The Transition of Chinese Architectural Direction Conception in Early Periods of Western Han Dynasty.

摘要

The emphasis on architectural direction conception in daily construction practices in ancient china was one of the most critical features of Chinese traditional architecture. It had almost penetrated into all aspects of the space constructions such as the constructions of architectural forms, the functional spaces and the using of the spaces. It gradually transformed to architectural principles followed by craftsmen. Generally speaking, the application of such architectural direction conception into constructions led to a prevalent space pattern by emphasizing particular direction and position in different periods and regions and the changing of such architectural direction conception also lead to the transition of the space pattern. Particularly, in the early periods of Western Han dynasty there was a drastic process of change which blurred the understanding of the space patterns. Such space patterns caused by the architectural direction conception transition were even classified as "special cases out of thousands years' tradition" (Liu Dunzhen, 1982, p.146). Therefore, this study attempts to explore the transition of space patterns by examining the transition of the architectural direction conception and further discuss the mechanism how architectural direction conception impacted on spatial constructions.;This thesis selects the royal constructions in the capital city of both empire and kingdoms as breakpoint and divides the examination of the architectural direction conception as two parts: the underground world and the living world. The underground world is further divided into two chapters: the emperor's mausoleums and the kings' mausoleums. With the help of the signals of architectural direction conception by marking the functional units and the path from the court to residential area, the comparison of these different scales of the spaces show a phenomenon of synchronized and relatively transition process of architectural direction conception.;In conclusion, this research further discusses the factors and motivations that impacted on the transition of the architectural direction conceptions and the methods adopted in this research as both analytical and design tool to understanding, constructing and using Chinese architectural space. This method responses to the theory of the image of a city through five elements by Kenvin Lynch and the interpretation of the meanings of western architecture by Norberg-Schulz in Chinese context.