The buildings in ancient times all pay attention to Feng Shui. Both Yangzhai and Yinzhai pay attention to symmetry. Generally speaking, what can be called architecture is the emperor who found the sorcerer to select the site and built it according to certain meanings and particularities. Ancient Chinese architecture , most of them are wooden structures, and the shape emphasizes the roundness of the sky and the earth, and the symmetry of the center. Starting from the late Sheng Tang Dynasty, the architectural style was greatly influenced by Buddhism. Foreign ancient buildings, usually referring to ancient European buildings, are mostly masonry structures. After the Renaissance, , the shape began to be diversified. Most ancient Chinese buildings were made of wood, while foreign buildings were made of stone.
The architecture of the ancient world can be generally divided into seven systems, namely European architecture, Chinese architecture, ancient Egyptian architecture, Islamic architecture, etc. Architecture, ancient West Asian architecture, ancient Indian architecture, ancient American architecture, etc. Some of them have long been discontinued, or are not widely spread, and their achievements and influence are relatively limited, such as Egypt, ancient West Asia, ancient India, ancient American architecture, etc., while the remaining three systems have relatively greater influence on Chinese architecture and European architecture. .
The difference between Chinese and Western architectural art first comes from the difference in materials: traditional Western architecture has long been based on stone; while traditional Eastern architecture has always been based on wood. This difference in building materials provides different possibilities for their respective architectural arts. These differences can be roughly summarized into the following aspects:
1. Fantasy and philosophy
The famous French writer Victor Hugo highly summarized the two major architectural systems of the East and the West. The fundamental difference between the The characteristics of it focus on the two-dimensional plane and the three-dimensional shape. Chinese architecture has the characteristics of painting. It focuses on pictures rich in artistic conception and does not pay much attention to the volume, shape and perspective effect of a single building. It often focuses on building a single building as a unit, both in plane and space. Extended group effects. The West attaches great importance to the whole and parts of the building, as well as the proportion, balance, rhythm and other formal beauty principles between the parts; China attaches great importance to space and the spatial experience of "different scenery" when people move in the built environment. It can be said that the ideality of European architecture is concentrated in a "real", and the fantasy of Chinese architecture is concentrated in an "empty"
2. Imitation and freehand brushwork
Asia Aristotle believed that art originated from imitation and that art was the product of imitation. The different column types in Greek architecture are the analysis of the human body of different genders; the Chinese pay attention to people's inner world's understanding and feelings of external things, and how to artistically embody or express this understanding or feeling, that is, they have a strong The freehand nature. The Chinese also pay attention to verisimilitude and argumentation, which must be based on the "expressiveness" of freehand brushwork. For example, the eaves and wings on Chinese classical buildings are shaped like floating winds. Their expressive and expressive nature has the artistic passion and psychological appeal of "cultivated by foreign teachers and inspired by the heart".
3. Closedness and openness
China’s courtyards, walls, screen walls, etc. show an introverted closed mentality. Some people even think: "The closed courtyard symbolizes our closed society." In the West, the emphasis is on external space, and the central square is called the "city's living room", "the city's living room", etc., with the intention of transforming indoors into outdoor spaces. Chinese people often simulate their back gardens into natural landscapes. It is surrounded by buildings and walls, and contains the Crescent River, three or five pavilions, and rockeries... indicating the orientation of integrating nature within. It can be said that this is the reflection and embodiment of certain cultural mentality in architecture.
Different building materials and different social functions give Chinese and Western classical architecture different "artistic languages". Different languages ??express different thoughts and reveal different emotions; different buildings carry different cultures and embody different beliefs.
Ingenious and scientific framework structure. This is the most important structural feature of ancient Chinese architecture.
Because ancient Chinese architecture is mainly a wooden frame structure, that is, wooden columns and wooden beams are used to form the frame of the house. The weight of the roof and eaves is transferred to the columns through the beams. The walls only serve as partitions, not as the structural part that bears the weight of the house. .
Garden-style group layout. From ancient literature records, images of ancient buildings in paintings to existing ancient buildings, ancient Chinese buildings have a simple organizational law in terms of plane layout. This is that every residence, palace, government office, temple and other buildings have a unique layout. It is composed of several single buildings and some corridors, walls and the like surrounding courtyards.
Rich and colorful artistic images. As mentioned before, architecture is not just a technical science but an art. After a long period of hard work, ancient Chinese architecture also absorbed the characteristics of other traditional Chinese arts, especially painting, sculpture, arts and crafts and other plastic arts, creating a rich and colorful artistic image, and formed many characteristics in this regard. So what are the differences between Western architecture and Chinese architecture?
Western stone buildings generally develop vertically and point directly toward the sky. In this way, whether the high-density stone roof can be lifted into the sky has become the key to architectural art, and the columns that perform this task have become the key among the keys. Therefore, the "basic vocabulary" of Western architecture is pillars, that is, those vertical stones that stand up to the sky and the ground. If columns are the "basic vocabulary" of Western architectural art, then the roof is its "main sentence structure." The differences in roofs lead to differences in styles, such as Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Gothic, Baroque, etc.
Different from Western stone buildings, ancient Chinese wooden buildings used brackets as their "basic vocabulary". The so-called brackets are overlapping curved wood that hold up the eaves. They can expand the vertical force to the horizontal direction, thereby constructing a variety of cornices. Like the roofs of Western buildings, as the "main sentence" of ancient Chinese architecture, there are many types of cornices, either low hanging, straight, or upward. Its different forms create different artistic effects, either light, simple, or majestic. Not only do pavilions, platforms, buildings, and pavilions have to use cornices to mark their identity and express their emotions, but the height and length of cornices often become difficult and important points in architectural design. As the saying goes, "If it is increased by one point, it is too long, and if it is reduced by one point, it is too short." The design of the cornice must be just right so that it can appear light but not frivolous, simple but not mechanical, and majestic but not rigid.
The difference between Chinese and Western architectural forms is a manifestation of cultural differences. It reflects the difference in material and natural environment, the difference in social structure, the difference in people's thinking methods and the difference in aesthetic realm.
1. The difference in building materials reflects the differences in material culture and philosophical concepts between China and the West.
From the perspective of building materials, before the emergence of modern architecture, all mature building systems in the world, including Indian architecture that belongs to oriental architecture, were basically made of masonry. The main building materials used to build it belong to the masonry structure system. Such as the pyramids of Egypt, the temples of ancient Greece, the Colosseum and aqueducts of ancient Rome, and the churches of medieval Europe... all are built of stone, and all are historical witnesses left in this "stone history book" . Only my country's classical architecture (including neighboring Japan, North Korea and other regions) uses wood as the main structure of the house, which belongs to the wooden structure system, so it is known as the "history book of wood". The choice of materials in Chinese and Western architecture is not only due to different natural factors, but more importantly, it is the result of different cultures and different concepts. It is a common reflection of different minds in architecture. The primitive economy in the West based on hunting has created a primitive mentality of heavy objects. From the Westerners' affirmation of stone, we can see that Westerners' rational spirit of seeking knowledge and truth emphasizes that man is the master of the world in the relationship between man and nature, and that man's strength and wisdom can defeat everything. China's economic model based on primitive agriculture has created a primitive civilization that emphasizes selection, collection, and storage. The traditional Chinese philosophy derived from this promotes the cosmology of "the unity of nature and man".
Looking at the history of Western architecture, it is not difficult to find that the structural awareness of Western architectural beauty is actually geometric shapes; the "control line" of the shape of the Partilon Temple in Athens is two squares; from the dome of the Pantheon in Rome to the ground, it is exactly It can be embedded into a sphere with a diameter of 43.3 meters; the "control line" of Milan Cathedral is an equilateral triangle, the facade of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris is a square, and its central arch and "control line" are two full circles. Even natural objects such as landscaping, flowers and trees, after artificial pruning and deliberate carving, present neat and orderly geometric patterns. With its "artificial beauty" that transcends nature and controls nature, it is similar to that of Chinese gardens. This natural sentiment of "although it is made by man, it seems to have come from heaven" forms a sharp contrast. As early as 2,000 years ago, Vitruvius, the architectural theorist of the Augustan period in ancient Rome, proposed the classic three-element view of architecture of "applicability, solidity, and beauty" in his famous "Ten Books on Architecture", which was Later generations regarded it as a guide and passed it down from generation to generation. At the beginning of the 17th century, architect Henry Wooden proposed that excellent buildings must meet three conditions: "sturdiness, practicality and joy." Westerners regard "sturdiness" and "practicality" as the first and second principles for evaluating excellent buildings. . Therefore, when China's ancient buildings were destroyed or "disappeared" with the passage of time, the buildings of ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and ancient Egypt in the West were still intact, interpreting their own culture with physical objects. Through the comparison of Chinese and Western architecture, we can see the differences in conceptual culture, institutional culture, and material culture between China and the West.