Browsing Category: WHY Does It LOOK Like That?

You enter an old Chinese residence. From the street, it may look surprisingly closed. Then you step through the gate and discover: a courtyard hidden inside. Rooms face toward it. Family life seems to turn inward. Why build a house like THAT? 🥟 The Quick Bite Courtyard houses are an important part of traditional residential architecture in several parts of China. One famous example is Beijing’s: 四合院 (sìhéyuàn) — literally, a courtyard...

You visit a temple, palace or old courtyard in China. Characters above the gate. Characters beside the doorway. Characters carved into stone. Characters on plaques. And unless you read Chinese, they can start looking like: “Beautiful decoration I can’t understand.” 😂 But they’re often telling you something. 🥟 The Quick Bite Written Chinese is an important part of the visual world of many historic Chinese buildings. A plaque (匾额, biǎné) above a...

You visit an old Chinese palace, temple or pagoda. Huge columns. Heavy roofs. Complicated wooden brackets. And surprisingly little of the massive stone construction you may have expected. Why did Chinese builders use so much wood? 🥟 The Quick Bite Timber framing became one of the great traditions of Chinese architecture. In many important palaces, temples and halls, the building’s main structure was created from a framework of: wooden columns (柱, zhù)...

You’re photographing a traditional Chinese building. Then you zoom in on the roof. Along the ridge is a little procession of creatures. One. Two. Three. Sometimes quite a few. “Wait… what are THOSE doing up there?” 😂 🥟 The Quick Bite Those little figures are roof-ridge ornaments (脊兽, jǐshòu). You’ll see different forms of them on important examples of traditional Chinese architecture, particularly palaces and temples. They aren’t simply random animals added...

You walk into the Forbidden City (故宫, Gùgōng) in Beijing. Red walls. Red columns. Yellow roofs. Then more red and yellow. After a while you may wonder: “Why THESE colors?” 🥟 The Quick Bite The colors of the Forbidden City aren’t random decoration. In Ming and Qing imperial architecture, yellow (黄, huáng) became strongly associated with the emperor and imperial authority, while red (红, hóng) was widely used on important palace walls,...

You enter a historic Chinese palace. Through a gate. Across a courtyard. Through another gate. Another courtyard. Then another gate. Eventually you may wonder: “Why didn’t they just build a front door? 😂” 🥟 The Quick Bite In major traditional Chinese palace and ceremonial complexes, gates (门, mén) and courtyards (院落, yuànluò) aren’t just spaces between the interesting buildings. They help organize: movement + access + hierarchy + ceremony. As you move...

You’re looking up at an old Chinese temple or palace. Under the huge roof is something that looks almost like a complicated wooden puzzle: blocks + arms + brackets stacked into layers. What IS that? And why did builders make it so complicated? 🥟 The Quick Bite You’re probably looking at: 斗拱 (dǒugǒng) — interlocking wooden bracket sets. They sit between the columns and the roof structure in many important examples of...

You walk into a Chinese palace, temple or ceremonial complex. A gate in the middle. Buildings on both sides. Another courtyard. Then another important building sitting right on the center line. After a while, you may wonder: “Why does everything look so symmetrical?” 🥟 The Quick Bite In many formal Chinese palace, temple and ceremonial complexes, symmetry (对称, duìchèn) and a central axis (中轴线, zhōngzhóuxiàn) help organize the space and signal order,...