Interpretation On The View Of Chinese Architecture Of Modern Western Scholars From A "non-historical" Perspective

Western acquaintance of Chinese architecture has undergone a gradual course. This article reviews the process of Chinese architecture investigation by westerners before 1930 s, which can be divided into three phases: germination, exploration and maturation. Western acquaintance shifted from misunderstanding and prejudice to objectivity, during which a number of influential academic achievements come out and play a certain role for the construction of Chinese architecture historiography.The western fruit can be grouped into comprehensive, case or thematic three kinds of research. The comprehensive one is starting and destination of western research, in order to fully reveal the general rules of Chinese architecture. Limited by time and energy, some western scholars begin with a small-scale case, and discover the essential characteristics of Chinese architecture progressively. At the same time, it accumulates material for further research. With further research, Western scholars have a certain academic foundation, and then focus on a specific topic, such as temples, pagodas, ancestral memorial temples, city walls and so on. This article reviews the above three kinds of achievement systematically, outlines the framework of the Western academic research completely, and then reveals the architecture view of Chinese hold by western scholars. Ernst Boerschmann is a giant in western scholarly circles, whose fruit covers all the three types. He stands for the highest level of western study that turns into a research focus of this article.Western scholars collect plenty of photos and blueprints during their journey around China, above of which is an important component of their fruit and bears their view of Chinese architecture. This article pays attention to both text and non-text materials. With the help of database and GIS(Geographic Information System), the historical photos possess an information management mode which improves the efficiency. Meanwhile, using the analytic function of GIS, a quantitative analysis of historical photos can be performed according to some properties, which provides data support for architectural history research.