition, as seen befitting the current “modern” world and its “modern” pace of life) on xiangtu jianzhu /乡土建筑 (vernacular/folk architecture) and minju jianzhu /民居建筑 (residential architecture), occupy the most conspicuous space of every bookstore, there is only a small amount of scholarly work dealing with Chinese vernacular architecture seriously and insightfully. My bibliography will be highly selective, very eclectic, and far from complete, though I will try my very best to keep it updated. My intention is to get a closer look at what’s out there that’s helpful in researching Chinese vernacular architecture. Any omission of anything significant is most likely due to the fact that my studies have not yet taken me there.

2 Responses

  1. Robin Coleman Says:

    hi, you might want to check out Open Hearts Open Doors. It is about preserving China’s historical architecture.

    You can find it at
    http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu

    Beautiful photos on this page.

    Thanks

  2. Wencheng Yan Says:

    Hi,

    Thank you very much for your suggestion! It seems a very helpful book, and I’ll certainly check it out!

    Wencheng

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