中国古代院落布置手法初探

An Inquiry into the Layout of the Ancient Chinese Courtyard

十余年前,在探讨中国古代城市和大建筑群规划布局手法时,曾发现在城市规划和大型建筑群组布置中,都采用一定的长、宽或面积为模数,如隋唐洛阳、明清北京城都以宫城之面积为模数,紫禁城宫殿的主要部分以后两宫之长宽为模数,天坛坛区以祈年殿下大方台之宽为模数等。

A scaled grid was adopted in the design of the palatial and other large courtyard inancient China. Although the buildings and courtyard may not be constructed precisely inaccordance with the grid, they followed it largely in most cases. The scale on the grid maybe as large as fifty zhang in the case of palace and large courtyard, or as small as ten, fiveor even three zhang when applied to ordinary courtyard and building compound. In addition, it is an ancient effort to place the main building like main hall in the geo-metrical center of the courtyard, a practice referred to as 'choice of center' in the old liter-ature. Such architectural pattern corresponded with the social hierarchy of people livingthere. As a matter of fact, 'choice of center' was an effective method to underline themain part, and quite easy to realize architecturally.