The Idea Of Time In Chinese Traditional Architecture

Time and space are integrated into the cosmos as a whole in Chinese traditional culture. Chinese traditional architecture reflects this kind of integral idea about time and space. Arts are usually divided into two categories, one is related to time, and the other to space. Architecture is usually attributed to the latter category. Even though, this kind of classification does not exclude the possibility of conveying the ideas of time in architectures. And the correspondences between the attributes of time and space provide this kind of possibility. Because of the absence of any media for sensory organ to know time, to translate time into shapes of space, and to express ideas of time through space are therefore the most appropriate way.Time and space are integrated into a unity in Chinese traditional architecture. They present a kind of appearance of idealized cosmos pattern with a round shaped heaven and a square shaped earth. As models of cosmos, architectures show the same structures with cosmos. The similar structures of man-made objects and the cosmos pattern present the idea of "simulating the heaven and the earth" . The etymological investigation of the Chinese word "Yuzhou" (cosmos), the method of practising divination with the shells of tortoises, and all of the making of the bronze mirrors, the geomancy "compasses" (or cosmograph), the sundials, the eaves tiles, the chessboards and the musical instruments show the similar structures of the little cosmos and the big cosmos.As the circumstantial evidences, these man-made objects have given the fact that "simulating the heaven and the earth" is the essence of phenomenological thinking in ancient China. This kind of thinking mode possesses universal significance in many fields of Chinese traditional culture.