China's Old DwellingsChina's Old Dwellings is the most comprehensive critical examination of China's folk architectural forms in any language. It and its companion volume, China's Living Houses: Folk Beliefs, Symbols, and Household Ornamentation (UH Press, 1999), together form a landmark study of the environmental, historical, and social factors that influence housing forms for nearly a quarter of the world's population. Both books draw on the author's thirty years of fieldwork and extensive travel in China as well as published and unpublished material in many languages. China's Old Dwellings begins by tracing the interest in Chinese vernacular buildings in the twentieth century. Early chapters detail common and distinctive spatial components, including the interior and exterior modular spaces that are axiomatic components of most Chinese dwellings as well as conventional structural components and building materials common in Chinese construction. Later chapters examine representative housing types in the three broad cultural realms--northern, southern, and western--into which China has been divided. Knapp completes his survey with an exploration of China's old dwellings in the context of the rapid economic and social changes that are destroying so many of them. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 5 | |
| 7 | |
SPACES AND STRUCTURES | 19 |
Composing Space | 21 |
Building Structures | 71 |
PLACES AND REGIONS | 165 |
Dwellings in Northern China | 167 |
Dwellings in Southern China | 221 |
Dwellings in Western China | 297 |
EPILOGUE | 323 |
The Future of Chinas Past | 325 |
| 333 | |
| 355 | |
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | 363 |
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Common terms and phrases
adjacent adobe brick Anhui areas bamboo beams Beijing building built central Chinese architecture chuandou chuantong complex construction courtyard culture dayuan door dynasty eaves entry exterior fired brick floor frame Fujian gable ganlan gate Guangdong Guangxi Hakka hall Han dynasty Henan heyuan Hong Kong houses Huizhou interior jian Jiangxi jianzhu gongye chubanshe kang Kazak meters Ming minju Mongol Naxi northern Original photograph ornamentation overhang panels pillars province purlins Qing Qing dynasty rectangular region RGK photograph 1987 roof rooms rural sanheyuan seen in Figure Shanxi shape Sichuan side siheyuan single-story skywell slopes soil Source southern China space stone struc structures tailiang Taiwan tamped earth walls throughout tianjing Tibetan tiles timber tion traditional tulou ture types veranda vernacular architecture vernacular dwellings villages Wang wenhua western wooden xian xiang Xinjiang yaodong Yunnan yurts Zhang Zhejiang Zhongguo jianzhu gongye