Why do stone buildings prevail in China's civil architecture culture?

Traditional building materials in China are mostly earth and wood, followed by brick and stone, so all things and activities related to architecture in ancient China are called "civil engineering". For example, our university's major "civil engineering" all comes from this.

I. Minnan Architecture with Stone Structure Although civil engineering is the mainstream of ancient architectural culture in China, there is only one exception in China, and that is Minnan. Today's Minnan refers to Quanzhou, Zhangzhou and Xiamen. The ancient buildings here preserve a large number of stone buildings from the Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, especially the Buddha statues, temples and stone bridges built and carved with stones, which are very beautiful in appearance and abound in southern Fujian.

Today's architecture in southern Fujian

The architectural style of Minnan is different from other places in China, which is closely related to its local cultural origin. There are three sources of Minnan culture: first, the inherent culture of Fujian and Vietnam from pre-Qin to early Tang Dynasty; second, the root of the southward migration of Central Plains culture in Tang and Song Dynasties; third, the impact and influence of foreign culture brought by maritime traffic in Song and Yuan Dynasties.

The cultural sources of southern Fujian are complex, but its real formation mainly benefits from the prosperity of the Maritime Silk Road and the cultural exchanges during the Song and Yuan Dynasties. In the history of western architecture, the use of building materials is mostly masonry structure, and there are few civil structures. It is this exotic masonry style that directly affects the architectural style of southern Fujian.

Quanzhou street view

Since Yongjia South Crossing in the Western Jin Dynasty, the stone carving art in the Central Plains has been completely rooted in southern Fujian. In today's southern Fujian, a large number of tombs from Jin Dynasty to Tang Dynasty are preserved. In addition to the characteristics of stone carving originated from the Central Plains, the geomantic view of tombs in the Central Plains has also profoundly influenced the tomb style in southern Fujian.

During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, religious stone carvings in southern Fujian reached a peak, mainly because Quanzhou and other places became an important starting point of the Maritime Silk Road with their prosperity. The prosperity of foreign culture makes Minnan culture deeply influenced by western culture.

Minnan special gucuo

There is no tradition of digging Buddhist grottoes in southern Fujian like in the northwest. The main reason is that granite is widely distributed and hard to dig. Even if a large grotto is dug, it will take a lot of manpower and material resources. Therefore, in southern Fujian, we can often see that exquisite carving art can be made without huge projects, and craftsmen in southern Fujian also make good use of the good firmness and durability of granite.

Today, many places in southern Fujian have preserved a large number of granite carved Buddha statues, such as Laojunyan on Qingyuan Mountain in Quanzhou.

Since the mid-Tang Dynasty, with the introduction and prosperity of Tantric Buddhism, a new architectural style has emerged in China's ancient buildings: classical architecture. From the Five Dynasties to the Northern Song Dynasty, with the acceleration of the localization of Buddhism, there were more and more classic buildings with more and more styles.

However, after the Southern Song Dynasty, Tantric Buddhism gradually declined, and Buddhist temples began to have few classic buildings, and the volume of classic buildings became smaller and smaller. However, many classic buildings in the Tang and Song Dynasties have been well preserved throughout southern Fujian and formed their own unique architectural style.

Architecture in Minnan architectural style

Second, multi-culture created Huizhou Quanzhou, and the period to truly lay the architectural style of southern Fujian was from Song Dynasty to Yuan Dynasty. With the prosperity of the Maritime Silk Road, more and more Arabs, Indians and Persians came to Quanzhou and other places in southern Fujian. Later, under the impetus of multiculturalism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and local Mazu beliefs gathered in Quanzhou.

Taking Islam as an example, with the prosperity of overseas transportation, western Islamic architecture began to appear in southern Fujian. Islamic architecture built entirely by Muslims themselves has appeared in Quanzhou. By the early Ming Dynasty, a large number of Islamic buildings in Quanzhou were destroyed due to the outbreak of large-scale xenophobic movements. Fortunately, today's Quanzhou still retains the Islamic relic left by the Yuan Dynasty: Jing Qing Temple.

Jing Qing Temple

In addition, there are buildings built by Indians in Quanzhou, but most of them were destroyed in the Ming Dynasty. However, Quanzhou Overseas Traffic History Museum still preserves a large number of Hindu-style stone carvings. The Hindu temples, altars and other stone carvings in Quanzhou reflect the lives of Indians and Sri Lankans who lived here in those days.

Stone carvings with exotic styles

Traffic is the lifeblood of economy, and paving and bridging is the necessary infrastructure for historical development. Due to the barrier of mountains, most of the flat land alluvial by a few rivers in Fujian remains in coastal areas. In order to make the traffic in densely populated coastal areas unimpeded, a large number of stone bridges have been built in southern Fujian.

Quanzhou is the most famous stone bridge in southern Fujian. According to statistics, there were nearly 100 stone bridges in Quanzhou in the Song Dynasty, among which Luoyang Bridge was the most famous. Most of these bridges cross the river and sea, fully meeting the transportation needs of coastal residents. As a land connecting part of southern Fujian, the bridge has become an indispensable building in Quanzhou, an important town of the Maritime Silk Road.

the luoyang bridge

Another feature of Minnan architecture is stupa. The stone pagodas of Minnan architecture are second to none in China in terms of construction technology and artistic creation.

In the Song Dynasty, when European high-rise buildings flourished, under the background of prosperous maritime trade, Minnan Pagoda and European stone high-rise buildings rose at the same time. Although the literature does not clearly introduce their relationship, there are countless similarities between them, which is indisputable.