Courtyard House

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Throughout Chinese history, the siheyuan composition was the basic pattern used for residences, palaces, temples, monasteries, family, businesses and government offices. In ancient times, a spacious siheyuan would be occupied by a single, usually large and extended family, signifying wealth and prosperity. Today, however, most remaining siheyuan are used as mass housing complexes, and suffer from a lack of modern amenities.

Origin

Fully developed siheyuan date back as early as the Western Zhou period (1122 B.C. - 256 B.C.), exhibiting the most outstanding and fundamental characteristics of Chinese architecture. They exist all across China and are the template for most Chinese architectural styles.

Condition

According to the Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage, there are over 3,000 "well-preserved" courtyards remaining in Beijing, and over 539 are in Cultural and Historical Conservation Areas. There are also estimated 7,000 to 9,000 residential courtyards left for sale in Beijing, and they are generally priced at 7,000 to 10,000 yuan per square meter. Other studies put the estimates at about over 30,000 siheyuan courtyards in Old Beijing. Preserved historical siheyuan includes Lu Xun Memorial, Guo Moruo Memorial, Mao Dun Memorial, Mei Lanfang Memorial, and Lao She Memorial.

Form

The siheyuan is a typical form of ancient Chinese architecture, especially in the north of China. They are designed to make it as comfortable as possible to live in a climate that is at times inhospitable. For instance, the siheyuan are enclosed and inward facing to protect them from the harsh winter winds and the dust storms of spring. Their design also reflects the traditions of China, following the rules of feng shui and the patriarchal, Confucian tenants of order and hierarchy that were so important to society.

The main house

It is normal for the four rooms to be positioned along the north-south, east-west axes. The room positioned to the north and facing the south is considered the main house and would traditionally have accommodated the head of the family.

The side house

The rooms adjoining the main house are called "side houses" and were the quarters of the younger generations or less important members of the family.

The opposite house

The room that faces north is known as the "opposite house" and would generally be where the servants lived or where the family would gather to relax, eat or study. The gate to the courtyard is usually at the southeastern corner.

See

Screen - wall

The entrance gate, usually painted vermilion and with copper door knockers on it, is usually at the southeastern corner. Normally, there is a screen wall inside the gate, for privacy; superstition holds that it also protects the house from evil spirits.

Stone lions, house, and window

Outside the gate of some large siheyuan, it is common to find a pair of stone lions. The gates are usually painted vermilion and have large copper door rings. All the rooms around the courtyard have large windows facing onto the yard and small windows high up on the back wall facing out onto the street. Some do not even have back windows. Some large compounds have two or more courtyards to house the extended families that were a mark of prosperity in ancient times.

Walls, yard and verandah

A siheyuan offers space, comfort, quiet and privacy. Siheyuan walls provide security as well as protection against dust and storms. With plants, rocks, and flowers, the yard is also a garden, and acts like an open-air living room. The verandah divides the courtyard into several big and small spaces that are not very distant from each other. Family members talked with each other here, creating a cordial atmosphere.

Siheyuan in other areas

In Gansu, Qinghai and other northwest regions, where dust storms are very strong, courtyard walls tend to be higher. The shapes of siheyuan are also altered: in northwestern China, the north-south span of a siheyuan is generally much longer than the east-west span, while in other provinces such as Sichuan, the opposite is true. In southern China, the houses are built with multiple stories. In the northeast, land is abundant but the weather is cold, so courtyards are built broad and large to increase the exposure to sunlight, and there are more open areas inside the walls.

Courtyard House Highlights

Courtyard House Highlights Related

Courtyard House attraction highlights

• Hutong in Beijing
• Lake Houhai
• Courtyard Houses of Beijing
• Qiao Family's Compound
• Broad and Narrow Alley in Chengdu

Hutong attraction highlights

The narrowness of the hutongs and of many discourages heavy traffic and encourages residents to live their lives on the street, fostering a strong sense of community. As you wander through them, you may feel as though you have stepped back in time.

• Beijing

• Hutong in Beijing
• Lake Houhai
• Courtyard Houses of Beijing
• Nanluoguxiang Alley

Ancient Chinese Architecture

During its long development, it gradually formed into a style which featured timberwork combining stone carving, rammed earth construction, bucket arch buildings and many other techniques. Industrious Chinese laboring people created many architectural miracles such as the Great Wall, Forbidden City and the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.

Courtyard House FAQ & Travelers's Tips

1. What are most traditional Chinese architectures made of?
2. Which Chinese architecture shouldn't I miss?
3. What are the functions of ancient Chinese city walls?
4. What are the three famous grottos in China?
5. What is Hutong and who live there?
6. Which is the most famous Hutong in Beijing?
7. What is archway? What is archway used for?
8. How did the Chinese architecture develop?
9. What are the most famous gardens in China?
10. What are the little statues on each roof of a traditional Chinese architecture and why some have 11 or 9, and some have 7, 5 or even 3?
11. What should I notice when visiting traditional Chinese architectures or gardens?

1. What are most traditional Chinese architectures made of?

   Due to an undeveloped building skill in the ancient China, there was no architecture that was made of concrete. All the traditional Chinese architectures were made of wood or stone.

   Wood was a kind of material that was easy to find and get. Workers built a building by combining different sizes of wood and after the main construction was completed, the workers would paint the wood with beautiful patterns. The most famous wooden architecture area in China is the Forbidden City which is located in the center of Beijing.

   Stone was also a main kind of material that was used for Chinese architectures. Carving and painting are the main skills. The advantage of stone architectures is that it prevents from fire. Stone can not catch fire so if the inside was on fire, the structure would still remain after the fire is put out. The most famous stone architecture is the Ming Tomb which is located in Beijing.




2. Which Chinese architecture shouldn't I miss?

   Chinese architecture, together with Western and Islamic architecture, is three famous architectural styles. It is generally accepted that traditional Chinese architectural style can be classified into several categories: royal palaces, residential houses, and religious temples and pagodas and tombs.

   Forbidden City is the most famous one of royal palaces. In term of residential houses, Local Resident House of Huizhou is a must-see. There are many religious temples and pagodas in China, such as Temple of Heaven and White Pagoda in Beihai Park. The Ming Tomb is the best-preserved imperial mausoleum structure where buries most emperors. Thirteen of the sixteen Ming emperors are buried in this picturesque valley with orchards and rolling hills.




3. What are the functions of ancient Chinese city walls?

   Chinese city walls refer to civic defensive systems which were used to protect towns and cities in China in pre-modern times. The system consisted of walls, towers, and gates, which were often built to a uniform standard throughout the Empire.

   Extant city walls: City wall of Xi'an, City wall of Pingyao, City Wall of Nanjing, Gate of China, Nanjing; Parts of the city walls of Beijing: Wall of the Forbidden City;and Gates, including Qianmen, Tiananmen, Deshengmen; Walled city of Wanping, and the one near Marco Polo Bridge Gates of Suzhou: Panmen Gate.




4. What are the three famous grottos in China?

   They are Yungang Grottoes in Datong city, Shanxi Province, Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang, Henan Province and Mogao Grottoes at Dunhuang in Gansu Province.

   • The 53 grottoes in Yungang Grottos include some 1,000 niches with about 51,000 statues - a treasure-trove of cave art that combines traditional Chinese art forms with foreign influence, particularly Greek and Indian. Sculptures here are noted for their vigorous features and rich variety.
   • Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang, Henan Province is a treasure house of ancient Buddhist cave art. Altogether there are 1,352 caves, 785 niches, more than 97,000 statues of the Buddha, Bodhisativas, and Arhats, and 3,680 inscribed stone tablets along the 1-km-long cliff of Mt. Longmen on the west and Mt. Xiangshan on the east of the Yihe River south of Luoyang.
   • Mogao Grottoes at Dunhuang in Gansu Province is the largest, best preserved and richest treasure house of Buddhist art in the world. Today, 492 caves still stand, containing some 2,100 colored statues and 45,000 square meters of murals.



5. What is Hutong and who live there?

   Hutongs are narrow streets or alleys, most commonly associated with Beijing, China.

   In Beijing, hutongs are alleys formed by lines of siheyuan, traditional courtyard residences. Many neighbourhoods were formed by joining one siheyuan to another to form a hutong, and then joining one hutong to another. The word hutong is also used to refer to such neighbourhoods.Since the mid-20th century, the number of Beijing hutongs has dropped dramatically as they are demolished to make way for new roads and buildings. More recently, some hutongs have been designated as protected areas in an attempt to preserve this aspect of Chinese cultural history.

   Many people think that only poor people live in the hutongs. That's not right. Many of them have their own business, jobs. There are all kinds of electrical appliances in their home. People there have a modernized residential environment. People who live in Hutongs are mostly elder people, sometimes with their children and grandchildren. Hutong represents an important culture element of Beijing city. The hutongs reflect the culture of grassroots Beijingers. More recently, some hutongs have been designated as protected areas in attempt to preserve this aspect of Chinese cultural history. Some people even think that living in Hutong is a luxury way of life.




6. Which is the most famous Hutong in Beijing?

   Hutongs located in Rear Lake Area are very popular among foreigners. Hutong's history is longer than Beijing. Hutong is one of the unique special features in Beijing. There are thousands of Hutongs here surrounding the Forbidden City, most of which came into being in the dynasties Yuan, Ming, Qing. Old local residents have a saying "There are 360 large Hutongs and as many small Hutongs as there are hairs on an ox." And with the development of the economy and city constructions, there are mainly 4000 Hutongs in Beijing at present.

   Hutong Tour is very popular among foreigners these days. You can visit their homes in Hutong. The most interesting thing is that you can learn to make dumplings on your own if you like and I will be a very interesting experience for you.




7. What is archway? What is archway used for?

   Chinese Archway is a special branch of Chinese ancient architecture. Chinese Archways symbolize honor, showing glory and achievements, and memorializing important people or events. Memorial Archways are an outcome of Chinese feudal society. One of very fancying archway is TangYue Memorial Arches Complex in Shexian, Anhui Province.




8. How did the Chinese architecture develop?

   During the slave society of the Xia and Shang dynasties (21st-11th century BC), houses varied according to the caste of the inhabitants. Most slaves still lived in pit-style houses. The slave owners lived in much better, on-the-ground houses with rammed earth walls. Their houses had one or more rooms, and the earth floors were hard and smooth after being heated by fire. Some slave owners not only demanded human sacrifices for burials but also buried the slaves as sacrifices below their houses. Unearthed so far, the grandest structure of the slave period is a palace built in the early Shang Dynasty at Erlitou, Yanshi County, Henan Province. The buildings stood on a 10,000-square-metre terrace of rammed earth. In the middle was an eight-bay wide, three-bay deep palatial hall with a hipped roof and double eaves. The main gate was on the southern side of the terrace encircled by galleries.

   The Western Zhou Dynasty (1066-771 BC) saw a marked development in architecture in ancient China. Members of the royal family and aristocrats were granted land on which they could set up their feudal states. As a result, building activities increased. Excavation of early Zhou palace sites in Qishan, Shaanxi, indicates that a pattern had evolved with main buildings, porches, the front and back courtyards all on a single axis. Roofing material also improved with the advent of earth tiles, which were used to cover the ridge and gutters. People plastered the rammed walls and floors with a mixture of soil, lime and sand, which gives a hard and smooth surface. They also learned to make the north walls of their houses thicker than the rest to resist the strong and cold winds. But a significant architectural development of theis period was the invention of corbel brackets, called dougong in Chinese, which are inserted on column heads to support the projecting eaves. These later became a unique feature of classical Chinese architecture.

   In the next few hundred years the economy and commerce thrived. The construction of elevated terraces became popular as the rulers of each feudal state used "lofty terraces and magnificent palaces" to flaunt their wealth and power. This craze for architectural grandeur culminated during the reign of Emperor Qinshihuang, the first emperor of ancient China who unified the country in 221 BC.

   The Qin ruler, who was also associated with the building of the Great Wall, and the massive terracotta army in Xi'an. It was so gigantic and extravagant that when the peasant rebels burned it, the fire ragged for three weeks. The erecting imperial palaces on elevated terraces continued in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 AD), as seen in the Forbidden City.

   Architects of the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) demonstrated very sophisticated techniques. Corbel brackets were widely used. Meanwhile multi-storied buildings appeared and many different roof styles evolved, such as the gabled roof, hipped roof, and double-eaved roof, all featuring sweeping slopes with upturned eaves and tilted corners. The large overhangs were merely for artistic effect but functional, keeping out the rain and sunlight. The making of bricks as a building material also occurred in the Han Dynasty some 2,000 years ago. One engraved tomb brick found in Sichuan Province illustrates the residence of an aristocrat which consisted of several courtyards separated by galleries.

   The Tang Dynasty was a period of great prosperity. Construction of palaces, Buddhist temples and pagodas flourished. The ancient people began to use glazed tiles and carved stones in bulding. Brick walls were common in Tang structure, but this did not change the unique and prominent feature of the classical Chinese architecture-the timber framework composed of columns, beams, purlins and a multitude of corbel brackets. There is an old saying: "The walls may topple down but the roof won't collapse", meaning the function of a wall is not to support the weight of the roof but to separate the space. Because of this, windows and doors could be made in the walls freely without causing the building to collapse.

   Another advantage of the structures lies in the fact that the buildings are earthquake-resistant. This accounted for the preservation of many centuried-old structure in quake-proof areas such as the Foguang (Buddha Light) Temple in the Wutai Mountains, built in 857; and the 67.31-metre high wooden pagoda of Yingxian in Shanxi. Built in 1056, it is the oldest surviving timber pagoda in China and the tallest timber building in the world. The thriving economy of the Tang Dynasty also led to a building rivalry among aristocrats and wealthy officials. The imperial court finally had to stipulate standards of residential construction according to social status. For instance, it ruled that officials under the rank of duke were not entitled to houses with double-arched ceilings;officials below the third class (ancient officials were divided roughly into nine classes) were confined to five-bay houses; the common people could only build three-bay houses. Private households were not allowed to construct towers overlooking other people's residences. But the Tang emperors themselves indulged in building a gigantic and magnificent capital, and Chang'an (now Xi'an) was constructed according to an ambitious layout that was copied in varying degrees by late dynasties, even spreading its influence to the ancient Japanese capitals of Kyoto and Nara.

   Architectural art reached an advanced level in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) when more and more elegant flexible designs were created, featuring polygonal, multi-eaved roofs, intricate ceiling structures, finely carved doors, windows, colunms and brackets. Lattices on windows and doors also became popular in the period. These are more than ornamental for they facilitate the mounting of paper to admit light. Glass was not introduced to China until very late.

   The building techniques of stone and brick structures grew very sophisticated in the Song period, as it manifested by the appearance of a number of vaulted beamless structures built entirely of bricks and stones. The most well-known beamless hall is Wuliangdian in Nanjing's Linggu Temple, built in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

   In the Ming and Qing dynasties timber shortages gave birth to jointing and paneling techniqies, by which huge columns and beams could be made out of small fragments of wood. Meanwhile, beams and columns were connected directly, thus simplifying the superstructure and relegating brackets to ornamental adjuncts on the eaves. However, the simple timber structure did not prevent the architects of the time from making their builings opulent. In face, the Ming and Qing palaces represented the culmination of architectural extravagance, mainly through the extensive use of yellow glazed tiles, purple-red walls, while marble balustrades, ornate wood, stone and metal carvings, gilding, lacquering, painting and inlaying.




9. What are the most famous gardens in China?

   Classic Chinese gardens are a special aspect in traditional Chinese culture and art. A Chinese garden mixes man-made landscape with natural scenery, architecture, painting, literature, calligraphy, and horticulture.

   They can be classified into imperial gardens and private gardens. The imperial gardens in Beijing are the most famous, such as Summer Palace; while the most famous private gardens are the gardens in Suzhou and Hangzhou.




10. What are the little statues on each roof of a traditional Chinese architecture and why some have 11 or 9, and some have 7, 5 or even 3?

    Those little statues are holly animals in the ancient China. They are used for warding off evil spirits and disasters. The number of the statues symbolizes which class the own of the building belongs to. The highest number is 11, which are usually seen in imperial buildings like the Hall of Supreme Harmony in Forbidden City. The lowest number is 3 and they are used on the roof of common people.

11. What should I notice when visiting traditional Chinese architectures or gardens?

    Wear comfortable clothes, especially shoes. Most gardens or traditional architecture areas, like the Forbidden City, usually take up large size of land. It takes a long time to see all the important sightseeing of one area. So, comfortable clothes and shoes are strongly recommended.

    Do not smoke. A lot of traditional Chinese architectures were made of woods which are easy to catch fire. Smoking may cause fire and burn down one of the most precious Chinese treasure. Furthermore, many trees are planted in side the areas or gardens, which are easy to catch fire too.

    Be gentle with all the architectures. Although wood and stone are much stronger than your body, still be gentle with all of them. Most traditional Chinese architectures have a long history, and have been suffering from bad weathers, so they are all delicate.