Chinese architecture

Shanghai night skyline, a good example of the traditional style of Chinese architecture.

Style of building in China. Traditionally of timber construction, few existing buildings predate the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), but records such as the Ying Tsao Fa Shih/Method of Architecture (1103) show that Chinese architecture changed little throughout the ages, both for the peasants and for the well-to-do. Curved roofs are a characteristic feature; also typical is the pagoda with a number of curved tiled roofs, one above the other. The Great Wall of China was built about 228 to 210 BC as a northern frontier defence, and Beijing's fine city walls, of which only a small section remains, date from the Ming period.

Chinese buildings usually face south, a convention which can be traced back to the ‘Hall of Brightness’, a building from the Zhou dynasty (1050-221 BC), and is still retained in the functionally Western-style Chinese architecture of the present day. Although some sections of Beijing have been destroyed by modernization, it still contains fine examples of buildings from the Ming dynasty, such as the Altar of Heaven, the ancestral temple of the Ming tombs, and the Five Pagoda Temple. The introduction of Buddhism from India exerted considerable influence on Chinese architecture.