Research On The Characteristics Of The Palace’s Carpentry Work In Soochow

Palace is an important research object in China’s traditional buildings for its high grade and large scale. However, the current academic research mainly focuses on the classical garden and residence rather than the palace, or only as a part of the traditional architectures in the South Yangtze River Regions, and especially focused on the small amount objects before the Ming dynasty. The carpentry work is the skeleton of China’s traditional buildings, which has high technical and artistic value.There exists a great deal of palaces in Soochow, built in each period after the Southern Song Dynasty. This article chooses to study 33 well-preserved palaces(or site)which are protected by the cultural relics protection unit of Soochow, Based on the theory of Yingzaofashi and Yingzaofayuan, this paper syudy the palace by analyzing the palace’s construction surveying, the carpentry work, and the members, analysis the similarities and differences with the historical recording documents, and comparative with the north China architecture, attempts to summaries its regional characteristics.It is expected to complement the studies of the palace’s carpentry work in Soochow, provides the theory basis for the palace’s Protection and reconstruction of Soochow, and complement the traditional construction technology from the regional perspective, this is beneficial to the study of China’s traditional construction technology.This article is composed of six chapters.Chapter 1 provides introduction, which describes the status, significance and purpose of this study, and then defines the scope, methods and framework of the research.Chapter 2 describes the current situation of the palaces in Soochow, which contains 3 parts: the natural and social backgrounds, the historical evolution, and the current situation of the palaces.Chapter 3 describes the palace’s construction surveying. Based on the field survey of the palaces protected by the cultural relics protection unit of Soochow, this paper summaries the characteristics of the palace and attempts to explore the reasons of its formation by analyzing the palace’s construction surveying, the ratio of the palace’s width to depth, and the relationship of all the bay’s sizes. As the first step in the research series of the palace’s construction in Soochow, this paper is expected to better the understanding of the palace construction, and complement the traditional construction technology from the regional perspective.Chapter 4 provides the characteristics of the palace’s carpentry work in Soochow. Based on the field survey of the palaces, this chapter summaries several forms of the palaces in Soochow, comparative with he historical recording documents and the north China architecture, attempts to clear the regional characteristics of the palace’s carpentry work in Soochow.Chapter 5 affords the members of the palace’s carpentry work. Based on the field survey of the palaces, this chapter study the members by analyzing the column, the beam, the bracket set and the wing butt from a new angle of time and space, to clear the characteristics of regional modus and its following the old course.Chapter 6 is the conclusion of the article.