As mentioned in last week’s post, timber construction doesn’t easily lend itself to building at extremely large scales or in multiple storeys, and traditional Chinese architecture is no exception here: there are relatively few examples of large timber structures in the historical record. Timber architecture does however encourage a degree of systematisation or ‘modularity,’ if those terms can be applied to pre-industrial structures, and this has been the case with the ‘hall’ (tángwū 堂屋), whose gradual standardisation has meant that it displays little variation over time and region. These factors go some way to explaining the agglomerative character of Chinese architecture: increases in scale and complexity are achieved not by the erection of grander and more complex unified structures, but by the addition or duplication of relatively modest and simple groups or ‘units’ of tángwū and their associated courts (院子 yuànzi).

The tángwū and yuànzi present a beautiful contrast. Against the simple, rectangular and relatively unchanging form of the tángwū, we see in the yuànzi an infinite variety of sizes, forms, functions, and atmospheres. It is tempting to interpret the two in almost yin-yang terms: the tángwū is rigid, stable, material; the yuànzi is spatial, fluid, yielding, freely receptive and responsive, with the capacity to accomodate the creative energy which finds no outlet in the tángwū. Indeed, when we speak of Chinese architecture increasing in scale and complexity in response to emergent societal conditions and requirements, it is in the yuànzi, not the tángwū, which this response is expressed, and to the Chinese people it is the yuànzi, not the tángwū, that is in every way the heart of the architectural ensemble.