Session 57: Imperial Forces, Local Voices: The Symbolic and Social Significance of Architecture on the Chinese Mainland

Organizer and Chair: Tracy G. Miller, Vanderbilt University

Discussant: Cary Y. Liu, Princeton University

Keywords: architecture, urban planning, Buddhist monasteries, vernacular architecture, patronage and the arts.

Chinese architecture has been characterized as monolithic, embodying enough symbolic power to interest rulers in constructing their own tile-roofed buildings and walled compounds across East Asia. Yet the architecture of China also shows clear distinctions in style across regions, revealing that building was employed to express more than just imperial control. The porous borders of China have always allowed for crosscultural influences, and foreign patrons expressed their own ethnic, religious, or regional identities through their architecture, whether designed for public, private, religious, or commercial uses. New styles and functions were mediated through the hands of local craftsmen, who worked within their own tradition of building outside of larger symbolic agendas.

By comparing examples of building practice in late imperial and modern China, this panel investigates the motivation and purpose for employing international, national, and local styles in both public and private architecture, and the effect that architecture had on the people who used it. Isabelle Charleux examines the way in which Mongol patrons negotiated with Han Chinese craftsmen to create a unique Buddhist architecture in Inner Mongolia. Samuel Liang discusses the influence of Western mass production in transforming the courtyard house into the lilong houses of nineteenth century Shanghai. Johnathan Farris shows how local and foreign spaces of work and habitation affected the relationship between Chinese and foreign residents in Guangzhou from the 18th through the 20th century. Moving beyond the city, Puay-peng Ho explores how the "Traditional versus Modern" debate influenced the construction of the early twentieth century rural landscape.

Is There a Mongolian Buddhist Architecture? The Authors of Inner Mongolian Monasteries

Isabelle Charleux, CNRS

This paper addresses the issues of the ethnicity and ethnic style of carpenters and architects in traditional Inner Mongol society (16th–20th century) through an examination of the respective role of Mongol monks and foreign carpenters in the building monasteries, and the formation of an original Mongol style, and therefore raises the question of the very existence of a purely Mongol Buddhist architecture.

The 16th century Buddhist revival and the subsequent rapid growth of the Mongol religious institution created a new demand for sedentary architecture. The Chinese carpenters already living within the Mongol princely courts built temples under the direction of Mongol or Tibetan lamas, or of lay patrons. During the Qing dynasty, Chinese carpenters and geomancers moved from Northern China to Inner Mongolia attracted by the growing demand for building specialists. Mongol carpenters, by contrast, were few, and during the Ming and Qing dynasties they had difficulty competing with Chinese carpenters who were able to employ the high degree of standardization in Chinese building techniques to their advantage.

However, Mongol monks themselves learned notions of architecture in Buddhist academies. They managed artistic production by commissioning works and supervising the carpenters. Consequently, the temples built by Chinese artisans for their Mongol patrons have unique features, mixing Chinese, Mongol, and Tibetan materials, techniques, and decoration: they are neither copies of Tibetan architecture nor characteristically Chinese. As Chinese craftsmen adapted to their Mongol patrons’ tastes, they learned to build according to Tibetan techniques, and to disguise their own methods of construction.

The Meeting of Courtyard and Street: Mapping Residential and Commercial Spaces in the Lilong, Shanghai, 1870–1896

Samuel Xunxiang Liang, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

In the late nineteenth century lilong houses were built using local materials and technology for Chinese tenants sojourning in the foreign settlements of Shanghai. Foreign real estate speculators initiated a business model of mass production for quick profit, while specific buildings were constructed by their compradors and local builders. The rigid planning of the lilong compound resulting from this model was similar to the lifang residential ward in the ancient imperial capitals, but instead of solid walls, the lilong was enclosed by a belt of busy shops open to surrounding streets. The latter’s commercial character expanded into the residential lilong, where the main living space of a house, usually on the second floor, looked out through large windows to the alley (longtang) beyond the small courtyard. This spatial feature reversed the introverted pattern of the traditional courtyard house, as the lilong became a milieu of mixed residential and commercial activities, a combined function exemplified by courtesan houses located within the lilong.

This paper analyzes texts and images about lilong houses, and especially courtesan houses and the sojourners’ leisure, in contemporary periodicals, guidebooks and fiction of nineteenth century Shanghai. By relating the architectural style of the lilong to the sojourners’ new concept of home, which was no longer a self-contained entity but rather a fragmented space woven into the commercial fabric of the city, this paper maps out a crucial aspect of modern urbanism at an important moment and site of transition.

Dwelling on the Edge of Empires: Habitation in Guangzhou’s Western Neighborhoods

Johnathan A. Farris, Washington University, St. Louis

Cross-cultural relations are spatial relations. Foreign neighborhoods of Guangzhou provide good examples of shifting attitudes towards race, class, and cohabitation. The banks of the Pearl River witnessed the earliest and longest settlement of English speaking Westerners in China. From the late 18th to the early 20th centuries, a series of structural types housed the Western trading and missionary community in Guangzhou. These represent differing relationships towards the Chinese employees of Western enterprises and different relationships to the inhabitants of the Chinese city at large.

At least three distinct phases of spatial organization of the foreign neighborhoods, illustrating shifting strategies of regulating Chinese/foreign interaction by both the Western inhabitants and the Chinese authorities. The initial phase, represented by the Shisan Hang, consists of Westerners and Chinese employees living in close quarters in structures following closely Cantonese vernacular precedents. Regulation of racial interaction occurs here along lines mandated by Chinese authorities. The second phase includes the post-Arrow War construction of the concession island of Shamian. The climate-adapted but more Westernized structures of this phase represent an increased spatial and social separation of foreigners and Chinese staff. This coincides with the rise of racist attitudes and foreign regulation of the foreigners’ environments. A re-engagement with the Chinese and their city occurs on the eave of the Westernization of the larger city in the 1920s and 1930s. The spread of new multi-national corporate enterprises and architecture analogous to that of the foreigners’ home countries bring the Chinese and Westerners back under the same roof.

Architectural Expression in Rural China in the Early Twentieth Century

Puay-peng Ho, Chinese University of Hong Kong

The time between the last decades of the 19th century and first three decades of the 20th century was one of the most dynamic periods in Chinese history. Traditional values were in the process of breaking down and a new social order was debated and gradually emerged. Advocates for foreign, primarily Western, values added to an increasingly bipolar view of societal development. There have been many studies on the dichotomic divide in the intellectual debates between "traditional and modern" or "Chinese and Western" forms of social advancement. Most of these studies took materials from the political developments and ideological rhetoric of the time. The same phenomenon can be seen in the choice of architectural style in the major construction projects taking place over the same period. "Architectural Style" became a truly pluralistic term at this time in China. However, very few studies have been carried out outside the cities. How did village or township architecture reflect the social debates taking place in the cities at the time? Can we see the same developments in architectural syncreticism and eclecticism in rural as in urban China? This paper will examine a selection of villages and townships in southern China to suggest that the picture in rural China was equally exciting with many influencing forces working to shape the multifarious architectonic environment.