Requesting an argumentative essay on the cultural connotation of Beijing, 800 words

Siheyuan

Siheyuan has always been regarded as one of Beijing’s representative architectural forms, but what exactly is Beijing’s Siheyuan and what is its cultural connotation? Different people have different standards and opinions.

Some people believe that the courtyard house in Beijing is a residential building in the Beijing area that is surrounded by four houses and is symmetrical about the central axis. To be more specific, only those residential courtyards enclosed by four buildings are typical Beijing courtyards. Other residences enclosed by two or three buildings cannot be regarded as courtyards, at least not in the regular Beijing style. Siheyuan.

Some people have given a more "complete" interpretation of the typical Beijing courtyard house. The standard is: the main door opens in the southeast corner of the entire courtyard (the mansions and residences of princes and nobles open on the central axis) ; The entrance gate is a screen wall, turn left to enter the courtyard first; the central axis turns right through the hanging flower door to reach the spacious main courtyard; there is the main room in the north of the main courtyard, there are wing rooms at both ends of the main room, and there are side rooms on the east and west sides of the main courtyard. It is a wing room lower than the main room; there should be an inverted room to the south of the hanging flower door. If the standard of the courtyard is higher, there will even be a "chaoshou cloister".

Some people believe that a traditional courtyard house in Beijing should be inhabited by one family, equipped with public kitchen and bathroom facilities, suitable for multiple generations to live together, and relatively closed to the outside world. of living space. A typical courtyard house should have specific plants and furnishings such as crabapple trees, pomegranate trees, and goldfish tanks. The indoor and outdoor furniture and decorations should have the traditional cultural characteristics of Beijing.

The above views naturally have their own truths, but in the author’s opinion, these definitions are a bit too broad and too stereotyped.

If we follow the first argument, then courtyard houses are not limited to Beijing. Siheyuan surrounded by four houses can be found in many areas of our country and even abroad. For example, some courtyards in Shanxi are very tightly enclosed courtyards; the Hakka earth buildings in the south are also square. Obviously, it is inappropriate to define the courtyard house in Beijing in this way.

If we follow the standards described in the second and third statements, then there are probably only a few courtyard houses in Beijing. Not to mention the historical data proving that there has always been more than one type of courtyard house in Beijing. From the analysis of residential survey data conducted in Beijing in the past 30 years, we can see that there are not many courtyard houses that meet this standard.

When the Beijing Municipal Planning Department compiled the "Beijing Urban Construction Master Plan" in 1983, it conducted some analysis on the construction quality of old bungalows in the city. The conclusion was: Calculated in terms of building area, those with better quality Siheyuan only accounted for 15.4% of all bungalows at that time.

According to statistics collected by the planning department in 1988 using remote sensing methods, there were 805 relatively good courtyard houses in the urban area at that time, covering an area of ??about 115 hectares, accounting for 1.8% of the total land in the old city. If the land for cultural relics protection units is excluded from the total land in the old city, the land for Hao Siheyuan only accounts for 2.1% of the total land in the old city. [3]

In 1996, the planning department conducted a statistics on the three courtyard protection areas of Nanluoguxiang, Xisibei and Dongsibei according to their land area. Among them, the area of ??courtyards that should be protected (including regular, irregular and those in need of emergency repair) accounts for about 30% of the total area of ??the three protected areas; while the area of ??good courtyards (regular courtyards) only accounts for three protected areas Total area 12.6%. If this is still the case in the Siheyuan Reserve, there will be even fewer good Siheyuan in other areas.

The author believes that Beijing’s courtyard houses, as a type of residential architecture of a specific period and historical stage, cannot be defined solely in terms of a fixed form, nor can they be defined solely in terms of a certain fixed form and atmosphere. Go up and measure it. When the famous architect Liang Sicheng discussed the characteristics of Chinese classical architecture, he once summed up a very insightful conclusion: "uniformity and ever-changing". I think Mr. Liang’s words are also very applicable to Beijing’s traditional courtyard houses.

The formation of courtyard houses is a gradual evolutionary process. According to the analysis and inference of relevant experts, the earliest courtyard houses may have been built on the basis of a single building, with fences and walls gradually added to form a courtyard. Later, warehouses, stables, toilets, etc. were built on the east and west sides of the courtyard, and then these were added. The ancillary buildings were moved to the outer courtyard, and wing rooms gradually formed on both sides of the main courtyard[4]. This is probably the history of the formation of the "regular courtyard house".

Of course, in social development, due to the different social and economic status of people and the different industries they are engaged in, the forms of housing they need will also be different. Therefore, various forms have been formed in the development and evolution of courtyard houses. There are both royal residences where princes and ministers live, and shabby courtyards where poor people live. There are big mansions of wealthy businessmen, and small shops and fronts of small traders and craftsmen. People from different classes have different social status, economic capabilities, cultural accomplishments, lifestyles, and hobbies. The rooms, courtyards, furniture, and furnishings they live in and use are also necessarily different. Therefore, in any era, there will be luxurious, typical courtyards and shabby, shabby triple courtyards, double courtyards, and terraced courtyards. People from different classes will live in these regular and irregular courtyards. A life of different colors.

In the author’s opinion, the gradually formed and evolved Beijing courtyard houses are actually the products of the social economy and political systems of various historical periods, reflecting the culture and life of different classes of people at different historical stages. In previous historical periods, the wealthy class, mainly composed of princes, ministers and wealthy businessmen, has always been a minority, while poor people and those from well-off families who only provide food and clothing are the majority of Beijing's population. Based on this fact, we can deduce that in history, there must not be too many regular courtyard houses with crabapples, fish tanks, pomegranate trees, ceilings, fat dogs, and fat girls in front and back of the courtyard; and those that are relatively simple or even Simple and irregular courtyard houses should be the main body of Beijing’s courtyard houses, at least in terms of quantity. In fact, relevant experts have inferred based on the analysis of historical materials such as the Qianlong Tu of the Qing Dynasty that no matter which dynasty or period, regular courtyard houses of various sizes have never reached 50% of the total number of courtyard houses in Beijing.

To sum up, it is indeed difficult to summarize an incisive concept for Beijing’s traditional courtyard house, but can we draw a conclusion: as a product of social, economic and political systems in different historical periods, Both regular and various irregular courtyards have profound historical and cultural connotations and are important components of Beijing’s traditional courtyards.

Hope to adopt it, thank you!