Welcome to Architectural Style
Chinese culture emphasises people, morality and art, integration, unity, co-existence and oneness. The differences in cultural traditions are reflected in architectural styles, and this is where the differences between Chinese and Western architectural cultures come into play. Western culture places more emphasis on material things, while the West places more emphasis on science and religion, and the West places more emphasis on the unique spirit of different eras or schools. The differences in cultural traditions are reflected in architectural styles, that is to say, in the differences between Chinese and Western architectural cultures.
From the perspective of the process of cultural formation, architecture is a synthesis of many contradictions, mainly in two aspects. Architecture is the accumulation and continuation of culture through the ages; it is a solidified culture, a state of culture that contemporary people can see with their own eyes and preserve for a long time. On the other hand, architecture is a culture that is ahead of its time; it requires architects to have a vision, a forward-looking vision and various specific plans and designs. Therefore, studying the differences between Chinese and Western cultures and exploring architecture from a broad cultural perspective can not only enhance people's spiritual civilisation, but also promote exchanges between different cultural spheres.
Architectural Style: A New Perspective
Environment Element
The differences between the architectural arts of China and the West stem above all from the differences in materials: traditional Western architecture has long been dominated by stone; traditional Eastern architecture has always been framed in wood. This difference in building materials offers different possibilities for their respective architectural arts.
In terms of building materials, before modern architecture was created, all of the developed building systems in the world, including Indian architecture, which belongs to the East, were, basically, created with masonry as the main building material and belonged to the masonry system. Such as the Egyptian pyramids, the ancient Greek temples, the Colosseum, the aqueduct, the medieval European churches ...... is not built of stone, none of the "stone history book" left in the history of witness. Only our classical architecture is made of wood to do the main frame of the house, belong to the wood structure system, and thus is known as "the history of wood book".
Architectural Style
Culture Element
As a history book of stone and wood, the development of architecture is a profound reflection of the evolution of human social civilisation and the changes in history. Traditional Chinese architecture has a glorious past, but in recent centuries its progress has stagnated amidst the violent collision of Eastern and Western cultures. In contemporary times, in the face of the tidal wave of Western creeds and doctrines, Chinese architectural culture should take a broader and more open view of its own development, awaken a creative and innovative mind, and observe and transform the world with a holistic and universally connected view of Eastern culture.
In the study of architecture, we should use holistic thinking and carry out comparative analysis in both vertical and horizontal directions. Traditional Chinese and Western architecture has taken different forms on the basis of their respective ideas and cultures, and in terms of differences in ontological understanding
The Chinese attach importance to the harmony of the whole, the Westerners to the differences of analysis. Chinese philosophy speaks of the unity of opposites in things and emphasises the harmonious relationship between man and nature and between man and man. Western philosophy, on the other hand, advocates the independence of the objective world, the separation of subject and object, the opposite of each other; it also has different attitudes towards nature, the Western one being called mechanical naturalism and the Chinese one organic naturalism.
The Chinese see nature as a living, moving whole with which man can communicate, and emphasise that everything in heaven and earth is one with man, which is called organic philosophy, or philosophy of life. Mechanical naturalism sees nature as a mechanical tool to be used, and the source of meaning is a transcendent subject, God. This is complementary to Western theology; there is also a great difference in the concept of practice, with the Chinese nation characterised by a spirit of practical reason. Westerners, on the other hand, tend towards abstraction. Most of the major buildings in Western classical architecture are temples dedicated to gods, such as Greek shrines, Islamic mosques, Gothic churches, etc. Most of the major buildings in China are palaces for living monarchs.