"Lane" ancient Chinese characters "Lane Tang".
"Tang" is the main road in front of the ancient court or ancestral temple. This Chinese character appeared in the Book of Songs more than two thousand years ago. It had many meanings in ancient Chinese. Later, as a "road", this meaning was gradually diluted by history. In modern times, people can't remember the connection between the word "Tang" and architecture, so they use another interesting Chinese character "Tang" instead. "Tang" used to be a name for a room, which had little to do with roads and alleys. However, in modern Chinese, it is more closely related to architecture than "Tang" and homophonic with "Tang", so "Lane" has evolved into "Lane".
In fact, it is not only Shanghainese who call it "Lane", but also the Jiangnan area of China. However, the alley can be as famous as the hutong in Beijing, mainly because of the rise of a large number of alley houses in modern Shanghai.
In ancient China, the area divided by roads in the city was called Li Fang. Li Fang is usually a basic administrative unit, including houses, temples and official residences. Residential buildings are built by themselves, so the buildings in a square are different. The owner of a house is usually the user, and the ownership and use right are often integrated. This situation was almost without exception in China until the middle of19th century.
Specific naming, alley is called ×× alley or square, garden, village, village and even new village, garden, other industries, villas, etc. Like ancient Li Fang, Lane is a complex of many buildings, which are also built in residential areas divided by urban roads. But unlike Li Fang, every community has one or several alleys; The shape and structure of single buildings in each lane are basically the same, and generally English multi-row type is adopted, with a row of usually about ten buildings. The combination of rows generally adopts determinant, and only a few of them are arranged according to local conditions and topography. In this new hutong, the space between rows of buildings is called hutong.
Early and late Shikumen
According to the statistics in the early 1950s, the number of houses in Shanghai Lane ranks first in China. There are about 9,000 lanes and about 200,000 residential units, including about 150 large lanes and 200 residential units. Alley-style houses account for about 65% of the total residential area in Shanghai, among which there are more old Shikumen houses and new Shikumen houses. The old Shikumen is named after its front is a closed door wall similar to a warehouse. Basically born out of traditional quadrangles and three-dimensional courtyards. Generally, each building has two floors, two floors and two floors, and the living area is 100 to more than 200 square meters, which is more suitable for large families. This kind of house is very popular because it doesn't occupy as much land as traditional houses, nor is it as expensive as European and American houses. But before and after the First World War, the family structure of Shanghai residents generally changed, and the old Shikumen dwellings gradually declined. This residential style is rare in Shanghai at present.
Xinshikumen
The new Shikumen residence was rebuilt from the old Shikumen, and was built in large quantities after 19 19 years. It was mainly changed to one floor and one bottom, and the number of living rooms was reduced to meet the needs of the disintegration of large social families and the emergence of small families with a lot of productive labor at that time. This is the most common type, which can almost be said to be a typical sample of Shanghai folk houses. Later, the new-style Lane residence focused on further defining the use functions, including living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, sanitary equipment and gas stove. The wall in front of the house is very low and there is a small yard. The appearance of the building tends to modern western style, which is suitable for citizens with richer economic income.
The width of hutong was generally only about three meters in the early Shikumen Lane residential group, but it was expanded to about four meters after the popularization of rickshaws. Later, due to the need to consider the entry and exit of cars, some new lanes were expanded to five or six meters. But this is by no means a common phenomenon, because for residents, enjoying such a spacious alley must be at the expense of high rent.
Overhead projection across the driveway
In order to make full use of space, Shanghai's alley buildings have two characteristics: pavilions and street buildings. The pavilion is located between the first floor and the second floor or between the second floor and the third floor, often above the kitchen and at the corner of the stairs. The room is low and cramped, and it is sultry in summer. Compared with this, this street building is a little better, but in the upper space of the alley (there are several in the alley), it seems to be suspended in the air, which is a bit weird.