Chinese Architecture

Another style of this time period was Greek Architecture.

Many ancient Chinese works of architecture have not survived because the Chinese people liked to make their buildings out of wood. Some important buildings were made out of stone, and some later ones out of brick.

Palaces where a very important type of Chinese buildings. A palace is basically a building where someone important, such as the emperor or other high status person, lived. Palaces where usually the largest buildings, and sometimes complexes, in a city or village. They were usually made in nine parts or segments because in Chinese culture, nine signifies maximum masculinity. Traditionally, females and males lived in different parts of the palace. The name palace was also sometimes given to religious buildings.

A very famous palace that has survived is the Forbidden City. It is a walled palace that includes many palaces inside it. It is spectacularly decorated, including some paintings and carvings of the mythical dragons and Phoenix.

Chinese pavilions are common in the country. Built either out of wood, stone or bamboo, they are many different shapes. They usually have columns to hold up the roof, but don’t have walls. The largest pavilion in China is the Kuoruting (the Pavilion of Expanse) in the Summer Palace. It’s 130 square meters of floor space is covered by a majestic octagonal roof with two eaves.
When Buddhism arrived in China, the only major architectural change was that they started to build pagodas. These multi-storied towers were square, hexagonal or octagonal. At the top of each story, there was a curving roof, typical of all Chinese architecture, and was colorfully tiled. Pagoda’s were usually made of stone or brick, and were sometimes used to store precious documents.

Another great construction in china is the Great Wall. It’s not really architecture, but I should talk about it because it is a building. Winding 1500 miles across the northern part of China, it consists of many smaller walls that were joined together into one. It was originally built in the third century BC and rebuilt several times afterwards. The Great Wall has a thickness that varies from thirteen to forty feet thick. With several gates, the Great Wall is only a barrier when the need strikes.