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HISTORY OF HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
 
 
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The Chinese architectural tradition: from the 1st c. BC

No architecture survives in China from the early dynasties (with the spectacular exception of the Great Wall) because the Chinese have always built in wood, which decays. On the other hand, wood is easily repaired.

When timbers of a wooden structure are replaced and repainted, the building is as good as new - or as good as old. The conservative tendency in Chinese culture means that styles, even in entirely new buildings, seem to have changed little in the 2000 years since the Han dynasty.
 



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Documents of the time suggest that Han imperial architecture is already of a kind familiar today in Beijing's Forbidden City, the vast palace built in the 15th century for the Ming emperors. Carved and painted wooden columns and beams support roofs with elaborate ornamented eaves.

The painting of buildings provides ample opportunity for the Chinese love of rank and hierarchy. The Li Chi, a Confucian book of ritual complied in the Han dynasty, declares that the pillars of the emperor's buildings are red, those of princes are black, those of high officials blue-green, and those of other members of the gentry yellow.
 

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Minor improvements are introduced with the advance of technology. The colourful ceramic roof tiles of Chinese pavilions are an innovation in the Song dynasty in the 11th century. But in broad terms the civic buildings of China retain their appearance through the ages.

A good example is the magnificent Temple of Heaven in Beijing. Its colours, frequently restored, are so fresh that the building looks new. But the structure dates from the early 15th century, in the Ming dynasty, and its appearance on its marble platform is almost identical to Marco Polo's description of its predecessor in the 13th century.
 

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