Chinese Quadrangles

3 min read

Chinese Quadrangles

The courtyard house is one of the most interesting features of traditional Chinese architecture.It originates from the early Han dynasty and has a history as long as the city itself，having slowly developed over nearly 2，000 years.

The quadrangles in Beijing generally face south for better lighting，and so a lot of hutongs run east to west.They varied in size according to the social status of the household.They could be divided into large，medium and small ones.Smallscale quadrangles have only one courtyard，with rooms built on their three or four sides. They are small but exquisite. For medium-scale quadrangles, there is the second gate between the principal room and the rooms opposite the principal. And there are posterior shielding rooms behind the principal room. The large-scale quadrangles are closer to the Imperial Palace, developed in depth with a few courtyards as well as gardens.

There were strict rules for different rooms in the courtyards. Principal rooms are those on the north side facing the south. Being generally 3-bay or 5-bay across and with high base and steps, as well as large-sized rooms, they are the predominating ones for the heads of the family. Smaller or lowerrooms may be attached to either side of the principal rooms, looking just like ears on either sides of a face, thus they arecalled Er Fang for the study. On the east and west sides of the inner courtyard, there are three rooms respectively with doors facing the courtyard. These are called Xiangfang, wing rooms for younger generation. Zhao Fang, the shielding rooms were built behind the principal rooms. They were mainly for unmarried maidens or maidservants.

Rooms facing the street are not given rear windows or only small windows are open on the upper part of the rear wall.

On the space of the courtyard, various trees and flowers can be planted; fish tanks or potted landscapes can be placed, according to the owner’s will. For a happy and pleasant life, the quadrangle is an ideal living quarter for a family.

Rooms on four sides all have doors open facing the courtyard, so that all members of the family can live harmoniously together. In the courtyard, trees and flowers can be planted, birds and fish bred, rockeries and screens made, and in addition to comfortable lodgings, dwellers can share the beautiful field granted by Nature.

The carved decorations and colored paintings in quadrangles all embodied folk customs and social practices and traditional culture and expressed the people’s pursuance for happiness, fineness, prosperity and auspiciousness under certain historical conditions.

The quadrangles are surrounded with curtain walls. It is often difficult to judge the scale of what lies behind. The way to assess the status of the occupants is through the height of the gates, the quality of their decoration, the pair of lions standing guard and the number of bolts on the doors.

The gate was set at the southeast corner which was the wind corner, and the house was made to face south with the main building on the north side which was believed to belong to water-an element to prevent fire. The gates of quadrangle residences in Beijing fall into two categories: the house-typed gates(composed by one or more rooms) and the wall-typed gates(open on the spot where two sections of walls met).

Those with official status or solid economic base,i.e. the middle and upper classes of the society, generally adopted the former; the latter were mostly the entrances of the residences of the common people.

With the development of modern urban construction, quadrangles have been on the decrease. In recent years, the state has made great efforts to preserve hutongs and quadrangles as an ancient culture heritage; some hutongs and architectures with distinctive features have been retained and renovated so that this ancient culture heritage can be inherited and carried forward.