Beijing’s Siheyuan北京四合院

 

    Courtyard houses of North China, with Beijing’s Siheyuan (courtyard with houses on all sides) being the highest level and most typical, are the outstanding representatives of traditional residences of China’s Han nationality. It is called Siheyuan because the houses in it are constructed in such a way that zhengfang (the main house), xiangfang (the wing house) and daozuo (house facing the main house ) are connected with walls and that the whole complex creates an enclosed square courtyard. 

    In the late years of the Jin Dynasty, Zhongdu (then the capital) suffered from severe damages and became desolate (荒芜的). The new capital city Dadu of the Yuan Dynasty was constructed to the northeast of Zhongdu and in the meantime Siheyuan, a new style of the residential house, shaped and developed. The great Italian traveler, Marco Polo①, once praised the ingenious and elegant design of this highly original house style created by ancient Chinese people as beyond description of any language. 

    Seated in the north of the compound and facing south, Beijing’s Siheyuan mostly consists of inner and outer yards. The outer yard is horizontal and long; the main door opens to the southeast corner, conducive to maintaining the privacy of the residence and increasing spatial change. After entering the main door and turning westward into the outer yard, one finds there are guest rooms, a servant’s room, a kitchen and a toilet. Going northward from the outer yard through an exquisitely shaped and quite beautiful floral-pendant (挂满花卉的) gate, one enters the square, spacious main yard. The principal room in the north is the largest, erected with the tablets of “heaven, earth, monarch, kinsfolk and teacher”, which is for holding family ceremonies and receiving distinguished guests. The left and right sides of the principal room are linked to aisles inhabited by family elders. In front of the aisle, there is a small corner yard which is very quiet and is often used as a study. Both sides of the main yard have a wing room serving as living rooms for the younger generations. Both the principal room and the wing rooms face the yards which have front porches. Verandas（游廊）are used to link the floral-pendant gate and the three houses so that one can move along or sit in them to enjoy the flowers and trees in the courtyard. Behind the principal room, sometimes, there is a long row of “Hou Zhao Fang (back-illuminated room)”, serving either as a living room or utility room.

    Beijing’s Siheyuan is cordial(亲切的) and quiet with a strong flavor of life. The courtyard is square and of a suitable size. The courtyard is planted with flowers and set up with rocks, providing an ideal space for outdoor life, and making it seem to be an open-air large living room, drawing heaven and earth closer to people’s hearts and therefore most favored by them. Verandas divide the courtyard into several big and small spaces, which, however, are divided but not distant from each other; instead, they penetrate each other and increase the levels, setting off the void and the solid and the contrast of shadow. They also make the courtyard better conform to the standards of daily life. Family members can have an exchange of views here, creating a cordial temperament and interest in life.

    In fact, the centripetal（向心的）and cohesive atmosphere displayed by Beijing’s Siheyuan, with strict rules and forms, is precisely a typical expression of the character of most Chinese residences. The courtyard’s pattern of being closed to the outside and open to the inside can be regarded as a wise integration of two kinds of contradictory psychology: On the one hand, the self-sufficient feudal families needed to maintain certain separation from the outside world; on the other hand, the psychology deeply-rooted in the mode of agricultural production makes the Chinese particularly like to get closer to nature. They often want to see heaven, earth, flowers, grass and trees in their own homes.

    The square courtyards of an appropriate size of Beijing’s Siheyuan are helpful to take in the sunshine in winter. However, in areas south of Beijing, the setting sun in summer is quite strong, so the courtyards become narrow and long on the north-south side, so as to reduce the sunshine. In contrast, in Gansu, Qinghai and other northwest regions, where a sand-laden wind is very strong, the height of the courtyard walls is increased. In northeast regions, the weather is cold, so that, in order to take in as much sunshine as possible, the courtyard is broad and large, and there are many open areas inside the courtyard walls.

Abridged and revised from

http://www1.chinaculture.org/library/2013-11/22/content_496727.htm

Note:

① Marco Polo:马可波罗，意大利威尼斯商人、旅行家及探险家。于元朝时，随他的父亲和叔叔通过丝绸之路来到中国，担任元朝官员。回到威尼斯后，马可·波罗在一次威尼斯和热那亚之间的海战中被俘，在监狱里口述其旅行经历，由鲁斯蒂谦写出《马可·波罗游记》。他的游记使得众多的欧洲人得以了解中亚和中国。