Why do the ancient buildings in China develop horizontally? Three-dimensional development of western ancient buildings?

To sum up briefly, I think the root of this problem lies in the wooden structure of traditional buildings in China.

There was no three-dimensional development trend in ancient China. From Warring States to Qin and Han Dynasties, high-rise buildings appeared. Typical examples are the No.1 Palace in Xianyang of Qin Dynasty and the front hall of Weiyang Palace in Western Han Dynasty. These buildings are all built with multi-layer rammed earth abutment, and the wooden structure is attached to the abutment, but the abutment is finally wrapped up by the building and can't be seen, forming the image of a high-rise building with wooden structure in appearance. The peak of this civil-engineering mixed structure is the Yongning Temple Tower in the Northern Wei Dynasty. This may be the tallest wooden structure in the architectural history of China, with a height of about147m (according to the restoration map of Yang Hongxun). It also takes a rammed earth abutment about six stories high as the inner core, and is wrapped by wooden structures.

However, a noteworthy problem is that this wooden tower was destroyed by a fire caused by lightning after only 18 years. Among the existing high-rise buildings (only pagodas), Yingxian Wooden Pagoda is the only existing pure wooden pagoda. Many other pagodas are either made of pure brick, or the tower body is made of brick and the periphery is made of wood. After the wood structure is destroyed for various reasons, the masonry structure inside will be exposed (such as Yunyan and Tiger Hill in Suzhou).

On the one hand, the masonry method of the tower shows that it is difficult to build a high-rise building simply with wood structure because of the technical difficulty of masonry. Although it is much more convenient to use brick, the cost of burning brick is very high at first, and it was not popularized until the maturity of technology in the late Ming Dynasty, so it is difficult to use it in a large number of residential buildings (that is, to make a flat hall). Unless, like pagodas or Buddhist temples, they can only develop horizontally because of their beliefs. Hakka earth buildings can be built on four floors. Because of the strong need for defense, a very strong rammed earth wall masonry technology is adopted, and it is not a simple wood structure.

On the other hand, it also shows that the wood structure is very fragile in fire prevention. If the high-rise residence is made of wood structure, the building density is very high, and once a fire breaks out, it will usually be completely destroyed. However, if the plane develops and the building density is much smaller, you can also rely on gables for more effective fire prevention (such as the horse head wall in Huizhou).

* I organized it, please indicate it.