Wannan folk houses: Wannan folk houses refer to the ancient villages located in the mountainous area south of the Yangtze River in Anhui Province, represented by Xidi and Hongcun. They are historical and traditional villages with the same regional and cultural background. Strong Huizhou cultural characteristics.
The mountainous area of ??southern Anhui has a long history and profound cultural heritage, and has preserved a large number of traditional buildings and villages with similar shapes and distinctive features. The ancient villages in southern Anhui are not only cleverly integrated with the topography, landforms, and mountains and rivers, but also coupled with the strong economic strength of Huizhou merchants in the Ming and Qing Dynasties to support their hometown, cultural and educational development has become increasingly prosperous. Those Huizhou merchants returned home with elegance, literature, nobility, and detachment. The mentality of conceiving and building residences makes the cultural environment of the ancient village richer and the village landscape more prominent.
The biggest difference between the ancient villages in southern Anhui and other villages is that the construction and development of ancient villages in southern Anhui have to a considerable extent been independent of agriculture. The consciousness, lifestyle and taste of the residents of ancient villages greatly surpassed the ideology of farmers and the general citizen class, and pursued a life taste consistent with the literati and official classes, so they have a strong cultural flavor. On the basis of the basic stereotypes, the ancient village houses in Wannan adopt different decorative techniques, build small courtyards, dig pools, install leaky windows, skillfully set up bonsais, carve beams and painted pillars, and inscribe orchid plaques to create an elegant living environment, all of which reflect the extremely high values ??of local residents. High cultural quality and artistic accomplishment.
The site selection and construction of ancient villages in southern Anhui follow the Zhouyi Feng Shui theory with a history of more than 2,000 years, which emphasizes the ideal state of the unity of nature and man and full respect for the natural environment. It pays attention to the dual needs of material and spiritual. It has a scientific foundation and a high aesthetic concept. The architectural features of the ancient villages in Wannan were developed with the prosperity of Huizhou merchants during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. They are unique architectural forms that can best reflect the exquisiteness of their conception and superb craftsmanship in a limited building space. Later, Huizhou merchants gradually declined, but the architectural features of this kind of Huizhou folk houses were preserved because they were attached to the ancient folk houses and villages, so they have important historical and architectural value.
Beijing Siheyuan: Since Beijing was officially established as the capital in the Yuan Dynasty and large-scale planning and construction of the capital was planned, Siheyuan has appeared at the same time as Beijing’s palaces, government offices, neighborhoods, lanes and alleys. According to "Analysis of Jin Zhi" written by Xiong Mengxiang in the late Yuan Dynasty: "The system of streets is called longitude from south to north, and latitude from east to west. The main street is twenty-four steps wide, with three hundred and eighty-four fire lanes, two Nineteen Streets. "The so-called "streets" here are what we call hutongs today, and the land between hutongs is for citizens to build residences.
At that time, Kublai Khan, the founder of the Yuan Dynasty, "ordered the old city residents to prioritize those with high status (rich people) and senior officials (serving in the imperial court) first, and ordered eight acres of land. "One point" was given to the officials who moved to Beijing to build residences. This is where the large-scale formation of traditional courtyard houses in Beijing began.
Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, although the courtyard houses in Beijing have gone through many vicissitudes, this basic living form has been formed and continuously improved to better suit the living requirements, forming the courtyard house style we see today.
The courtyard house in Beijing is famous because of its unique composition, which is typical and representative of traditional Chinese residential architecture. Most of the residential buildings in China are inner-courtyard residences. The residential courtyards in the south are very small, and the surrounding houses are connected into one, which is called "a seal". This kind of house is suitable for southern climate conditions, and ventilation and lighting are not ideal.
Beijing’s courtyard houses are spacious and spacious, with independent houses on four sides and connected by corridors, making living very convenient.