Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts

Jeffrey W. Cody; Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt; Tony Atkin

Published by University of Hawaii Press 2011

Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts

Jeffrey W. Cody , Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt and Tony Atkin

In the series Spatial Habitus: Making and Meaning in Asia's Architecture

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824861018

Overview
Contents

About this book

In the early twentieth century, Chinese traditional architecture and the French-derived methods of the École des Beaux-Arts converged in the United States when Chinese students were given scholarships to train as architects at American universities whose design curricula were dominated by Beaux-Arts methods. Upon their return home in the 1920s and 1930s, these graduates began to practice architecture and create China’s first architectural schools, often transferring a version of what they had learned in the U.S. to Chinese situations. The resulting complex series of design-related transplantations had major implications for China between 1911 and 1949, as it simultaneously underwent cataclysmic social, economic, and political changes. After 1949 and the founding of the People’s Republic, China experienced a radically different wave of influence from the Beaux-Arts through advisors from the Soviet Union who, first under Stalin and later Khrushchev, brought Beaux-Arts ideals in the guise of socialist progress. In the early twenty-first century, China is still feeling the effects of these events.

Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts examines the coalescing of the two major architectural systems, placing significant shifts in architectural theory and practice in China within relevant, contemporary, cultural, and educational contexts. Fifteen major scholars from around the world analyze and synthesize these crucial events to shed light on the dramatic architectural and urban changes occurring in China today—many of which have global ramifications.

This stimulating and generously illustrated work is divided into three sections, framed by an introduction and a postscript. The first focuses on the convergence of Chinese architecture and the École des Beaux-Arts, outlining the salient aspects of each and suggesting how and why the two "met" in the U.S. The second section centers on the question of how Chinese architects were influenced by the Beaux-Arts and how Chinese architecture was changed as a result. The third takes an even closer look at the Beaux-Arts influence, addressing how innovative practices, new schools of architecture, and buildings whose designs were linked to Beaux-Arts assumptions led to distinctive new paradigms that were rooted in a changing China. By virtue of its scope, scale, and scholarship, this volume promises to become a classic in the fields of Chinese and Western architectural history.

Contributors: Tony Atkin, Peter J. Carroll, Yung Ho Chang,Jeffrey W. Cody, Kerry Sizheng Fan, Fu Chao-Ching, Gu Daqing, Seng Kuan,Delin Lai, Xing Ruan, Joseph Rykwert, Nancy S. Steinhardt, David VanZanten, Rudolf Wagner, Zhang Jie, Zhao Chen.

Author / Editor information

Cody Jeffrey W. :

Jeffrey W. Cody is senior project specialist in the Education Department at the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles.Steinhardt Nancy Shatzman :

Nancy S. Steinhardt is professor of East Asian art and curator of Chinese art at the University of Pennsylvania.Atkin Tony :

Tony Atkin, FAIA, is adjunct associate professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design and a principal of Atkin Olshin Schade Architects in Philadelphia and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Reviews

[The] fascinating and under-appreciated cross-pollination of Eastern and Western architecture is thoroughly examined in [this] absorbing new book. . . . Although filled with handsome photos contemporary and historic, Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts is no coffee-table book — this volume is a thoughtful and far-ranging account of international trends in architecture, which have been too little known in the U.S. It fills an important need and is certain to find its place in every serious library of architectural history.

The catch phrase ‘clash of civilizations’ has today become a part of political discourse, but as this publication by the universities of Hawai‘i and Hong Kong shows, with many an attractive illustration and persuasive arguments, appreciation, not conflict, between dissimilar cultures is not only possible but sometimes fruitful. Here a consideration of the divergent architectural systems of China and that of the French-derived Beaux-Arts architecture—and how the latter influenced and changed the other—provide readers with a fascinating account of why and how this cultural exchange occurred.

Rich, complex, and panoramic.

This beautifully illustrated volume succeeds in demonstrating the sweeping influence of the Beaux-Arts school. There is much work yet to do on this topic, but Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts should change the way we look at Chinese cities, and it will stand as a benchmark in the burgeoning field of Chinese urban studies.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
A Note on Chinese Names and Other Clarifications Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Part I. Divergence to Convergence
1. Chinese Architecture on the Eve of the Beaux-Arts Nancy S. Steinhardt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
2. Just What Was Beaux-Arts Architectural Composition? David Van Zanten Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
Part II. Convergence to Influence
3. Convergence to Influence: Introductory Perspectives Jeffrey W. Cody Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
4. Chinese Architecture Students at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1920s: Tradition, Exchange, and the Search for Modernity Tony Atkin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
4. An Outline of Beaux-Arts Education in China: Transplantation, Localization, and Entrenchment Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
5. A Classicist Architecture for Utopia: The Soviet Contacts K. Sizheng Fan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
6. Beaux-Arts Practice and Education by Chinese Architects in Taiwan Fu Chao-Ching Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
Part III. Influence to Paradigm
Influence to Paradigm: Introductory Perspectives Jeffrey W. Cody Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
Yang Tingbao, Dong Dayou, and Liang Sicheng. Modern and Ancient
7. Yang Tingbao, China’s Modern Architect in the Twentieth Century Xing Ruan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153
8. Between Beaux-Arts and Modernism. Dong Dayou and the Architecture of 1930s Shanghai Seng Kuan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
9. Elevation or Façade: A Re-evaluation of Liang Sicheng’s Interpretation of Chinese Timber Architecture in the Light of Beaux-Arts Classicism Zhao Chen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
Lü Yanzhi, Zhang Kaiji, and Zhang Bo. Republican and Early Socialist Politics
10. From Studio to Practice. Chinese and Non-Chinese Architects Working Together Jeffrey W. Cody Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207
11. Ritual, Architecture, Politics, and Publicity during the Republic: Enshrining Sun Yat-sen Rudolf G. Wagner Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
12. The Sun Yat-sen Memorial Auditorium: A Preaching Space for Modern China Delin Lai Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	279
13. Zhang vs. Zhang: Symmetry and Split: A Development in Chinese Architecture of the 1950s and 1960s Yung Ho Chang Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	301
Chinese Cities. Beaux-Arts Plans and Post-Beaux-Arts Urbanism
14. The Beaux-Arts in Another Register. Governmental Administrative and Civic Centers in City Plans of the Republican Era Peter J. Carroll Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	315
15. Chinese Urbanism beyond the Beaux-Arts Zhang Jie Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	333
Afterword. The Four and the Five Joseph Rykwert Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	361
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	369
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	373

Language: English
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 408
Illustrations
- Other: 208 illus., 60 in color

eBook

Published: January 31, 2011
ISBN: 9780824861018