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119-750: The art of Chinese garden integrates architecture , calligraphy and painting , sculpture, literature , gardening and other arts . It is a model of Chinese aesthetics, reflecting the profound philosophical thinking and pursuit of life of the Chinese people. Among them, Chengde Mountain Resort and the Summer Palace , which belong to royal gardens, and several the Classical Gardens of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province , which belong to private gardens, are also included in

238-677: A French Jesuit who became court painter for the Qianlong Emperor from 1738 to 1768, described the Jade Terrace of the Isle of Immortality in the Lake of the Summer Palace: "That which is a true jewel is a rock or island...which is in the middle of this lake, on which is built a small palace, which contains one hundred rooms or salons...of a beauty and a taste which I am not able to express to you. The view

357-435: A U-shape, with a courtyard suitable (e.g., for farm work). Merchants and bureaucrats preferred to close off the front with an imposing gate. All buildings were legally regulated, and the law required that the number of stories, the length of the building and the building colours reflect the owner's class. Some commoners living in areas plagued by bandits built communal fortresses called Tulou for protection. Often favoured by

476-483: A book recording the event of the Orchid Pavilion Gathering , another famous poetry setting at a country retreat called the "Orchid Pavilion". This was a park with a meandering stream. He brought together a group of famous poets, and seated them beside the stream. Then he placed cups of wine in the stream, and let them float. If the cup stopped beside one of the poets, he was obliged to drink it and then compose

595-538: A common ritual center that linked them to a single symbolic order, but others developed more independently. The emergence of walled cities during this time is a clear indication that the political landscape was often unstable. The Hongshan culture of Inner Mongolia (located along the Laoha, Yingjin, and Daling rivers that empty into Bohai Bay ) was scattered over a large area but had a single, common ritual center of at least 14 burial mounds and altars over several ridges. It

714-467: A country house at the torrent of the Golden Valley...where there is a spring of pure water, a luxuriant wood, fruit trees, bambo, cypress, and medicinal plants. There are fields, two hundred sheep, chickens, pigs, geese and ducks...There is also a water mill, a fish pond, caves, and everything to beguile the eye and please the heart....With my literary friends, we took walks day and night, feasted, climbed

833-474: A greater floor area ratio : thus, in cities the demand for traditional Chinese buildings (which are normally less than 3 levels) has declined in favor of high-rises. However, the traditional skills of Chinese architecture, including major and minor carpentry , masonry , and stonemasonry , are used in the construction of vernacular architecture in China's rural areas. Chinese civilizations and cultures developed in

952-506: A height of 84 m (276 ft), and although it served as the crowning pagoda of the Kaiyuan monastery in old Dingzhou, Hebei , it was also used as a military watchtower for Song dynasty soldiers to observe potential Liao dynasty troop movements. The architecture of the mosques and gongbei tomb shrines of Chinese Muslims often combines traditional Chinese styles with Middle Eastern influences. The royal and nonroyal tombs found in

1071-555: A hilltop viewing pavilion. Other lakeside pavilions were added, including a reverence hall, a recitation hall, and a special pavilion for watching the fish. Over the centuries it was much modified, but still keeps its essential plan. Another Song dynasty garden still in existence is the Master of the Nets Garden in Suzhou. It was created in 1141 by Shi Zhengzhi , Deputy Civil Service Minister of

1190-625: A horizontal emphasis, and an allusion to various cosmological, mythological or in general symbolic elements. Chinese architecture traditionally classifies structures according to type, ranging from pagodas to palaces. Due to the frequent use of wood , a relatively perishable material, as well as few monumental structures built of more durable materials, much historical knowledge of Chinese architecture derives from surviving miniature models in ceramic and published diagrams and specifications. Although unifying aspects exist, Chinese architecture varies widely based on status or affiliation, such as whether

1309-655: A level never seen before, and new gardens, large and small, filled the capital city, Chang'an . The new gardens, were inspired by classical legends and poems. There were shanchi yuan , gardens with artificial mountains and ponds, inspired by the legend of the isles of immortals, and shanting yuan , gardens with replicas of mountains and small viewing houses, or pavilions. Even ordinary residences had tiny gardens in their courtyards, with terracotta mountains and small ponds. These Chinese classical gardens, or scholar's gardens ( wenren yuan ), were inspired by, and in turn inspired, classical Chinese poetry and painting. A notable example

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1428-556: A main model of royal gardens. Another notable garden of the Han period was the Garden of General Liang Ji built under Emperor Shun (125–144 AD). Using a fortune amassed during his twenty years in the imperial court, Liang Ji built an immense landscape garden with artificial mountains, ravines and forests, filled with rare birds and domesticated wild animals. This was one of the first gardens that tried to create an idealized copy of nature. After

1547-572: A mountain to view the scenery, and sat by the side of the stream. This visit to the garden resulted in a famous collection of poems, Jingu Shi , or Poems of the Golden Valley , and launched a long tradition of writing poetry in and about gardens. The poet and calligrapher Wang Xizhi (307–365) wrote in his excellent calligraphy the Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion introducing

1666-485: A pagoda. The 16th-century Chinese writer and philosopher Ji Cheng instructed garden builders to "hide the vulgar and the common as far as the eye can see, and include the excellent and the splendid." Some early Western visitors to the imperial Chinese gardens felt they were chaotic, crowded with buildings in different styles, without any seeming order. But the Jesuit priest Jean Denis Attiret , who lived in China from 1739 and

1785-670: A poem for each scene in the garden and commissioned a famous artist, to paint scenes of the garden on the walls of his villa. After retiring from the government, he passed his time taking boat trips on the lake, playing the cithare and writing and reciting poetry. During the Tang dynasty, plant cultivation was developed to an advanced level, with many plant species being grown by means of plant introduction , domestication , transplantation , and grafting . The aesthetic properties of plants were highlighted, while numerous books on plant classification and cultivation were published. The capital, Chang'an ,

1904-528: A poem. The garden of the floating cup ( liubei tang ), with small pavilions and artificial winding streams, became extremely popular in both imperial and private gardens. The Orchid Pavilion inspired Emperor Yang (604–617) of the Sui dynasty to build his new imperial garden, the Garden of the West , near Hangzhou . His garden had a meandering stream for floating glasses of wine and pavilions for writing poetry. He also used

2023-482: A residence, several halls for family gatherings and entertainment, eighteen pavilions for viewing different features of the garden, and an assortment of towers, galleries, and bridges, all designed for seeing different parts of the gardens from different points of view. The garden structures are not designed to dominate the landscape, but to be in harmony with it. Classical gardens traditionally have these structures: Chinese architecture Chinese architecture

2142-577: A series of carefully composed scenes, unrolling like a scroll of landscape paintings. The earliest recorded Chinese gardens were created in the valley of the Yellow River , during the Shang dynasty (1600–1046 BC). These gardens were large enclosed parks where the kings and nobles hunted game, or where fruit and vegetables were grown. Early inscriptions from this period, carved on tortoise shells, have three Chinese characters for garden, you , pu and yuan . You

2261-554: A series of gates and pavilions are used. Numerology influenced imperial architecture, hence the use of nine (the greatest single digit number) in much of construction and the reason why the Forbidden City in Beijing is said to have 9,999.9 rooms—just short of heaven's mythical 10,000 rooms. The importance of the East (the direction of the rising sun) in orienting and siting imperial buildings

2380-616: A symbol for a plantation or a pomegranate tree. A famous royal garden of the late Shang dynasty was the Terrace, Pond and Park of the Spirit ( Lingtai, Lingzhao Lingyou ) built by King Wenwang west of his capital city, Yin . The park was described in the Classic of Poetry this way: Another early royal garden was Shaqui , or the Dunes of Sand , built by the last Shang ruler, King Zhou (1075–1046 BC). It

2499-465: A vast territory and still remain a living architecture, retaining its principal characteristics in spite of repeated foreign invasions—military, intellectual, and spiritual—is a phenomenon comparable only to the continuity of the civilization of which it is an integral part. In more recent times, China has become the most rapidly modernizing country in the world. In the past few decades, cities like Shanghai have completely changed their skyline, with some of

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2618-651: A view of the lake and the mountains. In 1271, Kublai Khan established the Mongol -led Yuan dynasty in China. By 1279, he annihilated the last resistance of the Song dynasty and unified China under Mongol rule. He established a new capital on the site of present-day Beijing , called Dadu , the Great Capital. The most famous garden of the Yuan dynasty was Kublai Khan's summer palace and garden at Xanadu . The Venetian traveler Marco Polo

2737-527: Is a gulf / inland sea approximately 77,000 km (30,000 sq mi) in area on the east coast of Mainland China . It is the northwestern and innermost extension of the Yellow Sea , to which it connects via the Bohai Strait. It has a mean depth of approximately 18 meters (59 ft), with a maximum depth of about 80 meters (260 ft) located in the northern part of the Bohai Strait. The Bohai Sea

2856-532: Is a form of solar worship found in many ancient cultures, reflecting the affiliation of Ruler with the Sun. The tombs and mausoleums of imperial family members, such as the 8th-century Tang dynasty tombs at the Qianling Mausoleum , can be counted as part of the imperial tradition. These above-ground earthen mounds and pyramids had subterranean shaft-and-vault structures that were lined with brick walls since at least

2975-616: Is admirable... Their construction and improvement consumed a large part of the imperial treasury. Empress Dowager Cixi famously diverted money intended for the modernization of the Beiyang Fleet and used it to restore the Summer Palace and the marble teahouse in the shape of boat on Lake Kunming . Both the Summer Palace and Old Summer Palace were destroyed during the Boxer Rebellion and by punitive expeditions of European armies during

3094-606: Is believed to have visited Xanadu in about 1275, and described the garden this way: "Round this Palace a wall is built, inclosing a compass of 16 miles, and inside the Park there are fountains and rivers and brooks, and beautiful meadows, with all kinds of wild animals (excluding such as are of ferocious nature), which the Emperor has procured and placed there to supply food for his gerfalcons and hawks, which he keeps there in mew. Of these there are more than 200 gerfalcons alone, without reckoning

3213-717: Is built around a pond, with the Longevity Pavilion on the north side, the Fry Pavilion on the east side, a dramatic rock garden on the south, and the creator's study, the Humble House, to the west. The Qing dynasty was the last dynasty of China. The most famous gardens in China during this period were the Summer Palace and the Old Summer Palace in Beijing. Both gardens became symbols of luxury and refinement, and were widely described by European visitors. Father Attiret,

3332-534: Is dated to around 3500 BC, or possibly earlier. Although no evidence suggests village settlements nearby, its size is much larger than one clan or village could support. In other words, though rituals would have been performed there for the elites, the large area implies that audiences for the ritual would have encompassed all the villages of the Hongshan. As a sacred landscape, the center might have attracted supplicants from even further afield. Rammed earth construction

3451-533: Is enclosed by three provinces and one direct-administered municipality from three different regions of China — Liaoning Province (of Northeast China ), Hebei Province and Tianjin Municipality (of North China ), and Shandong Province (of East China ). It is the center of the Bohai Economic Rim , and its proximity to the Chinese capital of Beijing and the municipality of Tianjin makes it one of

3570-528: Is now Hebei Province. There are three major bays inside the Bohai Gulf: Laizhou Bay to the south, Bohai Bay to the west, and Liaodong Bay to the north. The provincial-level administrative divisions that have a coastline to the Bohai Sea are, from the south going clockwise: Shandong , Hebei, Tianjin (Tientsin), Hebei again, and Liaoning . Some of the major rivers draining into the gulf include

3689-533: Is still visible today. Despite the Mongol invasion, the classical Chinese scholar's garden continued to flourish in other parts of China. An excellent example was the Lion Grove Garden in Suzhou. It was built in 1342, and took its name from the collection of fantastic and grotesque assemblies of rocks, taken from Lake Tai. Some of them were said to look like the heads of lions. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors of

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3808-511: Is the embodiment of an architectural style that has developed over millennia in China and has influenced architecture throughout East Asia . Since its emergence during the early ancient era, the structural principles of its architecture have remained largely unchanged. The main changes involved diverse decorative details. Starting with the Tang dynasty , Chinese architecture has had a major influence on

3927-503: The Couple's Retreat Garden (1723–1736) and the Retreat & Reflection Garden (1885), both in Suzhou. A Chinese garden was not meant to be seen all at once; the plan of a classical Chinese garden presented the visitor with a series of perfectly composed and framed glimpses of scenery; a view of a pond, or of a rock, or a grove of bamboo, a blossoming tree, or a view of a distant mountain peak or

4046-561: The Forbidden City have rather low ceilings when compared to equivalent stately buildings in the West, but their external appearance suggests the all-embracing nature of imperial China. These ideas have found their way into modern Western architecture, for example through the work of Jørn Utzon . Chinese architecture used concepts from Chinese cosmology such as feng shui ( geomancy ) and Taoism to organize construction and layout. These include: The use of certain colors, numbers and

4165-552: The Garden of the North ( Beiyuan ) and the Garden of the South ( Nanyuan ), both belonged to Shen Dehe , Grand Minister to Emperor Gaozong (1131–1162). The Garden of the South was a classic mountain-and-lake (shanshui) garden; it had a lake with an Island of Immortality ( Penglai dao ), on which were three great boulders from Taihu. The Garden of the South was a water garden, with five large lakes connected to Lake Tai. A terrace gave visitors

4284-515: The Gautama Buddha ; older pagodas tend to be four-sided, while later pagodas usually have eight sides. Daoist architecture usually follows the commoners' style. The main entrance is, however, usually at the side, out of superstition about demons that might try to enter the premise (see feng shui .) In contrast to the Buddhists, in a Daoist temple the main deity is located in the main hall at

4403-609: The Great Wall of China used brick and stone, although the brick and stone Great Wall seen today is a Ming dynasty renovation. Buildings for public use and for elites usually consisted of earth mixed with bricks or stones on raised platforms which allowed them to survive. The earliest of this sort of construction was during the Shang dynasty ( c.  1600 – 1046 BCE) Chinese classifications for architecture include: Bohai Sea The Bohai Sea ( Chinese : 渤海 ; pinyin : Bó Hǎi ; lit. 'Bo Sea')

4522-505: The Hakka in Fujian and Jiangxi , the design of Tulou shows the ancient philosophy of harmony between people and environment. People used local materials, often building the walls with rammed earth. No window reached the outside on the lower two floors (for defense), but the inside included a common courtyard and let people gather. Certain architectural features were reserved for buildings built for

4641-690: The Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), a new imperial capital was built at Chang'an , and Emperor Wu built a new imperial garden, which combined the features of botanical and zoological gardens, as well as the traditional hunting grounds. Inspired by another version of Chinese classic about the Isles of the Immortals, called Liezi , he created a large artificial lake, the Lake of the Supreme Essence , with three artificial islands in

4760-526: The Humble Administrator's Garden , was a little over ten hectares in area, with one fifth of the garden occupied by the pond. But they did not have to be large. Ji Cheng built a garden for Wu Youyu, the Treasurer of Jinling , that was just under one hectare in size, and the tour of the garden was only four hundred steps long from the entrance to the last viewing point, but Wu Youyu said it contained all

4879-515: The Neolithic age . The basic well-field diagram is overlaid with the luoshu , a magic square divided into 9 sub-squares, and linked with Chinese numerology. In Southern Song dynasty (1131AD), the design of Hongcun city in Anhui was based around "harmony between man and nature", facing south and surrounded by mountains and water. According to fengshui, it is a carefully planned ancient village and shows

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4998-662: The Qing dynasty each visited the garden several times, and used it as model for their own summer garden, the Garden of Perfect Splendor , at the Chengde Mountain Resort . In 1368, forces of the Ming dynasty , led by Zhu Yuanzhang , captured Dadu from the Mongols and overthrew the Yuan dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the Yuan palaces in Dadu to be burned down. The most famous existing garden from

5117-680: The Warring States period (481–221 BC). Generally speaking, Buddhist architecture follows the imperial style. A large Buddhist monastery normally has a front hall, housing the statues of the Four Heavenly Kings , followed by a great hall, housing statues of the Buddhas . Accommodations are located at the two sides. Some of the greatest examples of this come from the 18th-century Puning Temple and Putuo Zongcheng Temple . Buddhist monasteries sometimes also have pagodas , which may house relics of

5236-462: The World Heritage List by UNESCO . Many essential elements are used in Chinese gardens, and Moon Gate is one of them. A typical Chinese garden is enclosed by walls and includes one or more ponds, rock works, trees and flowers, and an assortment of halls and pavilions within the garden, connected by winding paths and zig-zag galleries. By moving from structure to structure, visitors can view

5355-529: The Yellow River , Xiaoqing River , Hai River , Luan River , Dai River , Daling River , Xiaoling River, Liao River and Daliao River . There are a few important oil reserves in the vicinity of the gulf, including the Shengli Field . Important islands or island groups in the gulf include the Changshan Archipelago , Juehua Island ( 觉华岛 ; 覺華島 ), Bijia Mountain , Changxing Island , Xizhong Island ,

5474-447: The capital of China after the Mongol invasion of the 13th century, completing the easterly migration of the Chinese capital begun in the Jin dynasty . The Ming uprising in 1368 reasserted Chinese authority and fixed Beijing as the seat of imperial power for the next five centuries. The emperor and the empress lived in palaces on the central axis of the Forbidden City , the crown prince at

5593-425: The emperor of China . One example is the use of yellow (the imperial color) roof tiles. Yellow tiles still adorn most of the buildings within the Forbidden City . Only the emperor could use hip roofs , with all four sides sloping. The two types of hip roof were single-eave and double-eave. The Hall of Supreme Harmony is the archetypal example of double eaves. The Temple of Heaven uses blue roof tiles to symbolize

5712-507: The proletarian spirit of on-site construction using rammed earth. The Communist Party promoted the use of rammed earth construction as a low-cost method which was indigenous to China and required little technical skill. Reinforced concrete, brick-infill, and prefabricated materials were used increasingly following the Wall Reform Movement of 1973–1976 and were promoted in publications such as Architectural Journal. In 2014,

5831-416: The 100 million ton landmark in the near future. The Bohai Bay contains significant oil and gas reserves, which provide much of China's offshore production. The main field in the region, named Shengli , has been exploited since the 1960s. It still produces about half a million barrels a day, but is declining . Production is dominated by Chinese majors ( China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC)

5950-440: The 4th and 7th centuries were representations of the heavens. This originates from Roman provincial art and ancient Egypt. As most of these representations are circular, other forms are present: dodecagon, octagonal, and square. Many caves in the 4th-7th centuries were probably carved throughout the Han and Tang period. Chinese urban planning is based on fengshui geomancy and the well-field system of land division, both used since

6069-555: The Chinese garden. There were two periods of the Song dynasty , northern and southern, and both were known for the construction of famous gardens. Emperor Huizong (1082–1135) was an accomplished painter of birds and flowers. A scholar himself, he integrated elements of the scholar garden into his grand imperial garden. His first garden, called The Basin of the Clarity of Gold , was an artificial lake surrounded by terraces and pavilions. The public

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6188-468: The Chinese have always enjoyed an indigenous system of construction that has retained its principal characteristics from prehistoric times to the present day. Over the vast area from Chinese Turkistan to Japan, from Manchuria to the northern half of French Indochina, the same system of construction is prevalent; and this was the area of Chinese cultural influence. That this system of construction could perpetuate itself for more than four thousand years over such

6307-623: The East/West Mayi Islands ( 蚂蚁岛 ), Zhu Island ( 猪岛 ; 豬島 ) and She Island ( 蛇岛 ; 蛇島 ). The opening of the Bohai Sea is bounded by the Changshan Archipelago between Dalian 's Lüshunkou District on the southern tip of Liaodong Peninsula , and the Cape of Penglai on the northernmost protrusion of Shandong Peninsula . Due to its proximity to the capital city Beijing and the population of its surrounding provinces exceeding 210 million,

6426-524: The English romantic poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge . When he established his new capital at Dadu, Kublai Khan enlarged the artificial lakes that had been created a century earlier by the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty, and built up the island of Oinghua, creating a striking contrast between curving banks of the lake and garden and the strict geometry of what later became the Forbidden City of Beijing. This contrast

6545-434: The Human-Nature Intergraded Ecological Planning concept. Since wars were frequent in northern China, many people moved to southern China. The building method of a courtyard house was adapted to southern China. The village of Tungyuan in Fujian Province is a good example of a planned settlement that shows the feng shui elements – psychological self-defense and building structure – in the form of material self-defense. Wood

6664-399: The Liaodong and Shandong peninsulas. When completed, the tunnel would be 106 kilometers (66 mi) long, making it twice as long as the channel tunnel connecting England and France. In July 2013, a modified plan was announced, involving a 123-kilometer (76 mi)-long tunnel between Dalian , Liaoning and Yantai , Shandong. The tunnel was first proposed by officials in Yantai in 1992, but

6783-445: The Ming dynasty is the Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou. It was built during the reign of the Zhengde Emperor (1506–1521) by Wang Xianchen, a minor government administrator who retired from government service and devoted himself to his garden. The garden has been much altered since it was built, but the central part has survived; a large pond full of lotus blossoms, surrounded by structures and pavilions designed as viewpoints of

6902-437: The Qing dynasty, twelve tall limestone rocks were added to the garden, symbolizing mountains. The most famous was a picturesque rock called the Auspicious Cloud-Capped Peak, which became a centerpiece of the garden. A third renowned Ming era garden in Suzhou is the Garden of Cultivation , built during the reign of the Tianqi Emperor (1621–27) by the grandson of Wen Zhengming , a famous Ming painter and calligrapher. The garden

7021-469: The Southern Song government. It had his library, the Hall of Ten Thousand Volumes, and an adjacent garden called the Fisherman's Retreat. It was extensively remodeled between 1736 and 1796, but it remains one of the best example of a Song Dynasty Scholars Garden. In the city of Wuxi , on the edge of Lake Tai and at the foot of two mountains, there were thirty four gardens recorded by the Song dynasty historian Zhou Mi (1232–1308). The two most famous gardens,

7140-467: The architectural styles of neighbouring East Asian countries such as Japan , Korea , Vietnam , and Mongolia in addition to minor influences on the architecture of Southeast and South Asia including the countries of Malaysia , Singapore , Indonesia , Sri Lanka , Thailand , Laos , Cambodia , and the Philippines . Chinese architecture is characterized by bilateral symmetry, use of enclosed open spaces, feng shui (e.g. directional hierarchies ),

7259-445: The building was a shrine for deities and ancestors, and was also used during festivities. On its two sides were bedrooms for elders; the two wings (known as "guardian dragons") were for junior members, as well as the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen, although sometimes the living room was close to the center. Sometimes the extended families became so large that one or two extra pairs of "wings" had to be built. This produced

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7378-422: The busiest seaways in the world. The entrance to the Bohai Sea is considered a part of the territorial sea of the People's Republic of China due to the presence of the Miaodao islands . China declared the Bohai sea to be part of its inland waters in 1958. During the Pleistocene , the Bohai Sea experienced numerous glacioeustatic transgressions and regressions , as evidenced by sediment cores sampled from

7497-399: The cardinal directions reflected the belief in a type of immanence , where the nature of a thing could be wholly contained in its own form. Beijing and Chang'an are examples of traditional Chinese town planning that represent these cosmological concepts. The types of Chinese architecture may relate to the use of the structures, such as whether they were built for royals, commoners, or

7616-454: The center of his garden he had constructed an artificial mountain a hundred meters high, with cliffs and ravines, which he named Genyue , or "The Mountain of Stability." The garden was finished in 1122. In 1127, Emperor Huizong was forced to flee from the Song capital, Kaifeng , when it came under attack by the armies of the Jurchen -led Jin dynasty . When he returned (as a captive of the Jurchens), he found his garden completely destroyed, all

7735-446: The center representing the three isles of the Immortals - Penglai , Fanghu , and Yingzhou. The park was later destroyed, but its memory would continue to inspire Chinese garden design for centuries. The Jianzhang Palace in the Han Dynasty is the first known garden built with the complete set of the three remaining Bohai Shenshan mountains. Since then, the Yichi Sanshan (Chinese: 一池三山 ) system of one pond with three mountains has been

7854-469: The centuries. From the Tang dynasty (618–907) onwards, brick and stone architecture gradually became more common. The earliest examples of this transition can be seen in building projects such as the Zhaozhou Bridge completed in 605 or the Xumi Pagoda built in 636. Some stone and brick architecture was used in subterranean tomb architecture of earlier dynasties. In the early 20th century no known fully wood-constructed Tang dynasty buildings still existed;

7973-637: The city of Datong started to rebuild the Datong ancient city wall and buildings in traditional architecture, although received skepticism and opposition by citizens by then, many praised the mayor for bringing back traditional Chinese aesthetics later on. Vernacular Chinese architecture shows variations related to local terrain and climate. An important feature in Chinese architecture is its emphasis on articulation and bilateral symmetry , which there signifies balance. These are found everywhere in Chinese architecture, from palace complexes to humble farmhouses. Secondary elements are positioned on either side of

8092-446: The city of Luoyang by Li Deyu , Grand Minister of the Tang Empire. The garden was vast, with over a hundred pavilions and structures, but it was most famous for its collection of exotically shaped rocks and plants, which its creator collected all over China. Rocks of unusual shapes, known as Chinese Scholars' Rocks, often selected to portray the part of a mountain or mountain range in a garden scene, gradually became an essential feature of

8211-402: The court and built gardens where they could escape the outside world and concentrate on nature and literature. One example was the Jingu Yuan , or Garden of the Golden Valley , built in 296 by Shi Chong (249–300 AD), an aristocrat and former court official, ten kilometers northeast of Luoyang. He invited thirty famous poets to a banquet in his garden, and wrote about the event himself: I have

8330-453: The eastern end of the Bohai Sea , between China and Korea, which was the home of the Eight Immortals . On this island were palaces of gold and silver, with jewels on the trees. There was no pain, no winter, wine glasses and rice bowls were always full, and fruits, when eaten, granted eternal life. In 221 BC, Ying Zheng, the King of Qin conquered other rival states and unified China under the Qin Empire , which he ruled until 210 BC. He heard

8449-435: The eastern side, and the concubines at the back (the imperial concubines were often referred to as "The Back Palace Three Thousand"). During the mid- Qing dynasty , the emperor's residence was moved to the western side of the complex. It is misleading to speak of an axis in the Western sense of a visual perspective ordering facades. The Chinese axis is a line of privilege, usually built upon, regulating access—instead of vistas,

8568-547: The exit of the Bohai Gulf to the Yellow Sea , the Bohai Strait ( 渤海海峡 ; 渤海海峽 ), has become one of busiest sea routes in recent times. Due to the Changshan Island Chain traversing the southern half of the strait, the strait is subdivided into several channels : (from north to south, the most commonly used ones in bold ) There are five major ports along the Bohai Sea rim, with throughputs over 100 million tons, though

8687-468: The fall of the Han dynasty, a long period of political instability began in China. Buddhism was introduced into China by Emperor Ming (57–75 AD), and spread rapidly. By 495, the city of Luoyang , capital of the Northern Wei dynasty, had over 1,300 temples, mostly in the former residences of believers. Each of the temples had its own small garden. During this period, many former government officials left

8806-459: The family, while buildings near the front are typically for servants and hired help. Front-facing buildings in the back of properties are used for celebratory rites and for the placement of ancestral halls and plaques. In multi-courtyard complexes, central courtyards and their buildings are considered more important than peripheral ones, the latter typically for storage, servants' rooms, or kitchens. Classical Chinese buildings, especially those of

8925-432: The front, with lesser deities in the back hall and at the sides. This is because Chinese people believe that even after the body has died, the soul is still alive. From the Han grave design, it shows the forces of cosmic yin/yang, the two forces from the heaven and earth that create eternity. The tallest pre-modern building in China was built for both religious and martial purposes. The Liaodi Pagoda of 1055 AD stands at

9044-559: The gap between town and country, (2) the gap between workers and peasants, and (3) the gap between manual and mental labor. Drawing on the Daqing experience, China encouraged rammed earth construction in the mid-1960s. Starting in 1964, Mao Zedong advocated for a "mass design revolution movement". In the context of the Sino-Soviet split , Mao urged that planners should avoid the use of Soviet-style prefabricated materials and instead embrace

9163-724: The home itself, which shows the human sphere co-existing with, but separate from nature. The intent is that people feel surrounded by, and in harmony with, nature. The two essential garden elements are stones and water. The stones signify the pursuit of immortality, while water represents emptiness and existence. The mountain belongs to yang (static beauty), and the water belongs to yin (dynamic wonder). They depend on each other and complete each other. In much Chinese architecture, buildings or building complexes surround open spaces. These enclosed spaces come in two forms: These enclosures aid in temperature regulation and in ventilation. Northern courtyards are typically open and face south to allow

9282-625: The lake and gardens. The park has an island, the Fragrant Isle, shaped like a boat. It also makes good use of the principle of the "borrowed view," ( jiejing ) carefully framing views of the surrounding mountains and a famous view of a distant pagoda. Another existing garden from the Ming dynasty is the Lingering Garden , also in Suzhou, built during the reign of the Wanli Emperor (1573–1620). During

9401-459: The legend continued to inspire Chinese gardens. Some gardens have a single island with an artificial mountain representing the island of the Eight Immortals. Other gardens have gardens featuring three Boshan Mountains - Penglai , Yingzhou, and Fanghu or Fangzhang. The Yichi Sanshan (Chinese: 一池三山 ) system of one pond with three mountains has been a main model of royal gardens. Under

9520-573: The legend of the islands and sent emissaries to find the islands and bring back the elixir of immortal life, without success. At his palace near his capital, Xianyang , he created a garden with a large lake called Lanchi gong or the Lake of the Orchids . On an island in the lake he created a replica of Mount Penglai, symbolizing his search for paradise. After his death, the Qin Empire fell in 206 BC and his capital city and garden were completely destroyed, but

9639-496: The main structures as wings to maintain overall symmetry. Buildings are typically planned to contain an even number of columns to produce an odd number of bays (間). Placing the main door in the center bay maintains symmetry. In contrast to buildings, Chinese gardens tend to be asymmetrical. Gardens are designed to provide enduring flow. The design of the classic Chinese garden is based on the ideology of "Nature and Man in One," as opposed to

9758-420: The marvels of the province in a single place. The classical garden was surrounded by a wall, usually painted white, which served as a pure backdrop for the flowers and trees. A pond of water was usually located in the center. Many structures, large and small, were arranged around the pond. In the garden described by Ji Cheng above, the structures occupied two-thirds of the hectare, while the garden itself occupied

9877-551: The maximum exposure of the building windows and walls to the sun while keeping out the cold north winds. Southern sky wells are relatively small and collect rainwater from the roof tops. They perform the same duties as the Roman impluvium while restricting the amount of sunlight that enters the building. Sky wells also vent hot air skyward, which draws cool air from the lower areas and the outside. The projected hierarchy and importance and building uses in Chinese architecture are based on

9996-535: The more important cultures were Hongshan culture (4700–2900 BC) to the north of Bohai Bay in Inner Mongolia and Hebei Province and contemporaneous Yangshao culture (5000–3000 BC) in Henan Province . Between the two, and developing later, was Longshan culture (3000–2000 BC) in the central and lower Yellow River valley. These combined areas gave rise to thousands of small/proto-states by 3000 BC. Some shared

10115-504: The mountains. The most famous garden in Luoyang was The Garden of Solitary Joy ( Dule Yuan ), built by the poet and historian Sima Guang (1021–1086). His garden had an area of eight mu , or about 1.5 hectares. In the center was the Pavilion of Study, his library, with five thousand volumes. To the north was an artificial lake, with a small island, with a picturesque fisherman's hut. To the east

10234-718: The nineteenth century, but are now gradually being restored. In addition to the Old Summer Palace and Summer Palace, between 1703 and 1792 the Qing emperors built a new complex of gardens and palaces in the mountains 200 kilometers northeast of Beijing, to escape the summer heat of the capital. It was called the Chengde Mountain Resort , and it occupied 560 hectares, with seventy-two separate landscape views, recreating landscapes in miniature from many different parts of China. This enormous garden has survived relatively intact. Renowned scholar gardens which still exist from this period include

10353-601: The oldest so far discovered was the 1931 find of Guanyin Pavilion at Dule Monastery , dated 984 during the Song dynasty. Later architectural historians Liang Sicheng , Lin Huiyin, Mo Zongjiang, discovered that the Great East Hall of Foguang Temple on Mount Wutai in Shanxi dated to 857. The ground floor of this monastic hall measures 34 by 17.66 m (111.5 by 57.9 ft). The main hall of nearby Nanchan Temple on Mount Wutai

10472-409: The other hawks. The Khan himself goes every week to see his birds sitting in mew, and sometimes he rides through the park with a leopard behind him on his horse's croup; and then if he sees any animal that takes his fancy, he slips his leopard at it, and the game when taken is made over to feed the hawks in mew. This he does for diversion." This brief description later inspired the poem Kubla Khan by

10591-448: The other third. In a scholar garden the central building was usually a library or study, connected by galleries with other pavilions which served as observation points of the garden features. These structures also helped divide the garden into individual scenes or landscapes. The other essential elements of a scholar garden were plants, trees, and rocks, all carefully composed into small perfect landscapes. Scholar gardens also often used what

10710-491: The park for theatrical events; he launched small boats on his stream with animated figures illustrating the history of China. The Tang dynasty (618–907 AD) was considered the first golden age of the classical Chinese garden. Emperor Xuanzong built a magnificent imperial garden, the Garden of the Majestic Clear Lake, near Xi′an , and lived there with his famous concubine, Consort Yang . Painting and poetry reached

10829-523: The pavilions burned and the art works looted. Only the mountain remained. While the imperial gardens were the best known, many smaller but equally picturesque gardens were built in cities such as Luoyang . The Garden of the Monastery of the Celestial Rulers in Luoyang was famous for its peonies; the entire city came when they were in bloom. The Garden of Multiple Springtimes was famous for its view of

10948-614: The plains along China's numerous rivers that emptied into Bohai and Hongzhow bays. The most prominent of these rivers, the Yellow and the Yangtze , hosted many villages. The climate was warmer and more humid than today, allowing millet to be grown in the north and rice in the south. However, Chinese civilization has no single "origin". Instead, it featured a gradual multinuclear development between 4000 and 2000 BC – from village communities to what anthropologists call cultures to states. Two of

11067-455: The port of Tangshan is further subdivided into Jingtang and Caofeidian: Caofeidian and Jingtang are usually treated as one port for statistical purposes. The ports of Dalian and Yantai are also traditionally considered part of the Bohai rim, even though strictly speaking they lie outside the limits of the sea. The Port of Longkou reached 70 million tons of cargo in 2013, and is expected to reach

11186-476: The province famous for its gardens was Suzhou , where many scholars, government officials and merchants built residences with gardens. Some of these gardens still exist today, though most have been greatly altered over the centuries. The oldest Suzhou garden that can be seen today is the Blue Wave Pavilion , built in 1044 by the Song dynasty poet Su Shunqing. (1008–1048). In the Song dynasty, it consisted of

11305-409: The religious. Due to primarily wooden construction and poor maintenance, far fewer examples of commoner's homes survive compared to those of nobles. Korman claimed the average commoner's home did not change much, even centuries after the establishment of the universal style: early-20th-century homes were similar to late and mid-imperial homes. These homes tended to follow a set pattern: the center of

11424-495: The roasted meat from the trees. Later Chinese philosophers and historians cited this garden as an example of decadence and bad taste. During the Spring and Autumn period (722–481 BC), in 535 BC, the Terrace of Shanghua , with lavishly decorated palaces, was built by King Jing of the Zhou dynasty . In 505 BC, an even more elaborate garden, the Terrace of Gusu , was begun. It was located on

11543-580: The seafloor showing fluvial floodplain conditions during intervals of low sea level. Until the early 20th century, Bo Hai was often called the Gulf of Zhili (Chinese: 直隸海灣 ; pinyin: Zhílì Hǎiwān ) or Gulf of Beizhili ( 北直隸海灣 ; Běizhílì Hǎiwān ). The romanization systems widely used in the West at the time rendered these names as variations of "Jili", "Chihli", "Pechihli", or "Pe-Chihli". Zhili and North Zhili were historic provinces in an area surrounding Beijing that approximately corresponds to what

11662-506: The side of a mountain, and included a series of terraces connected by galleries, along with a lake where boats in the form of blue dragons navigated. From the highest terrace, a view extended as far as Lake Tai , the Great Lake. An ancient Chinese legend played an important part in early garden design. In the 4th century BC, a tale in the Classic of Mountains and Seas described a peak called Mount Penglai located on one of three islands at

11781-485: The sky. The roofs are almost invariably supported by brackets (" dougong "), a feature shared only with the largest of religious buildings. The building's wooden columns well as the wall surfaces, tend to be red. Black is often used in pagodas. It was believed that the gods were inspired by the black color to visit earth. The 5-clawed dragon, adopted by the Hongwu emperor (first emperor of Ming dynasty ) for his personal use,

11900-475: The strict placement of buildings in a property/complex. Buildings with doors facing the front of the property are considered more important than those facing the sides. Buildings facing away from the front are the least important. South-facing buildings in the rear and more private areas with higher exposure to sunlight are held in higher esteem and reserved for elders or ancestral plaques. Buildings facing east and west are generally for junior members or branches of

12019-412: The structures were constructed for emperors, commoners, or for religious purposes. Other variations in Chinese architecture are shown in vernacular styles associated with different geographic regions and different ethnic heritages. The architecture of China is as old as Chinese civilization. From every source of information—literary, graphic, exemplary—there is strong evidence testifying to the fact that

12138-544: The third through sixth centuries traced back to Han construction . Some tombs were considered two-chamber spaces, where the focal point was the central pagoda pillar. This focal point served as what Buddhist call a pagoda, which is a symbol of the Buddha and his death. The layout of such tombs has the corpse in the back chamber, as the pillar location indicated the Buddha's death. There would sometimes be interior tomb decoration to portray immortal or divine meaning. Dome ceilings in

12257-591: The wealthy, are built with an emphasis on breadth and less on height, featuring an enclosed heavy platform and a large roof that floats over this base, with the vertical walls deemphasized. Buildings that were too high and large were considered unsightly, and therefore generally avoided. Chinese architecture stresses the visual impact of the width of the buildings, using sheer scale to inspire awe. This preference contrasts with Western architecture, which tends to emphasize height and depth. This often meant that pagodas towered above other buildings. The halls and palaces in

12376-422: The worlds tallest skyscrapers dotting the horizon. China also has one of the most extensive high speed rail networks , connecting and allowing its large population to travel more efficiently. Throughout the 20th century, Chinese architects have attempted to bring traditional Chinese designs into modern architecture . Moreover, the pressure for urban development throughout China requires high speed construction and

12495-437: Was a court painter for the Qianlong Emperor , observed there was a "beautiful disorder, an anti-symmetry" in the Chinese garden. "One admires the art with which this irregularity is carried out. Everything is in good taste, and so well arranged, that there is not a single view from which all the beauty can be seen; you have to see it piece by piece." Chinese classical gardens varied greatly in size. The largest garden in Suzhou,

12614-487: Was a garden of medicinal herbs, and to the west was an artificial mountain, with a belevedere at the summit to view the surrounding neighborhoods. Any passer-by could visit the garden by paying a small fee. After fall of Kaifeng, the capital of the Song dynasty was moved to Lin'an (present-day Hangzhou , Zhejiang ). The city of Lin'an soon had more than fifty gardens built on the shore of the Western Lake. The other city in

12733-444: Was a royal garden where birds and animals were kept, while pu was a garden for plants. During the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC), yuan became the character for all gardens. The old character for yuan is a small picture of a garden; it is enclosed in a square which can represent a wall, and has symbols which can represent the plan of a structure, a small square which can represent a pond, and

12852-561: Was a very cosmopolitan city, filled with diplomats, merchants, pilgrims, monks and students, who carried descriptions of the gardens all over Asia. The economic prosperity of the Tang dynasty led to the increasing construction of classical gardens across all of China. The last great garden of the Tang dynasty was the Hamlet of the Mountain of the Serene Spring ( Pingquan Shanzhuang ), built east of

12971-483: Was both practically and ideologically important during the rapid construction of the Daqing oil field and the related development of Daqing . The "Daqing Spirit" represented deep personal commitment in pursuing national goals, self-sufficient and frugal living, and urban-rural integrated land use. Daqing's urban-rural landscape was said to embody the ideal communist society described by Karl Marx because it eliminated (1)

13090-413: Was called "borrowed" scenery (借景 jiejing ) ; where unexpected views of scenery outside the garden, such as mountain peaks, seemed to be an extension of the garden itself. Chinese gardens are filled with architecture; halls, pavilions, temples, galleries, bridges, kiosks, and towers, occupying a large part of the space. The Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou has forty-eight structures, including

13209-611: Was composed of an earth terrace, or tai , which served as an observation platform in the center of a large square park. It was described in one of the early classics of Chinese literature, the Records of the Grand Historian ( Shiji ). According to the Shiji , one of the most famous features of this garden was the Wine Pool and Meat Forest (酒池肉林). A large pool, big enough for several small boats,

13328-401: Was constructed on the palace grounds, with inner linings of polished oval shaped stones from the seashore. The pool was then filled with wine. A small island was constructed in the middle of the pool, where trees were planted, which had skewers of roasted meat hanging from their branches. King Zhou and his friends and concubines drifted in their boats, drinking the wine with their hands and eating

13447-403: Was discovered in 1987, and produces from Oligocene fluvial - deltaic and lacustrine sandstones . Oil spills have been reported frequently in this region: three spills occurred in a two-month timeframe in 2011. In 2024, CNOOC discovered a 100 million ton oilfield in Bohai Sea. In February 2011, China announced that it would build a road and rail tunnel across the Bohai Strait to connect

13566-435: Was invited into the garden in the spring for boat races and spectacles on the lake. In 1117 he personally supervised the building of a new garden. He had exotic plants and picturesque rocks brought from around China for his garden, particularly the prized rocks from Lake Tai . Some of the rocks were so large that, in order to move them by water on the grand canal, he had to destroy all the bridges between Hangzhou and Beijing. In

13685-671: Was later dated to 782. Six Tang era wooden buildings had been found by the 21st century. The oldest intact fully wooden pagoda is the Pagoda of Fogong Temple of the Liao dynasty , located in Ying County of Shanxi . While the East Hall of Foguang Temple features seven types of bracket arms in its construction, the 11th-century Pagoda of Fogong Temple features fifty-four. The earliest walls and platforms used rammed earth construction. Ancient sections of

13804-551: Was mostly created for this region), but foreign companies, including ConocoPhillips and Roc Oil Company , are present. The Gudao Field, located in the Zhanhua sedimentary basin , was discovered in 1968, based on gravity, magnetic and seismic surveys conducted between 1963 and 1964. The reservoir includes the Guantao ( Miocene ) and Minghuazhen ( Pliocene ) geologic formations within the dome-like anticline . The Suizhong 36-1 Oil Field

13923-885: Was the Jante Valley Garden of the poet-painter and civil servant Wang Wei (701–761). He bought the ruined villa of a poet, located near the mouth of a river and a lake. He created twenty small landscape scenes within his garden, with names such as the Garden of Magnolias, the Waving Willows, the Kiosk in the Heart of the Bamboos, the Spring of the Golden Powder, and the View-House beside the Lake. He wrote

14042-441: Was typically utilised as a primary building material. Also, Chinese culture holds that life connects with nature and that humans should interact with animated things. By contrast stone was associated with the homes of the dead. However, unlike other building materials, wooden structures are less durable. The Songyue Pagoda (built in 523) is China's oldest extant pagoda ; its use of brick instead of wood allowed it to endure across

14161-432: Was used to decoration the beams, pillars, and on the doors on imperial architecture. Curiously, the dragon was never used on roofs of imperial buildings. Only buildings used by the imperial family were allowed to have nine jian (間, space between two columns); only gates used by the emperor could have five arches, with the centre one, reserved for the emperor. The ancient Chinese favored the color red . Beijing became

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