The bronze handicraft industry in Shang Dynasty was very developed, leaving a large number of Oracle Bone Inscriptions. From Oracle Bone Inscriptions's words "Gong", "Gao", "Jing" and "Zong", we can see that there were different forms of architecture at that time, such as platform type and dry column type. Slab tiles, pipe tiles and ridge tiles, which were widely used in the Spring and Autumn Period, appeared, and ceramic drainage pipes appeared. There is a strict hierarchy of architectural colors.
Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty deposed a hundred schools of thought, respected Confucianism alone, established a ritual system and consolidated imperial power, which became the dominant thought of China for more than two thousand years. The Confucian thought of "pursuing the future with caution" strengthened the traditional thick burial system since Shang Dynasty and greatly improved the scale and level of mausoleum construction. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the plane and appearance of buildings became more and more complex, with fewer high-rise buildings and more pavilions, and a large number of group fights began to be used. With the rapid development of masonry structure, various hollow brick tombs, brick coupon tombs and slate tombs have appeared. The Han Dynasty became the first climax of architectural development in China. Houses in this period, smaller houses, were square or rectangular on the plane. Except for a few load-bearing wall structures, most buildings adopt wood structure system. Some dry-column building devices have been unearthed in Guangzhou, Sichuan and other places, which are generally upper and lower floors, the lower floor is open, people live upstairs, and some are warehouses to adapt to the hot and humid weather in the south. Slightly large-scale residential buildings are in the form of quadrangles, or curved or square. There are some two-story and three-story attics. Large aristocratic mansion, the main entrance is outside, the roof in the middle and on both sides is very high, and there is a small door next to it for easy access. The front hall of the courtyard is the main building, and some nobles and rich people build garden houses, with heavy pavilions and corridors, stones as mountains and water diversion as pools. In terms of tombs, in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, trees were planted on tombs instead of being built. Tombs in the Qin and Han Dynasties were generally sealed. Qin Shihuang Mausoleum in Lishan Mountain, Lintong, Shaanxi Province is the largest mausoleum in Qin and Han Dynasties, which consists of three square rammed earth platforms. The lower floor is 345 meters wide from east to west and 350 meters long from north to south, and the walls of each floor are inclined inward; From bottom to top, the three floors are 43 meters high. There are two walls around the mausoleum. Outside the east wall of the cemetery, there are huge terracotta warriors and horses.
The rise of Buddhist architecture and Taoist architecture in the Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. From the Eastern Han Buddhism was introduced to China, to the Jin Dynasty, people were in poverty and Buddhism flourished. Until modern times, Buddhism has made great achievements in architecture, painting, sculpture and literature. Yungang Grottoes appeared. Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties gradually formed the development pattern of royal gardens and private gardens. Scholars are eager to retire and "seek their ambitions in seclusion." The scale of the garden is getting smaller and smaller, but the content is rich. Observe the landscape in subtle places-from small to large.
The period of Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties is the mature period of China's wooden structures, and there are few architectural remains at that time, which are rare cultural relics.
The architecture in the Tang Dynasty is characterized by majestic spirit, neatness, openness, grand scale and rigorous planning, and the overall planning of China architecture is becoming more and more mature during this period. The stretch is simple, solemn and generous, and the tone is simple and bright. Large-scale palaces, gardens and yamen have been built in Chang 'an, Tang Dou and Luoyang, the eastern capital, and the architectural layout is more standardized and reasonable. Among them, Chang 'an was the most magnificent city in the world at that time, and its planning was also the most rigorous among the ancient capitals of China, and the Daming Palace in the city was even more magnificent. Its site area is equivalent to about three times the total area of the Forbidden City in Beijing. In the Tang Dynasty, the wooden structure architecture realized the unity of artistic processing and structural modeling, including: bucket arches, columns, beams and so on. The building components all embody the perfect combination of strength and beauty. The Beige Temple in Wutai Mountain is a typical building in the Tang Dynasty, which embodies the above characteristics. In addition, the masonry buildings in the Tang Dynasty also developed further, and most pagodas were of masonry structure. Including: Xi Big Wild Goose Pagoda, Little Wild Goose Pagoda, Guangzhou Huaisheng Temple Light Pagoda and Dali Chihiro Pagoda. The existing Tang pagodas in China are all brick pagodas. There are only four wooden buildings in Tang Dynasty, such as Beixing Temple Hall and nanzenji Hall. But the earliest hall in nanzenji was built in the third year of the middle Tang Dynasty. From Dunhuang murals and contemporary Japanese architecture, we can see the structure of the early Tang Dynasty. Sui system was adopted in the early Tang dynasty, and the bucket arch was simple, with at most one or two jumps. If there are two jumps, the first jump steals the heart, and the second jump supports the arch or replaces the wood. The wiring room is paved into a multi-purpose herringbone arch with occasional uplift. One arch and one purlin are used for the center line under the eaves, and two groups are used for the sides of two jumps, and no slow arch is hidden on the purlin. Each Fang is made of a single material, and scattered buckets or bucket vertical columns are placed between Fang and Fang. During the prosperous Tang Dynasty, the economy developed, the productivity developed greatly, and the construction technology also improved rapidly. In a short time, the bucket arch has evolved into a mature style, and it has developed to a maximum of four jumps, double copying and double dropping, and its complexity has increased even more, and there have been centering and double arches. In the prosperous Tang Dynasty, Dougong jumped out the most, which made Dougong unable to play tricks. Use a flower in the gap and put it on the hump, which is smaller than the stigma bucket arch. In the middle and late Tang Dynasty, it inherited the prosperous Tang Dynasty and the Qi and Five Dynasties, and the evolution of the bucket arch was less. In the mid-Tang Dynasty, there was a unique skill for making memorial archways, which was cut from bamboo. There is a slow arch carved on the first floor of nanzenji main hall.
With the development of economy, handicraft industry and science and technology in the Song Dynasty, the architects, carpenters, technicians, engineers, bucket systems, architectural structures and modeling techniques in the Song Dynasty reached a high level. The architectural style is becoming more and more systematic and modular, and the architecture gradually appears free and changeable combination, which blooms a mature style and a more professional appearance. In order to enhance the indoor space and lighting, the column lowering method and the column moving method were adopted, which increased the number of bucket arches on the beams and columns, resulting in irregular beam-column layout, which jumped out of the neat pattern of beam-column layout in Tang Dynasty. Although there were many different types of buildings in Song Dynasty, the outstanding buildings were pagodas, stone bridges, wooden bridges, gardens, royal tombs and palaces. Because of the artistic conception-oriented garden design deliberately pursuing the artistic conception of combining natural beauty with artificial beauty, the architecture of this period changed the vigorous characteristics of the Tang Dynasty, and became slim and beautiful, delicate and delicate, with soft curves, emphasis on decoration, gorgeous and complicated. The roofs and corners of buildings tend to tilt upward, giving people a warm feeling, unlike the magnificent style of the Tang Dynasty. With the extensive use of paint, the color is very prominent. In the window lattice, the carvings and paintings of beams and columns and stone seats are very varied, and the shapes of columns are even more varied.
The architectural style of Ming Dynasty inherited the tradition of architectural French in Song Dynasty and initiated the engineering practice of official repair in Qing Dynasty. There is no significant change, but the architectural design planning is characterized by large scale and magnificent weather. The architectural style in the early Ming Dynasty is similar to that in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, simple and vigorous, rigorous in the middle Ming Dynasty, and complicated in the late Ming Dynasty. During this period, the art and technology of wood structure have been further developed in architecture, the image of official architecture has become more rigorous and stable, and its decoration, color painting and decoration have become increasingly stereotyped. There are many works made of different materials, such as masonry, glass, hardwood and so on. And bricks have been widely used in the walls of residential buildings. In the Ming Dynasty, local architecture was also unprecedentedly prosperous, and residential buildings, gardens, ancestral temples and village buildings were generally prosperous, among which Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces in the economically developed areas of the south of the Yangtze River were the most prominent. To this day, there are still many Ming Dynasty buildings in these areas. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, a new upsurge of gardening activities appeared in various places. Many villages and towns have been built in the affluent areas of the south of the Yangtze River in a planned way, and many excellent examples of villages and towns with beautiful environment and good facilities have emerged. Generally, there are high-quality roads, bridges, archways flaunting outstanding figures in the village, ancestral halls as clan ties, academies for educating children, and buildings such as wind and rain bridges, road pavilions, theaters and temples for the public. The progress of building technology in Ming dynasty mainly includes: first, the production technology of bricks was improved and the output was increased. Brick walls are widely used in buildings all over the country, and the city walls of counties and counties are also made of bricks, which changed the situation that earth walls were the mainstay before the Yuan Dynasty. In addition, it also created a kind of architectural decoration technology, called "thin brick", which is usually used for door and window frames, wall veneer and so on. At the same time, brick carving has also developed greatly. Second, the glass production technology has been further improved. Glass towers, glass doors, glass arches and glass walls were all developed in the Ming Dynasty. Glazed tiles are widely used in temples all over the country, and the variety of colors has also increased. The colorful features of China architecture have reached a mature stage. Thirdly, the wood frame technology has developed in three aspects: strengthening the overall structural performance, simplifying the construction and decorating the bucket arch. For example, in the Song Dynasty, the pavilion was built by stacking wooden frames layer by layer, and it was changed into an integral frame composed of columns running through from top to bottom. Between the columns, the beams that penetrate each other and the beams that connect the components are added, which improves the architectural structure of the palace. The materials used in the bucket arch are smaller, arranged more and more densely, and so on. All these make the appearance of Ming architecture obviously different from that of Song architecture.
Beijing, the capital of the Qing Dynasty, remained basically the same in the Ming Dynasty. There are 20 tall and majestic gates in the city, and the most magnificent is the Zhengyang Gate in the inner city. Following the imperial palace of the Ming Dynasty, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty built a large-scale royal garden, which is the essence of Qing architecture, including the magnificent Yuanmingyuan and the Summer Palace. In the examples of architecture in Qing Dynasty, the level of group arrangement and decoration design has reached maturity. Landscape architecture, in particular, has a high level of modeling and change in combination with terrain or space. Tibetan Buddhist architecture with unique style flourished during this period. These Buddhist temples have various shapes, breaking the traditional single style of the original temple buildings and creating colorful architectural forms, represented by a number of Tibetan Buddhist temples built in Yonghe Palace and Chengde in Beijing. In the late Qing Dynasty, some new architectural images combining Chinese and Western styles appeared in China. The increasing shortage of wood resources has affected the construction technology. The traditional wood structure technology has been reformed, the application scope of masonry materials has gradually expanded, and the architectural appearance has also changed. The development of economy has promoted the germination of hedonism, and the decorative style is very popular. From daily necessities to architecture, brick carving, wood carving and stone carving are widely used in architecture. Compared with the architectural situation in Ming Dynasty, it can be said that the Qing Dynasty has made great achievements in garden architecture, Tibetan Buddhism architecture and residential architecture. At the same time, the architectural art pays more attention to the overall layout and artistic conception, especially the architectural decoration art. Therefore, the architecture in Qing Dynasty occupies an important position in the history of architectural development in China, and some aspects are historical summaries. There are five forms: hard mountain, hanging mountain, resting mountain, fairy hall and sword tip. In this most basic architectural form, there are temples with single eaves and double eaves. There are single eaves, double eaves, three dripping pavilions, large eaves, rolling sheds and so on. Hard mountain, hanging mountain, ordinary people have both one floor and two floors; There are many forms of pointed buildings, such as triangle, quadrilateral, pentagon, hexagon, octagon, circle, single eaves, double eaves and multi-storey eaves. Great changes have taken place in the artistic style of architecture in Qing Dynasty. Since the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the characteristics of traditional architectural modeling, such as huge eaves, soft roof curves, large bucket arches, thick columns, the rise of eaves columns and side feet, have gradually deteriorated, and the steady and rigorous style has gradually disappeared, that is, the structural beauty and structural beauty of buildings are no longer pursued, but the aesthetic form of architectural combination, physical change and detailed decoration is paid more attention to. For example, the combination of Beijing West Park, chengde mountain resort, Chengde Waiba Temple and other buildings has reached the highest level in history, which shows the ability of architects to flexibly and appropriately use various architectural shapes for spatial combination under different terrain conditions, and also shows their highly sensitive sense of scale. The single building model in Qing Dynasty is not satisfied with the traditional simple rectangular building, but tries to pursue changes in concave and convex, flat eaves, roof forms, mysterious closed doors and walls, and create more artistic expressive forms. Such as Chengde Puning Temple Mahayana Pavilion, Beijing Yonghe Palace Wanfuge, Lhasa Potala Palace, Hohhot Xili Tuzhao Dajing Hall and other outstanding examples. The architectural art in Qing Dynasty is outstanding in decorative art, which is manifested in colorful paintings, Joinery Work, railings, eaves decoration, sculpture, plastic walls and so on. The architectural color painting in Qing Dynasty broke through the pattern of color painting in Ming Dynasty, and the official color painting developed into three categories: Hexi Seal Painting, Zi Xuan Color Painting and Soviet Color Painting. The differences between golden dragon and seal, dragon and phoenix and seal, big golden whirlwind, small golden whirlwind, stone rolling jade, elegant black ink, realgar wine, Jin Zhuo black and white painting, golden white painting, yellow white painting and sea white painting are analyzed in detail. In the process of color painting, the decorative effect is enhanced by means of draining powder, pasting gold and sweeping green, so that the appearance of the building appears colorful. In the Qing Dynasty, the types of doors and windows increased obviously, and the lattice pattern of doors and windows became more complicated, which was not the same as the simple well lattice, wicker lattice, pillow lattice and brocade lattice in the Ming Dynasty. By the Qing Dynasty, the plaid patterns of many doors and windows had developed into nested patterns, that is, two patterns were superimposed, such as cross begonia pattern, eight-way six-way pattern, turtle back brocade pattern and so on. Jiangnan region also likes to use Kui style, which has evolved into random patterns and further mutated into a combination of rough patterns and random patterns. In Dongyang, Zhejiang, Jianchuan, Yunnan and other areas where woodcarving skills are developed, some residential doors are all woodcarving products, and flowers, birds, trees and stones suddenly appear on the doors, completely becoming a group of painting screens. Interior eaves partition is also the focus of decoration. In addition to doors and partitions, coverings are widely used to separate indoor spaces. Common only railing cover, several feet cover, flying cover, kang cover, round lamp cover, octagonal cover, rattan cover and flower cover. In addition, antique shelves and Taishi walls are also indoor partition forms. Rich cornice partitions create an internal space environment that seems to be separated from each other and interspersed with spaces. In the interior eaves decoration, a large number of arts and crafts manufacturing techniques are also cited, such as hardwood paste, cloisonne, jade carving, shell carving, gold and silver inlay, bamboo strips, silk gauze mounting, golden flower wallpaper and so on. To make the indoor viewing environment more beautiful. Bricks, wood and stone carvings were also widely used in buildings in the Qing Dynasty, which almost became the symbol of wealthy families' financial resources. Other decorative means, such as plastic wall, gray plastic, marble mosaic, gypsum flower decoration, etc. , has also been taken seriously. The architectural decoration art in Qing Dynasty fully demonstrated the ingenious ideas of craftsmen and the formal beauty of China traditional architecture.