About the history and traditional customs of Beijing courtyard houses

Edit this paragraph The history of Beijing quadrangle courtyards Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, although Beijing quadrangle courtyards have gone through vicissitudes of life, this basic living form has been formed and continuously improved to be more suitable for living requirements, forming what we see today. The courtyard form. Edit this section to be famous: The courtyard house in Beijing is famous because of its unique composition, which is typical and representative of traditional Chinese residential architecture. Most of the residential buildings in China are inner-courtyard residences. The residential courtyards in the south are very small, and the surrounding houses are connected into one, which is called "a seal". This kind of house is suitable for southern climate conditions, and ventilation and lighting are not ideal. The courtyards of Beijing's courtyards are spacious and spacious, and the houses on all four sides are independent and connected by corridors, making living very convenient. Edit this paragraph The structure of Beijing Siheyuan The so-called Sihe, "four" refers to the east, west, south and north sides, and "he" means that the houses on the four sides are surrounded together to form a "kou"-shaped structure. After hundreds of years of construction, Beijing's courtyard houses have formed the capital's unique Beijing style from their floor plan to internal structure and detailed decoration. A formal courtyard house in Beijing is generally located in an east-west alley and faces south. The basic shape is the north room (main room), south room (inverted room) and east and west wing rooms, which are separated on four sides. They are surrounded by high walls to form a quadrangle. Open a door. The gate is located at the "Xun" position in the southeast corner of the house. The total number of rooms is generally 3 in the north room, 2 in the front and 5 in the west, 3 in the east and west rooms respectively, and 17 in the south room including the main door and hanging flower door, not including the main door. If each room is 11-12 square meters, the total area is about 200 square meters. In the middle of the courtyard is the courtyard, which is spacious and planted with trees and flowers, as well as tanks for raising goldfish. It is the center of the courtyard's layout and is also a place for people to walk through, get light, ventilate, enjoy the cool, rest and do housework. Siheyuan is a closed residence with only one street door to the outside. When the door is closed, it can be seen from the sky and the earth. It has strong privacy and is very suitable for exclusive living. In the courtyard, all the houses on all sides open their doors to the courtyard, and the family is harmonious and happy inside. Because the courtyard is spacious, you can plant trees and flowers, feed birds and fish, and stack rocks to create landscaping. Residents not only enjoy comfortable housing, but also share a beautiful world given by nature. Edit this paragraph contains profound cultural connotations Although it is a residential building, it contains profound cultural connotations and is the carrier of traditional Chinese culture. The construction of a courtyard house is very particular about Feng Shui. From site selection and positioning to determining the specific scale of each building, all must be carried out according to Feng Shui theory. The courtyard houses in Beijing are famous all over the world. In old Beijing, in addition to the Forbidden City, royal gardens, temples, temples, and government offices, a large number of buildings were countless people's residences. A poem from the Yuan Dynasty is quoted in "Research on Old News from the Rixia": "The clouds are opening and closing three thousand feet, and the fog is darkening the towers of millions of homes." The residences of these "millions of homes" are what is now known as the courtyard house in Beijing. Edit this section: Origin of the name: Why is it called "Siheyuan"? Because this kind of folk house has four houses, the main house (north house), the reverse side (south house), the east wing and the west wing, surrounded by four houses, forming a square shape with a central courtyard inside, so this kind of courtyard-style folk house is called Siheyuan. Siheyuan has a long history in China. According to the analysis of existing cultural relics, buildings in the form of Siheyuan appeared as early as more than 2,000 years ago. In the process of historical development, the Chinese people particularly loved the architectural form of the quadrangle. Not only palaces, temples, and government offices used quadrangle courtyards, but they were also widely used in residential buildings everywhere. However, whenever people mention courtyard houses, they will naturally think of Beijing courtyard houses. Why is this? This is because the courtyards in Beijing are very typical and regular in shape. Among all kinds of courtyards, the courtyards in Beijing can represent their main characteristics. First of all, the central courtyard of a Beijing courtyard is basically a square when viewed from the plane. This is not the case for some residential buildings in other areas. For example, the courtyards of courtyard houses in Shanxi and Shaanxi are a vertical rectangle that is long from north to south and narrow from east to west. However, the courtyards of courtyard houses in Sichuan and other places are mostly horizontal rectangles that are long from east to west and narrow from north to south.

Secondly, the houses in the east, west, south, and north directions of Beijing's courtyards are independent of each other. The east and west wing rooms are not connected to the main house and the reverse building itself, and all the houses such as the main house, wing rooms, and reverse floors are separate. It is a one-story building with no buildings. The only thing connecting these houses is the verandah at the corner. In this way, when viewed from the air, Beijing's courtyard houses look like four small boxes enclosing a courtyard. In many quadrangle courtyards in the south, most of the houses on the four sides are buildings, and the houses are connected at the four corners of the courtyard. The houses on the east, west, north and south sides do not exist independently. Therefore, southerners call courtyards "patio". It can be seen that the courtyards in Jiangnan are as small as a "well", which inevitably reminds people of the idioms of "frog at the bottom of the well" and "sitting in a well and looking at the sky". Edit this paragraph: Typical representative Beijing courtyard is a veritable courtyard, spacious and open, with plenty of sunlight and a broad view. Another point is that Beijing’s courtyard houses are rich in cultural connotation and fully embody the traditional Chinese concept of living. For example, the Tao Courtyard (Siheyuan in Northeastern Rural Areas) of the Han people in the Northeast meets the first two characteristics of the Siheyuan in Beijing, but it does not have the characteristic of rich cultural connotation. For example, the single door of the Northeastern courtyard (traditional Chinese traditional style is mostly double door) and the "back gate" behind the main room as a storage room all make people feel that they are immigrants from Shandong and other places in the Qing Dynasty who "went to Guandong". The continuation of the habits of the poor brought with them. It is precisely because of the above characteristics that people often regard Beijing courtyard houses as the typical representative form of Chinese courtyard houses. The gate of a courtyard generally occupies an area of ​​one room, and its parts are quite complex. The names include gate tower, door opening, gate (door leaf), door frame, waist rail, rest board, walking board, door pillow, connecting sill, and threshold. , door hairpin, large edge, wiper, threading belt, door core board, door cymbal, plug, animal face, door nail, door couplet, etc. The main door of the courtyard is composed of these parts. The gate is usually painted black, and couplets with red and black characters can be added. After entering the gate, there are hanging flower gate, moon gate and so on. The hanging flower door is the most gorgeous decorative door in the courtyard. It is called "hanging flower" because the outer eaves of the door are made of archways. Its function is to separate the inner and outer courtyards. Outside the door are the living room, concierge, carriage house, horse hall and other "outside houses". Inside the door are The main living room is the bedroom "inner house". If there is no hanging flower door, the moon door can be used to separate the inner and outer houses. Edit this paragraph The size of Beijing quadrangle courtyards Although there are certain regulations, the sizes of quadrangle courtyards vary. They can be roughly divided into three types: large quadrangle, middle quadrangle and small quadrangle: small quadrangle and small quadrangle generally have three rooms in the north. , one light and two dark, or two light and one dark, with two east and west wings and three south rooms. Lay the bricks to the top and raise the ridge to build a tile-roofed house. It can accommodate a family of three generations, with the grandparents living in the main room, the younger generation living in the wing, and the south room used as a study or living room. The courtyard is paved with brick corridors, connecting the doors of various houses, and there are steps in front of each house. There are two doors, decorated with black paint and oil. There are a pair of brass door cymbals on the door, and there are couplets on the two doors. The middle quadrangle is more spacious than the small quadrangle. It usually has 5 rooms in the north, 3 in the front and 2 in the west, and 3 in the east and west. There is a corridor in front of the house to protect it from wind and rain. In addition, the courtyard walls are divided into the front courtyard (outer courtyard) and the backyard (inner courtyard), and the courtyard walls are connected with each other by moon gates. The front yard has a shallow depth, with one or two rooms used as gatehouses, and the back yard is used as a living room. The architecture is exquisite, with square bricks on the floor and bluestone steps. Large courtyards are customarily called "big house gates". The layout of the houses can be 5 south and 5 north, 7 south and 7 north, and there are even 9 or 11 main rooms. It is usually a duplex courtyard, that is, it is composed of multiple courtyards connected vertically. Become. There are many courtyards, including front courtyard, backyard, east courtyard, west courtyard, main courtyard, side courtyard, cross courtyard, study courtyard, enclosed courtyard, horse hall, first entrance, second entrance, third entrance... and so on. There are hand-curved corridors connecting various parts of the courtyard, covering a large area. If the land available for building is small or the financial capacity cannot bear it, the quadrangle courtyard can be converted into a triple courtyard without building the south room. Medium and small courtyards are generally the residences of ordinary residents, while large courtyards are residences and government offices.