Ancient Chinese Architecture (3)

The most popular method of construction was the banzhu ( plank building ) technique, in which the earth was tamped between vertical planks with poles, because it was inexpensive and provided good protection against the piercing cold of the North China winter.

Because the Chinese in ancient times built chiefly with timber and rammed earth, the term tumu ( earth and wood ) gradually became synonymous with architecture of civil engineering, and has been in common use ever since.

With the appearance of a class society, the concept of social stratum became gradually embedded in people’s thinking, as is manifested in almost every element of ancient architecture from the terrace on which a building stands to roof styles and paintings.

According to Chinese conventional belief, the terrace not only protected the building from ground moisture, but also more importantly, represented the supporting earth. Its design depended on the type of building that was to be built. The height of the terrace was determined by the rank of the structure within a building complex. Generally speaking, terraces fell into four ranks. The grandest type made of tiers of marble enclosed by marble balustrades can be found in imperial palaces and temples for buildings of the highest rank, for example, the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City in Beijing and the Hall of Da Cheng in the Confucian temple in Qufu, Shandong Province. The simplest terrace made of packed earth or a mixture of lime, earth, or other materials, coated with bricks is mostly for simple buildings.

The size of a building on a terrace shows the social status of its occupant. Normally, a building consisted of a number of bays. The number of bays is odd because one bay was laid out on the middle axis. The more bays a building had, the higher rank the occupant enjoyed. Generally speaking, for the size of a palatial hall, there were nine bays in the front and five on the side. In the Qing Dynasty, the expansion from nine to eleven bays shown in the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City and the Hall of Imperial Ancestors in today’s Working People’s Cultural Palace further flaunted the power and prestige of the emperors. In both the Ming and Qing dynasties, strict regulations were set for the size of main halls in residential building complexes for people of different social strata. For example, in the Ming Dynasty (1368- 1644), dukes and officials from the third to the fifth grade were entitled to build in the residential courtyard a main hall with three bays, officials from the sixth to ninth grade a main hall with seven bays, ordinary people a mai chamber with no more than three bays. There were also structures of only one bay, e.g., very simple houses and pavilions.

The bracket system, a component and distinctive feature of timber framework in ancient China, is very special even in world architecture. First appearing in the Shang Dynasty, it was already in common use in the Han Dynasty. The bow-shaped piece which joins the beams is called gong, and the square block beneath it dou. Originally the bracket system was supposed to support the eave and to shift the bulk of the weight to columns and beams. With time, it gradually developed social status. Imperial buildings, temples and villas belonging to high dignitaries had bracket systems between the column zone and the roof; ordinary people were not allowed to have them. Official regulations dictated to what extent this system could be used for particular structures. The size of a bracket system had a lot to do with the number of layers it had. The more layers the system had, the higher rank it represented. For buildings of the same ear, the one with more sets of dougong was superior to the one with fewer sets.