The Social And Cultural Factors Which Influence The HuiZhou Traditional Residential Architecture Of Ming And Qing Dynasty

Recently, the research on Traditional Residential Architecture is paid attention by more and more researchers. As one of the best maintained traditional residential assemblage, the HuiZhou traditional residential architectures of Ming and Qing Dynasty embodied the integrated spirit of natural environment, traditional physical ideology, general cultural tradition and regional custom. Though the research on it has lasted for a long time and during the period some theses has began to touch on the profound layer of society and culture, nevertheless, most of them are relatively superficial and unilateral. That is to say, these theses failed to tread the HuiZhou traditional residential architectures as carriers of culture to explore their deeper meanings in whole visual field of history and culture.In this thesis, I tried to explore the cultural connotation and social value of these architectures through more available history literature. If my thesis could provide some supplement to the past research and push it a little ahead, I am honored.This thesis includes five parts and discusses the topic from 4 aspects. The first part is the guiding part. In this part, I tried to analyze the significance of this topic and outlined the most past research conclusions. In the same time, some important concepts are defined. The other 4 parts form the main body of this thesis, which give an analysis both the leading thoughts and some impersonal factors which influence the HuiZhou traditional residential architecture of Ming and Qing Dynasty.In my opinion, the ideology of FengShui is the dominant thoughts which influence the fabrication of the local residential architecture. The hamlet Hong, for example, is totally formed with the guidance of the FengShui thoughts. This thesis gives a detailed discussion to how the FengShui thoughts accepted by its villagers.In fact, the special style of HuiZhou traditional residential architecture of Mingand Qing Dynasty is decided by both subjective choice and objective limits. Those objective factors include at least four aspects, such as the restriction of natural environment, the hierarchical limits of Ming Dynasty and the prohibits under ceremonial rites and regulations. Just as I had discussed in my thesis, all these factors played important roles in the process of forming the special style of HuiZhou residential architecture.The subjective influence mainly came from the residents who constructed these houses and this influence generally exhibited on the decoration. From the two representatives of these architectures, the Hong Hamlet and XiDi, we can draw the conclusion that decorations on these architectures are not only related with the way and subject matter of traditional decoration, but also show some characters of themselves. All these characters are entrenched in the special social background of HuiZhou and related to the local life style.Generally speaking, HuiZhou traditional residential architectures of Ming and Qing Dynasty show some common characteristics, however, because of different Dynasty, the Ming residential architectures are diverse in many aspects such as the style, the height of the floor and their housing establishments. What's more, the analysis on the transformation of HuiZhou residential architecture and their ownership's change revealed that the social vicissitude in Ming and Qing Dynasty also played important role in it.