Reconstituting Chinese building tradition: The Yingzao fashi in the early twentieth century

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians

Volumn 62, Issue 4, 2003, Pages

  Li, Shiqiao ^a  

^a NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE   (Singapore)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33746033086     PISSN: 00379808     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3592498     Document Type: Review

References (96)

1. The development of Shanghai, one of the most prominent treaty portcities, is discussed in Wu Jiang, Shanghai bainian jianzhushi, 1840-1949(History of Shanghai architecture, 1840-1949) (Shanghai, 1997).
2. For a discussion of the broader context, see Peter G. Rowe and Seng Kuan, Architectural Encounters with Essence and Form in Modern China (Cambridge, Mass., 2002);
3. John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China, A New History (Cambridge, Mass., 1998);
4. Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York and London, 1990).
5. Ruan Xing, "Accidental Affinities, American Beaux-Arts in Twentieth-century Chinese Architectural Education and Practice, " JSAH 61(Mar. 2002), 30-47.
6. This portrayal of architectural education must be seen within the contextof abrupt change in academic life in China, which is highlighted in Wen-hsin Yeh, The Alienated Academy: Culture and Politics in Republican China, 1919-1937(Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1990).
7. Jeff W. Cody, Building in China: Henry K. Murphy's "Adaptive Architecture, " 1914-1935 (Hong Kong, 2001).
8. Joseph R. Levenson, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the Mind of Modern China(Cambridge, Mass., 1953).
9. Liang Sicheng, preface to Yingzao fashi zhushi (Annotations of the Yingzao fashi) (Beijing, 1983), 5-12;
10. Else Glahn, "Unfolding the Chinese Building Standards: Research onthe Yingzao fashi, " in Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, ed., Traditional Chinese Architecture (New York, 1984), 48-57;
11. Guo Qinghua, "Yingzao Fashi: Twelfth-Century Chinese Building.Manual, " Architectural History 41 (1998), 1-13.
12. Fairbank and Goldman, China, A New History, 88-95.
13. For accounts of Song-dynasty urban life, see Heng Chye Kiang, "The Song Cityscape, " in Heng, Cities of Aristocrats and Bureaucrats: The Development of Medieval Chinese Cityscapes (Singapore, 1999), 117-82;
14. Jacques Gernet, Daily Life in China at the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250-1276, trans. H. M. Wright (London, 1962).
15. Nancy S. Steinhardt, ed., Chinese Architecture (New Haven and London;Beijing, 2002), 187-89.
16. Zhu Qiqian had little hope for positive results from this negotiation, ashe confided to a close friend just before he left Beijing for Shanghai. Thecenter of Chinese politics at the time was in neither of those cities, but in Versailles, where a political settlement was being hammered out at the end of World War I which would determine the future of the German territories in China.See Peng Ming, ed., Zhongguo xiandaishi ziliao xuanji (Selected documents of Chinese modern history), vol. 1 (Beijing, 1987), 114.
17. Christoph Harbsmeier and Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, vol. 7, pt. 1 (Cambridge, England, 1998).
18. An architectural curriculum based on the Japanese model was added whenthe Qing court tried to revive the college in 1902. Xu Subin, "Zhongguojianzhu jiaoyu de yuandian" (The origin of Chinese architecturaleducation), in Zhang Fuhe, ed., Zhongguo jindai jianzhu yanjiu yu baohu(Research and conservation of modern Chinese architecture) (Beijing, 1999), vol.1, 207-20.
19. Liang Qichao, "Ouyou xinying lu" (Impressions of travels in Europe), in Liang Qichao quanji (Complete works of Liang Qichao), 10 vols.(Beijing, 1999), 2968-3048.
20. Zhu Qiqian, "Inaugral [sic] Address, The Society for the Research in Chinese Architecture, February 16, 1930, " Bulletin of the Society for the Research in Chinese Architecture 1 (1930), 1.
21. Torsten Warner, German Architecture in China: Architectural Transfer(Berlin, 1994), 156-66.
22. Zhu Wenji and Zhu Wenkai, "Mianhuai xianzu Zhu Qiqian" (Commemorating our ancestor Zhu Qiqian), in Ye Zutu et al., Huogong jishi(Annals of Zhu Qiqian) (Beijing, 1991), 50-56.
23. Warner, German Architecture in China, 164-65.
24. Cody, Building in China, 34-85 (see n. 3).
25. Harry Hussey, My Pleasures and Palaces: An Informal Memoir of Forty Yearsin Modern China (New York, 1968), 229.
26. Yang Bingtian, "Zhu Qiqian yu gongyihui kaifa Beidaihe haibin"(Zhu Qiqian, the Society for the Common Good, and the development of Beidaihe), in Ye, Huogong jishi, 104.
27. Ye, Huogong jishi, 127.
28. Zhu, "Inaugral [sic] Address, " 1.
29. Boerschmann joined Zhu's Society for Research in Chinese Architecture in1932; see Lin Zhu, Koukai Lu Ban de damen - Zhongguo yingzao xueshe shiliie(Opening the gate of Lu Ban - a brief history of the Society for Research in Chinese Architecture) (Beijing, 1995), 129.
30. Ernst Boerschmann, Die Baukunst und Religiöse Kultur der Chinesen, 2vols. (Berlin, 1911, 1914).
31. On the Meiji Restoration, see Donald Keene, Emperor of Japan, Meiji and His World, 1852-1912 (New York, 2002).
32. See Rowe and Seng, Architectural Encounters (see n. 1).
33. Spence, The Search for Modern China, 179 (see n. 1).
34. Zheng Guanying, "Shengshi weiyan, " in Xia Dongyuan, ed., Zheng Guanying ji (Collected writings of Zheng Guanying) (Shanghai, 1982).
35. He was credited with building the Zhongxing coal mine in Shandongprovince, from 1916 to 1937, into the third largest coal mine in China. See Wang Zuoxian and Chang Wenhan, "Zhu Qiqian yu Zhongxing meikuang gongsi"(Zhu Qiqian and the Zhongxing Mining Company), in Ye, Huogong jishi, 151-56.
36. Xu Jilin and Chen Dakai, eds., Zhongguo xiandaihua shi (History ofmodernization in China) (Shanghai, 1995), 187.
37. Yang Yang, Shangwu yinshuguan: minjian chubanye de xingshuai (The Commercial Press: The rise and fall of private publishing) (Shanghai, 2000).
38. Zhu Qiqian, preface to Tao Xiang, ed., Li Mingzhong Yingzao fashi (The Yingzao Fashi by Li Mingzhong), 8 vols. (n. p., 1925).
39. For instance, Hussey consulted Zhu many times on details of Chinesearchitecture, sources of labor, and sourcing of traditional building materialssuch as the glazed roof tiles for Peking Union Medical College. Zhu, in turn, had a high regard for Hussey's work. See Hussey, My Pleasures and Palaces, 229, 238 (seen. 18).
40. Ren Jiyu, ed., Zhongguo cangshulou (Book collections in China), 3 vols.(Shenyang, 2001), 85-92.
41. Li Zhizhong, Gushu banbenxue gailun (Outline of the study of antiquebooks) (Beijing, 1990), 14.
42. Ren, Zhongguo cangshulou, 150-65.
43. It is also worth noting that meaningful academic debate betweenrepresentatives of different "lineages" of scholarship was difficultbecause of the element of Confucian filial piety. Yeh, The Alienated Academy, 22-48 (see n. 2).
44. Liang Qichao, "Qingdai xueshu gailun" (Outline of Qingscholarship), in Liang Qichao quanji, 3066-109.
45. Ren, Zhongguo cangshulou, 1700-1708.
46. Lin, Koukai Lu Ban de damen, 139 (see n. 24).
47. The research process is recounted in the postscript to the 1925 edition, abridged and trans. in Perceval Yetts, "A Chinese Treatise on Architecture, " Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies 4 (1926-28), 473-92.
48. For more details on the editions, see Paul Demiéville, "Che-yin Song Li Ming-tchong Ying tsao fa che, " Bulletin del'École Française d'Extrême-Orient (1925),
49. repr. with a Chinese translation in Bulletin of the Society for Researchin Chinese Architecture 2 (1931);
50. Yetts, "A Chinese Treatise on Architecture", 473-92;
51. Tao Xiang, "Shiyu" (Editor's notes), Li Mingzhong Yingzao fashi8 (see n. 35).
52. Demiéville, "Che-yin Song Li Ming-tchong Ying tsao fache."
53. Arnold Silcock, review of Bulletin of the Society for the Research in Chinese Architecture, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies 6 (1928-30), 253.
54. Chu Ch'i-ch'ien and G. T. Yeh, "Architecture: A Brief Historical Account Based on the Evolution of the City of Peiping, " in Sophia H. Chen Zen, ed., Symposium on Chinese Culture (New York, 1969), 97-117; originallypublished by Institute of Pacific Relations (Hangchow and Shanghai, 1931).
55. On the Institute of Pacific Relations, see John N. Thomas, The Instituteof Pacific Relations: Asian Scholars and American Politics (Seattle and London, 1974);
56. Tomoko Akami, Internationalizing the Pacific: The United States, Japan and the Institute of Pacific Relations in War and Peace, 1919-45 (Londonand New York, 2002).
57. These publications were Liu's "Fojiao duiyu Zhongguo jianzhu zhiyingxiang" (Buddhist influence in Chinese architecture), Kexue (Science) 13(1928
58. All were reprinted, with changes made by the editors, in Liu Dunzhen, Liu Dunzhen wenji (Collected writings of Liu Dunzhen), 2 vols. (Beijing, 1982).
59. For Liang Qichao's influence on Liang Sicheng, see Li Shiqiao, "Writing a Modern Chinese Architectural History, " Journal of Architectural Education 56 (2002), 35-45.
60. Liang Qichao, Liang Qichao quanji: "Xinshixue" (Newhistoriography), 736-53;
61. "Zhongguo lishi yanjiufa" (The research method for Chinesehistory), 4087-153;
62. "Zhongguo lishi yanjiufa (bupian)" (Compendium to the researchmethod for Chinese history), 4794-880 (see n. 12).
63. Li, "Writing a Modern Chinese Architectural History, " 43.
64. James Fergusson, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture (London, 1876), viii.
65. On Fergusson's influence on Itō Chūta, see Xu Subin, Ribendui Zhongguo chengshi yu jianzhu de yanjiu (The research on Chinese cities andarchitecture in Japan) (Beijing, 1999), 45.
66. On Fergusson and orientalism, see Mark Crinson, Empire Building:Orientalism and Victorian Architecture (London and New York, 1996).
67. Yetts, "A Chinese Treatise on Architecture, " 474 n. 1;
68. Fergusson, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, 688. A section on Japanese architecture was added in later editions of the publication with littlechange to the theoretical framework.
69. Xu, Riben dui Zhongguo chengshi yu jianzhu de yanjiu, 46.
70. The development of Japanese architecture since the Meiji period and thecolonial ambitions of Japanese architects in China are discussed in David B.Stewart, The Making of a Modern Japanese Architecture, 1868 to the Present(Tokyo and New York, 1987);
71. Dallas Finn, Meiji Revisited: The Sites of Victorian Japan (New York, 1995);
72. William H. Coaldrake, Architecture and Authority in Japan (London and New York, 1996), 247-50.
73. Ernst Boerschmann, Chinesische Architecktur (Berlin, 1925);
74. Sirén, The Wall and Gates of Peking (see n. 19).
75. Liang Sicheng, preface to Yingzao fashi zhushi, 8 (see n. 5).
76. For more on the lives of Liang and Lin, see Lin Zhu, Jianzhushi Liang Sicheng (Architect Liang Sicheng) (Tianjin, 1996);
77. Wilma Fairbank, Liang and Lin: Partners in Exploring China's Architectural Past (Philadelphia, 1994).
78. Arthur Drexler, ed., The Architecture of the École des Beaux-Arts(New York, 1977);
79. Robin Middleton, ed., The Beaux-Arts and Nineteenth-Century French Architecture (Cambridge, Mass., 1982
80. Theo B. White, Paul Philippe Cret: Architect and Teacher (Philadelphia, 1973);
81. Elizabeth Greenwell Grossman, The Civic Architecture of Paul Cret(Cambridge, England, 1996).
82. Le Jiazao, Zhongguo jianzhushi (History of Chinese architecture) (1933).
83. For Liang Sicheng's scathing criticism of this work, see Liang Sicheng, Zhongguo jianzhushi (History of Chinese Architecture) (Hong Kong, 2000), 316.
84. The meaning of grammar is explained through the framework of "shapegrammar" by Andrew I-kang Li, "A Shape Grammar for Teaching the Architectural Style of the Yingzao Fashi" (Ph.D. diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2001).
85. Liang Sicheng, Zhongguo jianzhushi;
86. Liang Ssu-ch'eng, A Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture(Cambridge, Mass., 1984).
87. See Liang Sicheng's curriculum vitae of 1947 published in Liang Sicheng, Liang Sicheng quanji (The complete works of Liang Sicheng), 9 vols. (Beijing, 2001), 5: 10.
88. Lin, Jianzhushi Liang Sicheng, 70.
89. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, vol. 4, pt. 3(Cambridge, England, 1971), 60.
90. On the May Fourth Movement, see Vera Schwarcz, The Chinese Enlightenment, Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1986).
91. Fairbank, Liang and Lin, 64 (see n. 66).
92. Gao Xinmin and Zhang Shujun, Yan'an zhengfeng shilu (Documentation of the Yan'an Rectification Campaign) (Hangzhou, 2000), 218-19.
93. Mao Zedong, "Zai Yan'an wenyi zuotanhui shang de jianghua"(Talks at the Yan'an Conference on Literature and Art), in Normal University of Jilin, Wenyi fangzhen zhengce xuexi ziliao (Materials for study in policy ofliterature and art) (Changchun, 1961), 106-34.
94. All kinds of "street culture" appeared, such as street posters, street poems, street novels; the Lu Xun Arts Academy formed a folk dance troupe(yanggedui) with 150 dancers, which traveled and performed over forty shows in Yan'an countryside in 1943. Gao and Zhang, Yan'an zhengfeng shilu, 256-57.
95. See Zhang Yuhuan's note on the context of Liang Sicheng's letter of 19September 1956, in Yang Yongsheng, ed., Jianzhu baijia shuxinji (Letters ofarchitects) (Beijing, 2000), 34-35.
96. Takuichi Takeshima, The Study of the Ying Tsao Fa Shih, Chinese Book of Architectural Technique, 3 vols. (Tokyo, 1970).