Analysis Of Imitation Timber Architecture In Shanxi Region

Chinese culture has a several-thousand-year long history and rich heritages.As one of the birthplace of Chinese civilization,Shanxi region has widely distributed a variety of surface cultural relics. The region building reflected the unique regional culture characteristics because it located in northern nomadic culture and central plains farming culture communication zone.All down the centuries,the main building materials of Chinese historic building is wood,so architecture developing based on the processing technology of lumber. Compared with numerous wooden buildings, a few existing masonry structures as its durability of building material has been widely applied in the memorial or iconic architecture.Only remaining masonry structures are the most important carrier of history. With the development of the architecture, Chinese ancient masonry buildings try to imitation timber architecture and follows an original motion law as well as became one highlight part of the history of architecture.Imitation has always been a peculiar phenomenon in architecturalcreations.In the architecture history, it had been created abundantly masonry buildings, such as pagoda and tomb. Today,the imitation architecture still exhibition researcher’ s eyes with amazing number. Through by on-the-spot visit,measure and research several representative imitation wood building as well as summarized historical materials and documents,the author to study the characteristics of imitation timber architecture in the history and culture and technology forms.In Shanxi region,imitation timber architecture mainly includes ancient brick tower, beamless hall,cave dwelling,mausoleum and others. Each of the buildings varied their technique and diverse owner features. The author holds that the most sophisticated and attractively imitation timber architecture should be ancient brick tower.In our country,brick tower as a type of imitation timber architecture has long history. Throughout Shanxi regional,the most representative imitation timber brick tower is the Liao dynasty’s brick tower in the northern of Shanxi province.Different from the other imitation timber brick tower Liao dynasty’s brick tower not copy the timber structure characteristics,to some extent, Its structure make new exploration and attempt in masonry materials.By application of structures and designs considering the natural properties of the masonry material arising a new style, such as Hua Tower.Undoubtedly,it is a great progress of ancient masonry construction in ancient China, thus Liao Dynasty’s tower achieved remarkable success.Shanxi region has another kind of important imitation timberarchitecture,the author collectively called the “monocoque masonry”. Included utilizes the company in the construction structure which the corbelledcoursing or arch structure to replaced timber truss load-bearing system, and the imitation timber masonry structural members as well as the imitation timber decorations.Cave dwelling and beamless hall in religious is the main types.As we know,beamless hall is a kind of temple only with masonry to bearing load and development reached its peak in Ming and Qing Dynasties.This kind of building usually consists of one or several barrel-vault combination in the form of longitudinal, parallel or cross.Usually, beamless hall consecrate Amitayus Buddha for this reason they are referred to Measureless Hall.The value of the ancient buildings is that they reflected the knowledge of social, economy, culture and art as well as endless research value in historical.Particularly,processing technology in corbelledcoursing,arch structure,barrel-vaul and others,artistic achievements in brick carvings and caisson reflect great accomplishments in brick imitation timber architecture.