The Journey from Chinese Landscape Paintings to Architecture

摘要

In this work, I begin by analyzing the Chinese landscape paintings in the Sung Dynasty. To most Chinese literati, landscape paintings have been a vehicle to express their political and philosophical ideas by depicting their reclusive life in deep mountains. The paintings are not a realistic presentation of what painters see every day, but more like a self-expression of the world that they have been feeling. People may have different paintings even they paint the same theme. The landscape paintings usually describe the journey that the painters have during their reclusion or depict different parts of their journey separately. The trip can be simplified as a linear route contains different types of scenes which make this journey interesting. We can also see some architectural and non-architectural models which have the same character, like High Line Park and Super Mario Brothers.;The second portion of this dissertation focuses on the narrative in paintings and architecture. Diego Velazquez's Las Meninas gives us a reference showing how to imply more meanings in a limited space. Soane's Museum and Barcelona Pavilion are showing an architectural way of narrative by setting up a series of scenes along a particular route in the building like Chinese landscape paintings. The diversity of Tiles Hill is presented by three different routes which stand for three themes. We can also find a similar approach in Carlo Scarpa's Querini Stampalia Foundation. Furthermore, all these buildings use visual effects to control the rhythm of narration.;Chinese landscape paintings usually contain four phases which can roughly correspond to four parts of the structure of narration. However, the narrative approach in architectures can be more flexible to meet various need of people. People's understanding of a same architecture should be translated distinctly based on their different backgrounds and experiences, like the same theme in Chinese landscape paintings can be presented differently.;The last part is about my design. First, I give a background of the site. The site has a beautiful landscape and used to be an inspiring place to literati in ancient times. Nowadays, the place has more historical meanings, but destroyed by modern industry. Many modern artists want to recall the old romantic memory of this place, and present the idea of being harmony with nature. So, it is a good chance to design a building for the artists and villagers by using the way that ancient literati paint landscape paintings. The building serves for the artists as a studio and for the villagers as a community center, so they can learn from each other and share their ideas. The whole building is also treated as a landscape where people can explore.