A Morphological Analysis Of Qikou Cave Dwelling

Oikou, streamside of Yellow River and west submontane area of Luliang, was the west entranceway of merchant of Shanxi province during the period of Ming and Qing Dynasty. Gigantic wealth contributed to thousands of cave dwellings located in Qikou periphery villages, which is a distinguished human cultural heritage because of their special characteristics. How to study out of these traditional cave dwellings as well as the regional culture and the housing manipulation in them is becoming one of the problems that we should conduct investigation into seriously.Taking architectural form as study object and penetration point, the paper surveyed Qikou cave dwellings integrally. Firstly, angling the individual architectural form, the author generalized and analyzed their ultimate constitutes, individual form, plane surface, cut plane as well as the material and color. Secondly, from the viewpoint of courtyard space form, by investigating four aspects which are basic constitutes, space form, courtyard plane surface and cut plane, decoration and pecuniary manipulations, the writer summarized the characteristics of the allocation of Qikou cave-dwelling courtyards space. Finally, combining the analysis of individual form with the courtyard space form, we got four main causes of the formation of Qikou cave dwellings, which are regional factor, economy factor, traditional etiquette factor and Fongshui religion factor.Based on field survey and objective descriptions of both Qikou's natural and cultural environment as well as the history and current situation of cave dwellings, we generalized the characteristics of Qikou cave dwellings, what is more, the author, besides analyzing the constitutes of their architectural and space formation, traced out the manipulations and ideas in these buildings. The paper is supposed to provide some thoughts and draws to current architectural design and enrich our regional architectural creation, while do some beneficial supplement to our ample native architectural research work.