Chinese Architecture and Design

Explore Chinese architecture and design through construction methods and materials, featuring landmarks like the Great Wall, Forbidden City, temples, and the dragon in Chinese art.

Explore China’s vast geography and rich history, guided by dragons. Trace prehistoric, dynastic, and modern periods along the Yellow River and Yangtze in eastern China.

Explore how Chinese architecture uses rammed earth and timber, with earth in bricks and tiles, reflecting Neolithic traditions like Yang Chow and Liang Shu cultures.

Explore earth-based Chinese architecture, from rammed earth to Ming dynasty wall passes like Yu Guan, highlighting the Great Wall, Silk Road trade, and the legend of the extra brick.

Explore the Great Wall passes near Beijing, where funneling valleys and barbicans control traffic and defend against Mongol incursions, with a compressed earth core and stone finishing.

Explore the west gate barbican of the xi’an city wall, an earthen, defensible complex blending military, administrative, and religious functions with timber construction and cosmopolitan life along the silk road.

Explore Chinese architecture's timber construction and load-bearing timber frames, featuring interlocking mortise-and-tenon joints, post-and-lintel Chi style vs. column-and-tidy trunk do style, and the dougong bracket system.

Explore Chinese roofing systems and roof types—from flush gable to curved hip and gable—seen in Tang to Qing architecture, including Temple of Heaven and Forbidden City with glazed tiles.

Explore patterns in railing and ornaments across Chinese architecture, citing Huntington Gardens and the Summer Palace, with symbols like the dragon, phoenix, and crane symbolizing longevity and a baroque touch.

Trace the introduction of Buddhism to China through the White Horse Temple and iconic pagodas, and examine features like closed and flying eaves, bracketing, and decorative bridges.

Explore the red pagoda on the Yangtze hillside, a nine-floor wooden temple with dragon roofs, yellow entrances, round windows, and the Purple Rain pavilion overlooking the river.

Explore a classic Chinese temple in Beijing, highlighting simple lines, extended eaves, red lanterns, tubular tiles, and practical drainage on a raised plinth against Cultural Revolution losses.

Discover a prototypical Chinese mosque in Chengdu, rebuilt through Ming and Qing dynasties with rare double-e and H-shaped roofs. Explore preserved period furniture, lamps, and intricate latticework celebrated by locals.

Explore Chinese architecture from neolithic mud homes and thatched roofs to central courtyard siheyuan, with front-facing rooms and feng shui guiding orientation, water use, and furniture.

Explore the origins of Chinese urban civilization from Neolithic tribes to the Shang dynasty, highlighting Yu the Great's flood control, bronze craft, and the courtyard palace pattern.

Explore the Deming palace, the Tang dynasty imperial complex and royal residence, including its reconstruction, Empress Wu Zetian’s occupancy, and Tang-style features like hip roofs and flying eaves.

Explore the Forbidden City’s vast central courtyard in Beijing, with 900 buildings, major halls, gates, and celestial symbolism tied to the emperor and imperial power.

Explore a 1700-year-old, well-preserved Sichuan town in western China, featuring temples, ancient cobbled streets, curving alleys, and authentic shopfronts that embody traditional Chinese architecture and water features.

Explore Shanghai's architectural evolution from neolithic roots to a modern skyline, featuring the Bund, Pudong, French Concession, old city, gardens, and the jade Buddha temple.

Explore the course catalog of Chinese architecture and design by examining the repeated phrases 'and so' and 'this' to illustrate how ideas unfold.