ARC 4303A
Aspects of Asian architecture
Fall 2003–04

2, The Yingzao fashi

Assignment 1 in

• Fung Chi Ho, Jimmy
• Fung Chi Keung (PDF, 3.9 MB)
• Kiang Ngai Sze, Karen (PDF, 124 KB)
• Leung Chung Hoo, Dennis (PDF, 4.5 MB)
• Lou Kai Chio, Tommy (PDF, 2.0 MB)
• Lucas, Géraldine
• So Ching Han, Emily (PDF, 1.0 MB)
• Sun Huan (PDF, 144 KB)
• Tang Lei, Bob
• Tang Shing Yan, Otto (PDF, 840 KB)
• Wong Chung Yee, Joyce (PDF, 476 KB)
• Wong Yuen Wai, Iris (PDF, 392 KB)
• Yu Wai Ching (PDF, 796 KB)
• Zheng Yihang (PDF, 708 KB)

A small test

• Sort the rest of the letters of the alphabet into two groups:

A       E F   H …
  B C D     G   …

• There is no way to do this with any assurance unless you identify a pattern.

• One possible pattern:

A       E F   H I   K L M N           T   V W X Y Z
  B C D     G     J         O P Q R S   U

• The pattern offers a test to decide which group each letter belongs to. With the test, you can do three things:

  1. Create a new letter (or symbol, for that matter) in the right group;

  2. Determine whether a newly discovered letter (or symbol, like @ or #) is in the right group; and

  3. Explain the basis for the groups: how the letters in one group are similar to each other, and how they are different from the letters in the other group.

• Knowing this pattern, we can do more than just enumerate (or list) the letters in the groups; we can generate them. (See definitions below.)

Three criteria for characterizing style

• These three criteria are discussed by Stiny and Mitchell:

When several buildings each create a similar impression, they are said to exemplify a particular architectural style. Given a finite corpus of buildings that are perceived to be alike in some sense, the problem of style consists of characterizing the basis for this likeness. Ideally this characterization has three main purposes: (1) it should clarify the underlying commonality of structure and appearance manifest for the buildings in the corpus; (2) it should supply the conventions and criteria necessary to determine whether any other building not in the original corpus is an instance of the style; and (3) it should provide the compositional machinery needed to design new buildings that are instances of the style. If the characterization of a particular architectural style is to have any explanatory or predictive value, it must satisfy these descriptive, analytic, and synthetic tests of adequacy (Stiny and Mitchell 1978, 17, original emphasis).

• In other words, given a corpus of designs (designs that appear to have something in common), a characterization of the style of which the corpus is a part should:

  1. Show you how to create a new design in the language;

  2. Show you how to determine whether a newly discovered design is in the language; and

  3. Explain what the designs have in common.

• Returning to the example above, we have (strictly speaking) two corpora – {A, E, F, H} and {B, C, D, G} – and two languages – {A, E, F, H, …} and {B, C, D, G, …}.

• The pattern we have identified is the key to a generative characterization, satisfying Stiny and Mitchell’s three criteria. This is our approach to understanding Chinese wood-frame architecture, including the Yingzao fashi.

Assignment 1 reconsidered

• Explain your assignment in terms of Stiny and Mitchell’s three criteria.

The Yingzao fashi 營造法式

• Liang Sicheng called the Yingzao fashi a grammar book 文法課本. He contrasted it with the other surviving text, the Gongcheng zuofa zeli (Methods and models of construction) 工程做法則例, published in 1734, which

sets out 27 different building types. It analyzes each building component one by one, mechanically listing its dimensions. The Yingzao fashi, on the other hand, in all cases gives formulas based on principles and proportions. It does not define each named component [ming jian 名件] individually, but explains in detail its position and form. (Liang Sicheng 1984, 358, emphasis added).

以二十七種不同的建築物為例，逐一分析，將每件的長短大小呆呆板板的記述。《營造法式》則一切用原則和比例做成公式，對於“名件”，雖未逐條定義，卻將位置和斲割做法均詳為解釋。

• By “formulas based on principles and proportions,” Liang meant generative. The Gongcheng zuofa zeli is enumerative.

• Juzhe is an example of generativity in the Yingzao fashi. Another is the cai-fen system 材份制.

Example of generativity: the cai-fen system

• 凡構屋之制，皆以材為祖，材有八等，度屋之大小，因而用之。⋯各以其材之廣，分為十五份，以十份為其厚。凡屋宇之高深，名物之短長，曲直舉折之勢，規矩繩墨之宜，皆以所用材之份以為制度焉。

  size of fen (in cun)   0.60 0.55 0.50 0.48 0.44 0.40 0.35 0.30 

  size of fen (in mm)   19.2 17.6 16.0 15.4 14.1 12.8 11.2 9.6

  grades of dian tang    1    2    3    4    5 

  grades of ting tang              3    4    5    6 

  grades of other type                            6    7    8

• 1 cun 寸 = 0.1 chi 尺 = 32 mm

• So we can use one set of dimensions for eight different objects.

• Example: bracket sets (dougong 斗栱)

Example of enumeration: building sections

• In this case, the 18 sections and descriptions are not a formula based on principles or proportions; it is not generative. It is a list; it is enumerative.

• Lists do not satisfy Stiny and Mitchell’s three criteria. What to do? We look for a generative characterization.

Definitions

Algorithm

“[A] step-by-step procedure by which an operation can be carried out without any exercise of intelligence, and so, for example, by a machine” (Borowski and Borwein 1991).

Enumerate

“To count off or name one by one; to list” (Morris 1980).

Generate

“[T]o provide a precise criterion for membership in a set, in the form of an algorithm whose application recursively yields all and only the members of the set” (Borowski and Borwein 1991).

Language of designs (refined since last time)

A style; in other words, a language of designs that seem to have something in common.

Reading an introduction

• An introduction has three parts (Booth, Colomb, and Williams 1995):

  1. Context

  2. Problem

  3. Response

• Examples: Thorp (1984), Glahn (1984), Li (2002)

Assignment 2 out

• Read Li (Forthcoming). This explains the rationale of the course.

• Start to read Booth et al. (1995), chapter 15.

List of references

Booth, Wayne C., Gregory M. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. 1995. The craft of research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Borowski, E. J., and J. M. Borwein. 1991. The HarperCollins dictionary of mathematics. Edited by Eugene Ehrlich. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers.

Glahn, Else. 1984. Unfolding the Chinese building standards: research on the Yingzao fashi. In Chinese traditional architecture, edited by Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, 47–57. New York: China Institute in America.

Li, Andrew I-kang. 2002. Algorithmic architecture in twelfth-century China: the Yingzao fashi. In Nexus IV: architecture and mathematics, edited by José Francisco Rodrigues and Kim Williams, 141–150. Fuccechio, Italy: Kim Williams Books.

Li, Andrew I-kang. Forthcoming. The Yingzao fashi in the information age. Paper read at The Beaux-Arts, Paul-Philippe Cret, and 20th-century architecture in China, at University of Pennsylvania. Download text and images (PDF, 254 and 241 KB).

Liang Sicheng 梁思成. 1984. Zhongguo jianzhu zhi liangbu “wenfa keben” [The two “grammar books” of Chinese architecture] 中國建築之兩部「文法課本」. In Liang Sicheng wenji [The collected works of Liang Sicheng] 梁思成文集, 357–363. Beijing: Zhongguo jianzhu gongye.

Morris, William, ed. 1980. The American heritage dictionary of the English language. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Stiny, George, and William J. Mitchell. 1978. The Palladian grammar. Environment and planning B: planning & design 5: 5–18.

Thorp, Robert L. 1984. The architectural heritage of the Bronze Age. In Chinese traditional architecture, edited by Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, 60–67. New York: China Institute in America.