Chinese Vernacular Architecture

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

中国历史文化名城保护网/ Historic Cities of China
http://www.mingcheng.org/chinese/jiaoliu/index.html

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 China’s tradition in art in his 1995 act of dropping a Han Dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE) urn and breaking it. An article calls this performance “an iconoclastic act”. Ai was quoted as saying that this gesture is “powerful only because someone thinks it’s powerful and invests value in the object.” (Check Visualarts, Cornell for the image and the article and also Artzinechina for a fuller article about the artist in question).

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 Beijing, 2000).

The predecessors of Chinese architecture scholars in China, who usually are also defenders of this millennia-long form of art, have had to combat ignorance about what we call “Chinese architecture”. Now the task is harder and the burden heavier. Prof. Ruan Yisan of Tongji University who works on historic preservation in China, continually talks about the need to “educate the policy-makers”, about the meaning and significance of respecting and preserving traditional architecture. But it seems that the existence of Chinese architecture at present is a complicated issue involving a power struggle between a), greedy and powerful real estate developers, contractors and expropriators, corrupt government officials, the so-called master architects and architectural firms who care more about garnering money and fame than anything else, b), responsible individuals who appreciate the historic, cultural, scientific and aesthetic values of these ancient structures. Guess who loses in this struggle?! It might be an achievable goal to “educate the policy-makers”, to make laws and regulations and to even execute them in China. But how do we defend the Chinese architectural heritage against the darkest human nature of vanity, greed and vulgarity?

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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.

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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, Beijing: Jian zhu gong cheng chu ban she, 1957. 北京, 建築工程出版社, 1957.

Liu, Dunzhen, 1896- 劉敦楨, 1896- Liu Dunzhen wen ji. 劉敦楨文集. Beijing: Zhongguo jian zhu gong ye chu ban she, 1982- 北京: 中國建筑工业出版社, 1982-

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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!

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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.

I was back in Beijing for about six weeks this summer, and things were getting worse. Whole neighborhoods of hutongs (traditional Beijing alleyways) are still being demolished, ancient residences gone, while new building projects are under way. Below are some pictures I took outside of the Qianmen area (almost right in the heart of old Beijing, see map below), where Dajiang Hutong and Xianyukou Hutong are being destroyed. The irony about the destruction is that the developers, while doing away with these ancient alleyways, put up photos and (prints of) paintings of the old hutongs and residences as they were and are supposed to be, on the billboards that they erected to cover up what’s going on behind them.

A sign indicating the name of the hutong (Dajiang Hutong) with guards petrolling and stopping visitors from going into the hutongs.

And this is what’s behind the billboards.

Another ancient alleyway, Xianyukou Hutong, is suffering the same fate.

Below is a map that shows where Qianmen (the Front Gate) area is in Beijing. Xianyukou Hutong is shown as Xianyukou St, just a little south of the Gate:

In his preservation work on the city of Suzhou, Professor Ruan sets out by providing a historic contextualization of the city, by examining its current economic, political, and social status, and the character of the city as determined by its historic and cultural significance in relation to its architectural heritage. In this case, the canal network, particularly the canals, bridges, walkways and residences are crucial.

The first significant step that Ruan took in his preservation effort was to divide the city into fifty-four neighborhoods roughly according to the physical location and administrative authority of the locality; he sets up a comprehensive computer database for them; he then studies each neighborhood and approaches them differently according to their specific character. His conservation plan includes everything from a guiding working principle, to a reconfiguration of the use of land, to strict guidelines for the height of new developments within the city, and improvement of such elements as infrastructure.

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The city of Suzhou has a history stretching back more than 2,500 years, serving as the capital city of the Wu Kingdom as early as the Spring and Autumn Period (722- 481 B.C.E.) in 514 B.C.E. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Lake Tai in the province of Jiangsu, China. The city has enjoyed an economic prosperity and social prominence, as evidenced by the popular Chinese saying that “In heaven, there is paradise. On earth, there are Suzhou and Hangzhou.”

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This series of posts are taken from a paper I wrote earlier this year about the practical aspect of historic preservation of Chinese vernacular architecture. It takes the city of Suzhou as a case study, and focuses specifically on Professor Ruan Yisan’s work on the city.

Ruan Yisan (b. 1934) is former Professor of Urban Planning & Design with the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at Tongji University of Shanghai, and Director of the National Research Center for Historic Cities of China. He is renowned for his preservation work throughout China on ancient cities such as Pingyao, Suzhou, and historic water towns on the Yangtze River region, all of which mentioned here are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. For more information on Professor Ruan and his work, see online sources on conservation of historic and cultural cities of China at http://www.mingcheng.org/chinese/rys/index.html and The 2004 Almanac of China’s World Heritage Sites. Through examining Ruan’s approaches and methods, I try to formulate an applicable general principle for studies on Chinese vernacular architecture, from a historic preservation point of view as is characteristic of Professor Ruan’s work.

The city of Suzhou serves as a perfect example of studies on Chinese vernacular architecture for two reasons. First, it is a city famous for its architectural heritage. Second, the awareness of this heritage and its cultural, historic, social and economic value among the various levels of government, residents, scholars, and others interested in the conservation and regeneration of the ancient city in the face of China’s unprecedented “modernization” process is considerably high and their achievements thus far unparalleled elsewhere in China.