Although the ancient Chinese never considered architecture a fine art, in China as in the West it has been the mother of the fine arts. It was through the medium of architectural decoration that painting and sculpture matured and gained recognition as independent arts.

Technique and Forms

The architecture of China is an indigenous system of construction which was conceived in the dawn of Chinese civilization and has been developing ever since. Its characteristic form is a timber skeleton or framework standing on a masonry platform and covered by a pitched roof with overhanging eaves. The spaces between the posts and lintels of the framework may be filled in with curtain walls whose sole function is to separate one portion of the building from another, or the interior from the exterior. The walls of the Chinese building, unlike those of the conventional European building, are free from the weight of the upper floors and the roof, and may be installed or omitted as required. By adjusting the proportion of the open and walled-in spaces, the architect may admit or exclude just the amount of light and air appropriate to any purpose and to any climate. Tis high degree of adaptability has enabled Chinese architecture to follow Chinese civilization wherever it has spread.

As the Chinese system of construction evolved and matured, rules like the orders of classical European architecture were developed to govern the proportion of the different members of the building. In buildings of a monumental character the order is enriched by tou-kung, sets of brackets on top of the columns supporting the beams within and roof eaves without. Each set consists of tiers of outstretching arms called kung, cushioned with trapezoidal blocks called tou. The tou-kung arefunctional members of the structure, carrying the beams and permitting the deep overhang of the eaves. As they evolved, they assumed different shapes and proportions. In earlier periods they were simple and large in proportion to the size of the building; later they became smaller and smaller and more complicated. Hence they serve as a convenient index to the date of construction.

The planning problem of the Chinese architect is not that of partitioning a single building, since the framing system makes the interior partition mere screens, but of placing the various buildings of which a Chinese house is composed.