Architectural Characteristics of Beijing Siheyuan
1. Central axis layout, the main room and the reverse seat are located on the central axis. The main house is the main body of the whole house, and the decoration specifications of depth, width, elevation, and internal and external eaves rank first in the whole house.
The columns of the main house are even numbered, and the columns of the rooms are odd numbered, thus ensuring that the doors of the second rooms are on the central axis. The main house usually has three rooms. Sometimes there are side rooms on both sides of the main house. The height of the penthouse is lower than that of the main house. The total length of the main room and the side rooms determines the width of the courtyard.
2. The main house, the reverse side and the two wings are all single-story buildings, and they are independent and not connected to each other. The main house and the reverse side face each other from the north to the south, and the front eaves of the two wings are located on the head wall of the main house. outside. If there are penthouses on both sides of the main room, the width of the penthouses and the depth of the wing rooms should be kept at the same scale. If there is a house behind the main house, the wing room on the east side serves as a passage.
This is the fundamental difference between a courtyard house and a courtyard house. The courtyard houses are connected to each other. For example, the palace ruins of the Western Zhou Dynasty in Fengchu Village, Qishan, Shaanxi Province, today's Taimen in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, and the Indian-style residences in the southwestern region, all the houses on the four sides are connected to each other.
3. The main house, the side house, and the side house usually adopt the style of a hard mountain with gables to the top. There are no doors or windows on the gable wall or on the rear eaves wall. The doors and windows all open into the courtyard.
4. The gate is located in the southeast or northwest of the house, which is a basic feature of Beijing courtyard houses. If the house is located in the north of the alley, the gate is located in the southeast corner; if the house is located in the south of the alley, the gate is located in the northwest.
There are two types of house doors: house doors and wall doors. The elegant courtyard houses use house doors. This kind of gate can be subdivided into four types: Guangliang Gate, Jinzhu Gate, Manzi Gate and Ruyi Gate.
In feudal society, only officials of a certain level could use Guangliang Gate and Jinzhu Gate. Common people can only use Manzi Gate, Ruyi Gate and Qiangyuan Gate. The common form of wall gate is the Qingshuiji small gatehouse.
5. On the whole, the courtyards in Beijing are long from north to south and short from east to west. However, the courtyards inside the courtyards have a completely different style from the courtyards in narrow courtyards in Shanxi or Shaanxi. In terms of the length-to-width ratio of the courtyard, the Beijing courtyard is 11, the Shaanxi narrow courtyard is 21, and the Shaanxi narrow courtyard is 31. With the shift to the northwest, the length-to-width ratio has become increasingly disparate.
This means that the courtyards of Beijing courtyards are basically square. Whether in Shanxi or Shaanxi, the courtyards are rectangular. Although the building also has one main and two wings, the east and west wing rooms are close to each other, dividing the main room or Mostly covered.
Extended information:
The design principles of Beijing courtyard houses:
Beijing’s courtyard houses are historical products, which are influenced by both the humanistic spirit and the natural environment. The humanistic spirit is related to the well field system in ancient my country.
Those who are familiar with ancient Chinese history know that the well-field system was a land system in the Western Zhou Dynasty. In layman's terms, a square or rectangular field was divided into nine equal parts, each of one hundred acres.
In the middle is the lord's field, which is public land in the expression at the time. The remaining eight shares are divided among eight households of farmers, each of which is also 100 acres. When farmers farm, they plant public land first and then cultivate their own land.
According to the ideas and planning principles of the well-field system, the concept of the royal city was born. Simply put, the royal city was planned into nine equal parts, with the palace city standing in the middle, and the remaining eight parts being planned as lanes and markets.
This city-building concept, or the idea of the well-field system, also influenced the design of Beijing’s courtyard houses. Let’s take a basic-shaped courtyard as an example for analysis:
1. There are three main rooms and two side rooms, basically on the same meridian. The front eaves of the main house are a meridian line, and the ear rooms are located on the east and west sides of the north house. Their front eaves are slightly behind the front eaves of the main house.
2. There are two rooms in the east wing and two rooms in the west wing. The front eaves of the east and west wing rooms are located on both sides of the head wall of the main room, and their span is equal to the width of the wing rooms. The front eaves of the east and west wings are located on the two parallels.
Three, sit in three rooms. On the east side of the inverted seat is the gate of the house. The front eaves of the inverted seat and the back eaves of the house door can be regarded as another meridian.
4. The main room, the east and west wing rooms and the back eaves of the inverted seats form the four boundaries of the courtyard.
5. The front eaves of the east and west wings are two lines of longitude, and the front eaves of the north room and the reverse seat are two lines of latitude. The intersection of longitude and latitude just draws nine parts of the yard; there are houses around it, and in the middle. patio.
The courtyard houses in Beijing were designed based on this principle and were completely consistent with the land planning of the well-field system.
This principle of building a house was later referred to as the Nine-Gong Grid.
From the perspective of architecture and geographical environment, Beijing has a high latitude, and the houses face south and are easy to heat and ventilate, so the main house should be built in the north of the courtyard.
Beijing is cold in winter. In order to maximize the absorption of sunlight and avoid the shadows of the hatchbacks and reverse seats from covering the main house, it is scientific to design the courtyard in a square shape.
Different from palaces, government offices, guild halls, and temples, courtyards are not places for public gatherings, but private residences that require privacy. Therefore, its gates are not located on the central axis, but are opened in the southeast. The location takes full consideration of the function of the building.
People's Daily Online - Architectural Layout and Living Culture of Beijing Courtyards