Boundaries and Openings

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P O L I C Y A N D P R A C T I C E

Boundaries and openings: spatial strategies

in the Chinese dwelling

Xiao Hu

Received: 29 March 2007 / Accepted: 14 March 2008 / Published online: 12 September 2008 Springer 2008

Abstract Dwelling implies the establishment of a meaningful relationship between

people and a given environment. Through physical spaces, people identify and orient

themselves by symbolically expressing the meaning of socialcultural behavior. This paper

examines the spatial meanings in the traditional Chinese family by analyzing the place-

ment and arrangement of walls and courtyards. Specifically, this paper studies how

physical space was defined and developed within the Chinese family by the spatial

articulation of human relationships and the functions of daily life and how these spatialarrangements reinforced family hierarchies through purposeful separation and together-

ness. The findings reveal that through binding together the family relationship and spatial

concerns, Confucian discourses and practice were attached to the daily life of every

Chinese. In addition, this study indicates that the primary concern in a Chinese house was

not togetherness but separateness.

Keywords Chinese family Confucianism Wall Courtyard Relationship

1 Introduction

Comprehending meanings is a basic instinct of the soul and a primal need of people living

in a meaningful world. The range of existing meanings can be found in a persons daily

life. Thus, a dwelling implies the establishment of a meaningful relationship between man

and a given environment. Schulz (1985, p. 13) observes that the relationship consisted of

an act of identification, that is, a sense of belonging to a certain place. Man finds himself

when he settles somewhere and his being-in-the-world is thereby determined. Humans can

comprehend meanings through symbols, which give substance to and embody abstract

concepts and ideas to turn the unknowable into the knowable, the intangible into thetangible, and the intricate into the simple.

X. Hu (&)

University of Idaho, 1415 S Hawthorne Dr., Apt.#204, Moscow, ID 83843, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

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J Hous and the Built Environ (2008) 23:353366

DOI 10.1007/s10901-008-9123-z


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Architecture can be considered a system of symbols. By the availability of certain

materials and the constraints and capabilities of certain technologies, human beings can

construct a space, which is a shelter not only for physical living, but also for intrapsychic

peace. Architecture is more than art, because it produces the domains of human society,

separating the inner and the outer. More importantly, it produces a certain order that helpspeople discover their social, economic and political positions in the world. Representing

humans being-in-the-world, the space becomes a human space, a meaningful place to

people. Therefore, only when someone reveals the meaning of a place through symbolic

expressions, and makes other people understand it, does the space become meaningful to

everyone. Rapoport (1969, p. 4749) argues that the form of houses, representing the aims

and desires of a unified social or cultural group for an ideal environment, reveals the

meaning of socialcultural purposes by symbolic expression. Every socialcultural

meaning in architecture is expressed by a group of special architectural languages. Schulz

(1985, p. 15) poses that the meaning of space has two fundamental aspectsidentification

and orientation. Through identification, humans possess a world, and thus their identities.

A persons social identity consists of an interiorization of understood things, and the

development of identity depends upon being open to the environment which surrounds

humans. On the other hand, orientation refers to spatial organization, which admits actions,

and hence allows life to take place.

Symbolism was an intrinsic part of ancient Chinese culture, creating the dialogue

between man and buildings. Semiotics was employed in Chinese ancient architecture in

order to make buildings more easily understood.

This paper is a general comprehensive study of the meaning of walls and wall-enclosed

spaces in Chinese courtyard dwellings. The primary sources of the dwelling patternsanalyzed in this paper are the authors own observations, survey, map and photos taken

during a fieldtrip to the north and southwest of China during the period 19982000. In

addition, this paper employs findings and conclusions from the published research litera-

ture focusing on Chinese traditional architecture, philosophies and family systems.

2 Confucian society

Over thousands of years, Chinese society had been structured around not only strict laws

and strong military powers but also an extremely rigid social hierarchy. A synthesis ofhierarchical philosophies and ideologies resulting from Confucianism and its continual

development pervaded every corner of Chinese society and established a rigidly patriarchal

and patrilineal society lasting more than 2,000 years.

A core concept in the Confucian social paradigm was Li (propriety, or rite), which

referred to the principle of social order and defined the correct, stylized behaviors attached

to social roles. According to Lin (1938, p. 225), Li included folkways, religious customs,

festivals, laws, dress, food, and housing, more or less what the term ethnology covers.

Confucianism claimed that Respectfulness without the rules of propriety becomes labo-

rious bustle; carefulness without the rules of propriety becomes timidity; boldness withoutthe rules of propriety becomes insubordination; straightforwardness without the rules of

propriety becomes rudeness[It] is by the rules of propriety that the character is estab-

lished.(Confucius 1997) Li was the social grammar used whenever human beings were in

contact with each other. It provided a pattern to define social roles and to classify

appropriate behaviors. Through the channel of Li, human beings could follow the law of

Heaven and direct themselves to proper interpersonal relationships. Therefore, the duties of

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Li were the main principles of human life, strengthening the conformity of social orders

and formulating the correctness of behaviors. To cultivate the proper approach to Li is a

means of controlling and relating interpersonal relationships. Everyone was required to

adhere to the responsibilities inherent in the Five Fundamental Human Relationships (Wu

Lun), which existed between sovereign and ministers, father and son, husband and wife,elder brother and younger brother, and those in the intercourse between friends. Based on

the five relationships, the so-called Three Bonds (San Gang) emerged, which referred to

the three authorities of sovereign over minister, father over son and husband over wife.

Obviously, the Five Fundamental Relationships and Three Bonds underscored the hier-

archical relationships as an inviolable principle for maintaining the stability of social

orders, which resulted from the rigidly prescribed rules of conduct, Li. Thus, the basic

feature of the Confucian social paradigm was the obedience of the people in the subor-

dinate group to the people who outranked them in the social structure.

A perfect person in the Confucian view should exert virtue (de) in society, loyalty

(zhong) to the sovereign and filial piety (xiao) to ones parents. There was an ideological

centralism in the Confucianism about the roles of sovereigns, fathers, husbands, older

brothers and older friends. A sovereign, the emperor, was the center of an entire country; a

father, also being a husband, was the center of a family; the oldest brother became the head

of the family when his father passed away; and the oldest friend was the center of a social

circle.

Lin (1935, p. 172) stresses that Chinese people were family-minded, not social-minded.

From the Confucian perspective, the nation was considered to consist of individual fam-

ilies. There was a direct connection between family and the nation, expressed in sayings

such as when the family is orderly, then the nation is at peace. The Chinese character ofnation in fact consists of two words, guo jia, or state-family. Such a system was

consistent based on the firmly held assumption that a nation of good husbands, fathers,

sons, wives and brothers should be a good nation. As a result, in Confucian society, the

primary concern was not the peoples social obligations to their nation but the social

obligations to their families.

The vast geographic extent of China made it necessary to rely on well organized

Confucian intellectuals as selected administrative officials to help the emperors rule the

land. The intellectuals deep knowledge of old literatures provided the emperors with the

Heaven-approved authority to lead the government of the known world. The hierarchical

social structure helped common people accept the status quo imposed by subordinates.Historically, although some occasional revolts occurred against the leadership, there was

no revolt against the system that established and maintained the hierarchical structure. The

ruling class obviously found that Confucianisms emphasis on duty and its carefully

defined human relations was beneficial to maintaining a stable social order. In this order,

everybody was assigned a status and was expected to fulfill the corresponding responsi-

bility of that status. Confucianism has been the official orthodox and state ideology since

200 B.C.E. Thus, for over two thousand years, Confucianism has provided an elaborate set

of codes that prescribed peoples conduct and also defined social status and relations.

Ancient Chinese architecture inevitably became a medium through which to expressConfucian concepts in Chinese society. The architectural means employed to make human

beings being-in-the world an accomplished fact referred to the built forms and organized

spaces (Schulz 1985, p. 20). Built forms were always understood in terms of standings,

risings and openings. In Chinese dwellings, the timber-framed structure of standings

denoted the relationship to the earth; the curved rising roofs interacted with the sky; and

the walls and openings expressed the relationships between interior and exterior, which

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referred to the human relationships. Translating Confucian ideology into the form of space

to deal with the interiorexterior relationships was the primary way to concretize the

language of architecture as a formal articulation, reflecting Confucian social structure.

3 Hierarchy at home

The traditional Chinese family is the result of a long historical developmentthe basic

rules of patrilineal descent and surname exogamy, the practice of venerating and sacri-

ficing to ancestors, and the moral value of filial piety.

A family was founded by the marriage of a man and woman; it was enlarged by the

children to whom they gave birth or whom they adopted. However, a Chinese family

traditionally comprised a larger group of people who were related by blood, marriage or

adoption, living and managing their finances together. Within this family, the males were

all agnatic kin. Sons continued to live in their fathers house with their wives, who had

been brought in from other families. Daughters stayed in the family only as long as they

were unmarried and would move out and join their husbands families when they grew up.

A Chinese family usually shared living space and finances for a single objective:

sustaining the family wealth and social status and developing the family size. Lin (1938, p.

176) indicated that the extended family system took the place of religions by giving

humans a sense of social survival and family continuity. An extended family satisfied

humans craving for immortality, and through ancestral worship, the sense of immortality

became very vivid. However, the family wealth determined the formation and maintenance

of this ideal family form. The majority of poor peasant families struggling for survival inthe countryside rarely possessed sufficient resources to accommodate their extended

families. But they kept making attempts to establish such an extended family once they

obtained the means to do so.

A Chinese family was a well organized patriarchal hierarchy, with the prime institu-

tionalized authority being vested in the senior-most male. The oldest male member, or in

some cases female, in the family usually served as the family head and had the ultimate

authority in all family matters. He/She officiated in all traditional ceremonies such as

ancestor worship, marriage and funerals and was entitled to overall family property and to

its disposal. Baker (1979, p. 15) found that the family pecking-order resulted from three

factors: generation, age and gender. In a Chinese family, senior generations were superiorto junior generations, older people superior to younger ones, and men superior to women.

Therefore, in addition to the five fundamental human relationships (Wu Lun), there were

complicated subordinate relationships. For example, everyone in the family except the

senior-most male owed obedience to the senior-most female because of her status of

highest generation; the youngest son owed obedience to his parents, elder brother and elder

brothers wives because of his being lowest in age; all daughters owed obedience to their

brothers because of their gender. The hierarchical order was the only law that sustained the

peace and the functionality of a family, and it organized all household activities.

The family system taught all children the first lessons in social obligations betweenpeople, the necessity of mutual adjustment, self-control, courtesy, the sense of duty, respect

for elders, and the fulfillment of obligations and display of gratitude towards parents. In

addition, this family system acted as a primary force to enable Chinese people to survive

and regenerate their families through political upheaval. The extended family became an

incentive to quantitative reproduction. For a family to survive, it needed more male off-

spring. And the ancestral worship made it impossible to forget the primacy of ones

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lineage. Therefore, the Chinese families retained the same basic form throughout various

cultural and political changes.

4 Walls and wall-enclosed courtyards

To settle in a place meant to delimit an area and implied a study of a given natural

environment. A dwelling provided a place of encounter, where people exchange ideas,

products, and sentiments. Meeting implied togetherness, which referred not only to people

living together, but also to gathering the surroundings and the dwelling. The form of a

residential house was the logical consequence of the needs of the family hierarchical order

and served as a symbol to describe and spread the hierarchical doctrine. According to

Rapoport (1969, p. 46), the house is an institution, not just a structure, created for a

complex set of purposes.

Harmony and ritual generated the layout and the form of the most-used dwelling form in

Chinaa symmetrical and axial wall-enclosed courtyard house. A multiple-courtyards

composition could accommodate an extended family with more than one hundred members

in four or five generations. Only this wall-segregated space could offer the possibility of

maintaining individual privacy among all the family members living together.

The Chinese courtyard dwelling may be traced back to as early as the 11th Century

B.C.E. A quadrangular building discovered at Qishan, Shaanxi Province has a sophis-

ticated ground plan containing rectangular structures arranged around three sets of open

spaces (Liu 2000, p. 7). This three-courtyard composition was considered the earliest

pattern of Chinese courtyard dwelling (Fig. 1). Since then, the courtyard dwellingbecame the main dwelling pattern for the Chinese people and remained so until the

introduction of Western architecture in the later 19th Century. For over 3,000 years, the

Chinese courtyard dwelling retained largely the same characteristics, materials and

principles, in spite of minor adjustments due to technological developments, political

changes and different geographic conditions. Unlike its Western counterparts, Chinese

society enjoyed a long history of feudalism and similar values and lifestyles under the

influence of Confucianism. Hence, it is hard to distinguish Chinese dwellings from one

period to another and people throughout China applied the same principles and visions to

build their dwellings.

In ancient times, Chinese people tended to isolate themselves from the outside unstableworld and its misfortunes, making their happiness in life depend entirely upon their inward

state. The inner courtyards satisfied this demand for an inward life, especially during

wartime (Liu 1989, p. 164). As Chinese people were family-minded rather than social-

minded, there was no need for public spirit or civic consciousness in Confucian society.

The social relationship with strangers was not included in the Five Fundamental Rela-

tionships and it was not clearly defined.

A Chinese courtyard dwelling was a wall-enclosed castle, in which there was the

greatest extent of communal cooperation and mutual help, while outside of which there

was cold indifference towards others, and it was fortified against the world (Lin 1938, p.180). The wall acted as the boundary separating the inside world of greatest cooperation

and the outside world of indifference.

Walls of various types and sizes were a pervasive component of the Chinese resi-

dential environment. Zhu (2004, p. 46) stressed that the wall was a key element in the

formation of space in the Chinese conception. The exterior wall defined the boundaries

of the domain of a family by differentiating the center of the known environment from


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the unknown frightening world around. Domains functioned as potential places forpeoples actions. When thinking of their homes, people primarily imagined such domains

as courtyards, the main hall, bedrooms, and kitchen, or as household activities occurring

in a spatial domaineating in the main hall, playing in courtyards, or conversing in

reading rooms.

In addition, the psychological domain of the family was also determined by the location

of the exterior walls. Any outward movement was hindered by walls and structures. As a

result, an inward-looking courtyard was symbolic of the coherence of the family. Within

the exterior wall, all family members should take care of each other, and this mutual

helpfulness was developed to a very high degree. For example, a well-placed and suc-

cessful man would make a greater contribution than his customary equal share of

household expenses. A disgrace or outrage caused by family members misconduct might

be publicized within the family, but would be well concealed from the outsiders beyond the

exterior wall.

In Chinese courtyard dwellings, buildings or structures also acted as walls. For example,

a building for the servants living quarters was commonly placed on the periphery, with

Fig. 1 The floor plan of the

three-courtyard dwelling

discovered at Qishan. From: Liu

2000, p. 7

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windows and doors opening towards the inside and separating the inside and outside world

as a section of the exterior wall. In fact, all buildings and structures in a dwelling complex

functioned like walls to define boundaries and domains. Hence, walls in this paper also

include those buildings and structures, called wall-functioned structures.

Ancient Chinese people believed that the Yin and Yang, two basic components of theuniverse, created the ultimate harmony when both were in perfect proportion or balance.

An open space defined by walls/wall-functioned structures would form a courtyard

space, which was a key link to inspire the movement between Yin and Yang. Buildings and

structures were solid and man-made, seen as the force of Yang, while courtyards were void

and natural, considered a Yin force. Hence, a movement between courtyards and buildings

represented the interaction between Yin and Yang.

When a resident stood in his courtyard, as if he stood in the universe, he could be in

touch with the sun, fresh air, winds, rainwater, his family, and even his gods. The

courtyard indeed was the mediating point between human and nature, public and private,

open and closed, solid and void, interior and exterior, and safe and unsafe. Only by

communication with nature could humans find out the order of nature and finally be in

perfect harmony with nature. Hence, Chinese people tended to make an inner garden in

their courtyard, in order to bring nature within the walls and the wall-functioned

buildings. With courtyards dividing a potentially large and impersonal space into small,

comparable spaces, people could live in, comprehend, and modify their residential

spaces.

In a larger spatial environment, the quadrangular buildings and walls defined the

boundaries of the courtyard, making the sky the roof and the ground the floor. Hence, the

wall-enclosed space could be regarded as an imaginary room, an interior outside space.In addition, the perception of safety was generated by the wall-enclosed space and was

enhanced by a series of wall-enclosed spaces (Xu 1990, p. 92). The inner spatial per-

ception could be extended from an interior room to an exterior courtyard space. As a

result, a group of courtyard complexes, which were clustered in the longitudinal axis and

horizontal axis with their own attachments in different sizes or shapes, could be con-

sidered a large spatial unit (Fig. 2). In a residential house, only through being encircled

by walls and wall-functioned structures, could a void space be identified and defined.

Otherwise, only with courtyard space at the center and the walls or wall-functioned

structures at four sides, could the substantial spaces be connected to each other and find

an immanent order (Fig. 3). This spatial interpenetration was an exact reflection of theinterplay between the Yin and Yang. In this respect, the courtyard provided a wonderful

place where binary pairs of opposite spatial objectswalls/wall-functioned structures

and open spacesexisted together in unity and conformity and then reached a perfect

balance.

The direct spatial movement within a courtyard composition only happened via

walls and the courtyards enclosed by walls: from the interior through walls to a

courtyard and from a courtyard through walls to the exterior. Every spatial movement

beyond a courtyard composition must occur through wall-enclosed spaces and walls:

from the interior via courtyards and walls to the exterior. Courtyards and walls becamethe medium and interposition of interior and exterior space (Fig. 4). That is, only

through walls or wall-functioned structures could people experience the transition

from the interior to the exterior and vice versa. For example, when entering a two-

courtyard dwelling, a person would need to go through the entrance, the first wall-

functioned structure, to reach the front courtyard and pass through the second door/

front building, another wall-functioned structure to reach the main courtyard


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composition (Fig. 5). He would experience a series of spatial transitions between the

exterior to the interior: outside street (exterior)entrance (interior)entrance courtyard

(exterior)front door/building (interior)front courtyard (exterior)the main gate

(interior)main courtyard (exterior)main hall (interior). In Chinese houses, court-

yards and walls were usually of different sizes, especially along the longitudinal axis.

As a result, going through a series of courtyards and walls was a spatial adventure

with alternate innerouter, bigsmall, longitudinallatitudinal, primarysecondary, and

openclosed spatial changes, and an array of spatial implications as well as spatial

indications. As the courtyard space extended, the alternating spatial experience of the

interiorexterior repeated itself.

As a result of the reciprocity of interior and exterior spaces in the courtyard, Chinese

houses demonstrated the two following basic characteristics:

1. In any residential building, even if it was large, the interior space was simple. The floor

plan was never separated into intricate spaces, as was generally the case in Western

houses. The wall-enclosed space, the courtyard, was the most important focus in

Chinese dwellings, not the interior space.

2. The wall of a building, or the curtain to use a better term, was not used for

supporting the roof. Thus the building facade was flexible enough to arrange doors,

windows and grilles, bringing the courtyard space inside, and creating a flexible

treatment of interior space.

Fig. 2 A courtyard composition could be regarded as a large spatial unit, which was formed by walls and

wall-divided courtyard spaces

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Fig. 3 The relationship inside the courtyard composition unit between walls or wall-functioned structures

and open spaces. According to Between Yin and Yang, one creates the other, in fact, the open space and

wall-enclosed space also create one other

Fig. 4 Direct spatial changes

only happened inside the

courtyard composition. Every

spatial change beyond a

courtyard composition must haveoccurred through the courtyard.

The courtyard was the medium

and interposition


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5 Spatial hierarchy at home

The courtyard space made it possible for every subordinate familyevery sons families

to live in a relatively independent and integrated space. In fact, most of the rooms in

Chinese courtyard dwellings, except the kitchen and the main hall, had never been dif-

ferentiated according to functional uses. There was no designated room acting as a

bedroom, storeroom or reading room specifically. Every room was designed to accom-

modate multiple purposes. Subordinate halls could serve to accommodate different people.

For example, a hall previously used by an unmarried daughter might serve as the fathersreading room after the daughter had married out. The flexibility of utilization resulted from

the fact that the spatial focus in Chinese dwellings was put mainly on the courtyard space

instead of on the interior arrangement.

Human togetherness implied that life was permitted to take place by means of an

appropriate spatial organization. A problematic phenomenon in Chinese residential houses

was the lack of a central space. To Western architecture, a center was the basic constituent

of existential space, where actions of primary importance always took place. In contrast,

Chinese dwellings employed spatial orders to express the primary importance of psy-

chological function. That meant that the directions were the principal symbol of humans

sense of being-in-the-world. A series of walls and openings in general represented a

possibility for movement. The directions of permitted movement indicated a persons

concrete world of action. He/she could, according to the Confucian conduct codes, choose

or create paths through which an intended direction was formed. As the number of walls

from outside to inside increased, this person gained more possibilities for access to the

inside space.

Fig. 5 The spatial transitions between the interior and exterior in a courtyard dwelling. The building pattern

is the floor plan of a Beijing Siheyuan house cited in Lius book ( 2000, p. 319)

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In a courtyard composition, the enclosed walls or buildings isolated the interior family

space from the streets and defined clear boundaries among families. The longitudinal axis

emphasized the main hall and main courtyard located in the inner central composition,

making them the primary focus of the whole family. In general, the main hall, facing south,

served as the living quarters of the oldest generation, while the side halls facing east and

west and other halls on the parallel axis were used for the children and other people. The

main hall typically had three or five bays (Jian) in the length of its elevation. The side halls

would be lower, smaller, ordinarily three bays (Jian), and less decorated (Liu 1989, p.

164). As the primary focus of the whole family, the main hall certainly became the most

inviolable hall among the family. Here, family members worshiped their ancestors and

showed their respect to the oldest generation every day. The building, hence, became the

nucleus of the layout of the family. The arrangement of other halls showed the hierarchical

orders in the distance to the main hall. The higher the position in the family hierarchy a

family was, the closer it was to the main hall (Fig. 6).

Through a series of walls and courtyards, the longitudinal axis from the front wall to theback wall was designated to reinforce a spatial hierarchical layering of etiquette as one

moved from the front to the rear or to the side. Gradations in the progression of both

horizontal and vertical space created the graduated privacy. Strangers were isolated out-

side, and the family was protected inside, as Knapp (1999, p. 3435) describes:

Casual visitors may be invited into the entry vestibule, while friends and relatives

are welcomed into the courtyard and at least the first level of adjacent halls. Further

inward is a realm of privacy for the women in the family. The cacophony of sounds

beyond the perimeter walls of a courtyard house is muted by the enclosing walls,

manifesting relative quiet within.

Along the longitudinal axis, mostly a southnorth axis, as well as along the parallel and

horizontal axes, a series of courtyard compositions and walls were clustered together.

Every composition was separated and connected by defined spatial boundarieswalls and

wall-functioned buildings. From the inside out, the main courtyard, front courtyard, and

entrance yard formed one sequence of descending order in social status and spatial

Fig. 6 The general residential order in a courtyard composition


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positioning. In this dispersion of space from the innermost to the periphery, there was a

clear hierarchy in social terms. On the one hand, the main hall in the inner central

courtyard claimed a higher social and political status. On the other hand, with the superior

scaling of inner space, there was a relative height differential and therefore a relative

domination of an inner and more central space over outer and more distant areas (Zhu2004, p. 48). The hierarchical order in a concentric layout of enclosures was imposed either

from the center to the periphery or from the innermost to the outermost. The Chinese

residence integrated both spatial layouts to impose a vertical social hierarchy by placing

the main hall with the highest status at the innermost locations and employing walls and

wall-enclosed spaces. Walls not only encircled spaces from the whole family down to the

courtyards and alleyways, but also dissected, internalized and deepened spaces. At the

spatial level, walls and wall-functioned structures were the only material and constitutive

element that defined the overall concentric, hierarchical position.

Located at the inner center, the main hall, where the head of the family lived, assumed

the higher status consistent with his significant powers and resources, claimed the larger

space and used a clearer geometric form for the settlement layout. Hence, the main

courtyard composition, usually located at the center of the courtyard sequence, was the

biggest, highest and most exquisitely decorated of the whole composition. The sons and

grandsons activities were usually concentrated in the outer compounds, which represented

a lower position, and developed in a dense settlement. The spatial segregation formed by

walls and wall-enclosed spaces created a spatial hierarchical framework of a higher inside

and a lower outside and a higher central and a lower periphery. Naturally, the more walls

and wall-functioned structures that were inserted, the more vertical levels were created and

the higher the center became. In a Chinese courtyard dwelling, the eldest sons familynormally lived in the side hall located in the main courtyard composition, which ensured

his highest status among his generation.

There was a dialectic relationship between the walls and their openings. The walls

dissected space into fragments, while the openings related and integrated the spatial

fragments. The openings, usually in terms of doors, thresholds and windows, actually had

critical effects in the exercise of power on the two sides of the wall. Although openings

were the locations where space and human activities moved across or overcame the wall,

they were also the points where the control and defense were reinforced. Only through the

openings could the inside and outside space establish an asymmetry. The control, normally

being targeted more to the outside space than to the inside, represented the higher positionof the inside (Zhu 2004, p. 49). The openings were effective only if the wall defined the

boundaries and the path through the opening was established. As the boundary of the social

and spatial asymmetry, the wall with openings produced both physical and psychological

distances. The distances represented a trend whereby the inside space pushed the outside

away. A series of walls and courtyards generated a spatial sequence (Fig. 7). When a man

went through different courtyards and walls, he also passed through various distances

Fig. 7 The spatial sequence from the outside to the inside

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experienced alternative spatial changes between the interior and exterior. He was also

undergoing a spatial promotion from the lower to the higher step by step. The perception of

space reached its peak when he arrived at the main hall, the end of the spatial sequence and

the climax of the spatial progression. In addition, this spatial sequence creates a sense of

graduated privacy and stimulates a strong desire to discover the innermost space concealedat the end of the sequence, which increases the fascination of the innermost space, as Lin

(1994, p. 154) writes:

An ancient Chinese girl mostly stayed at the inner courtyard all the time before

their marriage. Few people had the opportunity to see her face. The more she was

shut into the deep courtyards, the more a man was eager to see her. She certainly

seemed more beautiful and attractive than those girls you met everyday.

The location of openings was highly controlled according to the pecking-order of

generation, age and gender in a family. For example, the number of openings in the wall

between two generations dwelling compounds was restricted and only one or two doors

could be placed there. The segregation of gender was of considerable concern in the

Chinese family. High walls and very few openings limited the access to the unmarried

females dwellings and minimized the interaction between the inside and the outside.

Sometimes, servants were hired to guard some important openings to control the traffic

flows. However, walls and the opening constraints were not obstacles in daily life. In fact,

most openings were kept open during the daytime forming a smooth, continuing and

expanding space. Different courtyard compounds were interconnected to each other

through gates, doors and corridors. All forms of cultural and social life were accommo-

dated and channeled through walls and wall-enclosed spaces. It was a vast field within aresidence used by all family members.

With the random mixture of human movement and uncertain activity, there was a

potential threat to the family order and hierarchy. Zhu (2004, p. 78) noticed that as the

openings remained open, the dialectic tension rose between the needs to release space for

free social life and the needs to impose divisions on space to frame and order social

practice. Hence, when the openings were closed during night, the spatial divisions were

reinstated, and the strict spatial order and hierarchy were reinforced by walls and wall-

functioned buildings. A Chinese dwelling possessed both aspects of the spatial operation.

6 Conclusion

To establish a residential dwelling in the landscape meant to delimit an area. A family

consisted of not only people who were bound together by blood and marriage connections

but also a physical place where all family members lived. The family organization and

household activities established a meaningful social relationship between the configuration

of the site of home and the spatiality of human fellowships. The family was the core unit in

all societies and represented the governance at the underlying level. Chinese people

believed that if the social relationship in every family could be handled well, then thesociety would prosper and vice versa. Although families in China had considerable social

and cultural diversity under the influence of Buddhism, Daoism, various folk beliefs, and

local cultures, Confucianism had been attached to the psychological subculture of every

individual family to a greater degree than any other influences and it was actually involved

in defining the institutions and ideas of the Chinese dwelling. Slote (1998, p. 37) notes that

Confucianism was rigidly authoritarian and bolstered by a social matrix that was


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essentially hierarchical. The Confucian family hierarchy traditionally had been defined by

the generational sequences, the age orders and gender domination. The male of the senior

generation was entitled to legitimate power, while the rights of children and women were

minimal. A Chinese dwelling was a lentic structure, where all ingredients swirled around

each other and by which ones identity and sense of self were established. A sense ofsecurity was brought to every family member by a large inward complex, where all family

members lived together and were protected by walls from unsafe and uncertain external

environments.

The Chinese residential dwellings were both total and complex reflecting the family

hierarchical relationships. Through Confucian discourses and practice, the social hierarchy

in families and spatial concerns were bound together. Ideas of senior-most head domi-

nation and the pecking-order based on generation, age and gender brought a formal

representation of spatial centralism and a hierarchical separateness in household space. In a

Chinese dwelling, the primary concern was not togetherness but separateness: the older

generation should live away from the younger generation; the siblings families should live

separately; and the unmarried daughters should be hidden inside. However, the strong

pursuit of an extended family kept a family together. Walls were considered the best spatial

component by which to apply the Confucian approach to resolve the tension of spatial

centralism, separateness, and togetherness. An enclosed peripheral wall secured all family

members from an exterior unsafe environment and produced the spatial togetherness. The

residential space divided by walls and wall-functioned structures reinforced the patrilineal

centralism by asserting the highest position of the family heads dwelling in the spatial

hierarchy. By dissecting the integrated space into fragments for other family members

living space and for controlling the possibility of access, walls separated a residentialdwelling into a group of individual spatial units, to which the hierarchical role of a family

member determined his/her access. In short, walls became the most fundamental physical

and psychic component of a Chinese family and Chinese society at large. Walls became the

most popular structure in China: every family had its walls; every city had its city walls;

and the entire nation even built a state-wall, the Great Wall. Without walls, there would

be no Chinese civilization and culture.

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