The Art Design Of The Guild Hall Of Shanxi-Shaanxi-Gansu Province In Kaifeng And Commercial Culture

Guildhall was a kind of social organization created in Ming and Qing dynasties by merchants from the same place who did business out of their hometown, whose main function embodied in society, market, religion. In order to maximize profit and create an excellent marketing environment and conditions, merchants did their best to design the layout and architectural design of the guildhall. This paper takes Shanshangan guildhall of Kaifeng Henan province as an example to investigate the relations between the art design of guild and commercial culture. This guildhall is the result of the development of the commodity economy of Qing dynasty. As a result, the site layout and architectural design inevitable possessed rather typical commercial flavor, the design style which embodied in the Confucian thoughts was the special feature of the guildhall. In addition, Guan Yu Buddha is a worship place for merchants to integrate both the friendships and community. Clearly, the architectural design of the guildhall highlighted the trade idea of the merchants everywhere, and that was the making friendships, uniting organizations and generating beliefs, so as to win the trusts and get along with the local community as soon as possible. In fact, it is precisely the well design of the guildhall that helps the merchants gain a firm foothold. From this point, guildhall is a special carrier of the commercial culture, which builds the bridge of merchants and local community, rallies the people, expands road of the business.