Steinhardt, Nancy Shatzman (Author)
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 China’s 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.
...More
Book
Michael Tutton;
(2021)
Construction as Depicted in Western Art: From Antiquity to the Photograph
(/isis/citation/CBB423825577/)
Chapter
Derui Tan;
Xiaoyuan Jiang;
(2021)
Craft in Bronze Kingdom: The Ancient Chinese Casting
(/isis/citation/CBB905386055/)
Article
Boumsoung Kim;
(2017)
Triangular and Metal Standards for Timber Structures:How to Build Earthquake-proof Wooden Houses (or not) in Interwar Japan
(/isis/citation/CBB934615560/)
Book
Jueming Hua;
Lisheng Feng;
(2020)
Thirty Great Inventions of China: From Millet Agriculture to Artemisinin
(/isis/citation/CBB834340105/)
Chapter
Xinian Fu;
Xiaoyuan Jiang;
(2021)
The Architecture in Ancient China
(/isis/citation/CBB092592655/)
Chapter
Michio Yano;
(2016)
Eastern Perspective of the Conference
(/isis/citation/CBB840295299/)
Article
Martin Hofmann;
(2020)
The Research Agenda of Zhu Qiqian: A Reframing of Traditional Chinese Craftsmanship
(/isis/citation/CBB815211704/)
Chapter
Dagmar Schäfer;
(2017)
Knowledge by Design—Architecture and Jade Models During the Qianlong 乾隆 Reign (1735–1796)
(/isis/citation/CBB719188989/)
Article
Satofuka, Fumihiko;
(2006)
Science, War, and Colonization in East Asia: An Introduction
(/isis/citation/CBB000670115/)
Article
Eyferth, Jacob;
(2010)
Craft Knowledge at the Interface of Written and Oral Cultures
(/isis/citation/CBB001034995/)
Book
Yung-ti Li;
(2021)
Kingly Crafts: The Archaeology of Craft Production in Late Shang China
(/isis/citation/CBB797678613/)
Book
Hui Zou;
(2011)
A Jesuit Garden in Beijing and Early Modern Chinese Culture
(/isis/citation/CBB337173118/)
Book
Musgrove, Charles D.;
(2013)
China's Contested Capital: Architecture, Ritual, and Response in Nanjing
(/isis/citation/CBB001451922/)
Book
Jiren Feng;
(2012)
Chinese Architecture and Metaphor: Song Culture in the Yingzao Fashi Building Manual
(/isis/citation/CBB148044905/)
Book
Dudley, Leonard;
(2012)
Mothers of Innovation: How Expanding Social Networks Gave Birth to the Industrial Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB001201315/)
Book
Schäfer, Dagmar;
(2012)
Cultures of Knowledge: Technology in Chinese History
(/isis/citation/CBB001213369/)
Book
Bork, Robert Odell;
(2011)
The Geometry of Creation: Architectural Drawing and the Dynamics of Gothic Design
(/isis/citation/CBB001252995/)
Thesis
Useche, Oscar Ivan;
(2014)
Beyond the Material: Energy, Work and Movement in the Cultural Imagination of Restoration Spain
(/isis/citation/CBB001567646/)
Article
M. R. Singh;
Rajendra Yadav;
(2021)
Microstructural analysis and characterization of lime mortar of seventeenth century Raigad hill fort from western India
(/isis/citation/CBB036070424/)
Book
Slaton, Amy;
(2001)
Reinforced Concrete and the Modernization of American Building, 1900--1930
(/isis/citation/CBB000650211/)
Be the first to comment!