Читать книгу 1000 Monuments of Genius - Christopher E.M. Pearson - Страница 8
Asia and Oceania
China
ОглавлениеChinese civilisation arose along the valley of the Yellow River in the 2nd millennium BCE. Monumental architecture first began to appear in the 3rd century BCE under the Ch’ing dynasty, which united the country for the first time. Its greatest built legacy of this period is, of course, the Great Wall, which guards the northern border of the kingdom, though in the centuries since it has been rebuilt many times. In later periods Chinese cities were among the most advanced in the world. Yet little Chinese architecture dating from before the Ming period (1368–1644) survives. This is largely because most honorific buildings above the level of the stone foundations were constructed of pine or cedar wood, which has since decomposed. Stone vaulting was generally reserved for tomb structures or, later, city walls and gateways. Pagodas provide occasional exceptions: the Great Wild Goose Pagoda, for example, a very tall building erected during the Tang Dynasty (in the 7th century) as part of a monastery, was first built of rammed earth with a stone facing and later rebuilt in brick.
It was nevertheless China’s innovations in timber construction that proved most influential throughout Asia, and its traditions changed little over the centuries. Simple trabeated constructions in wood can be found as early as prehistoric times in China, and it might be said that the column (rather than the solid wall) remained the basic unit of building over the centuries. Timber was nevertheless scarce in the central part of the country, and early wooden structures made use of relatively thin columns, wide bays and walls of light infill. Most Chinese utilitarian structures – houses, fortifications and military structures – were built of rammed earth or brick, while wood was used largely for honorific buildings. The repetitive bays of this framed wooden architecture necessarily relied on a simple modular grid system, and a set of standard proportions came to be codified for Imperial use in Li Chieh’s Sung-era treatise Methods and Designs in Architecture (1103). The characteristic curving roof of the Chinese temple, with its wide eaves, terracotta tiling and increasingly complex systems of bracketing, became the focus of carpentry skill and decorative attention. A characteristic example might be the Temple of Heaven in Beijing (1406–1420 and later), whose circular superstructures of timber rest on a tall marble base. Chinese palaces were generally of one storey, and like temples, were rarely freestanding but incorporated into larger compounds of buildings and courtyards. Here one must look at the 15th-century Forbidden City in Beijing, a succession of vast halls and courtyards linked by marble balustrades. This was for almost five centuries the residence of the Chinese emperors. Based on a strict axial symmetry, its plan takes the form of a vast rectangle surrounded by a wide moat and a high wall. Its numberless buildings offer some of the best examples of Chinese palatial architecture, and it now constitutes the largest collection of ancient wooden structures in the world. Entering from Tiananmen Square, foreign ambassadors would have to pass through an intimidating sequence of huge gates and courts before arriving at the Hall of Supreme Harmony; this served as an audience hall for the emperor who received visitors while sitting on a tall dais.
Buddhist temples in China tended to follow the lead of Han dynasty palaces, but introduced a new architectural form of Indian origin: the pagoda. (Extensive underground sanctuaries also follow Indian precedent.) The oldest extant Chinese example dates from the 6th century, and – as noted above – tall and impressive structures in wood and brick from the Tang dynasty (618–906) and later are among China’s oldest surviving monuments. Starting from a square or hexagonal base, the pagoda is formed of superimposed stories of diminishing width with decorative treatment of bracketing and roofs. Elaborate and colourful pagodas of this type continued to be built through the 19th century.