East Asian Architecture - What Went Wrong?

>Go to Beijing for holiday after being in South China for business
>Take flight up there from Guangzhou
>Decide to see the Forbidden City, have heard an enormous amount about it, namely how beautiful, timeless and majestic it is
>Get my tickets after getting through Fortress Tiananmen
>Speak and read Chinese to a pretty high level (learned for business purposes) so don't bother with audio guides or anything beyond the written guide
>Approach first structure
>It is big, impressive
>Has one of those equally impressive Chinese names "Hall of Celestial Heavenly Black Bean Purity"
>Walk up steps to said structure
>Try to get a peak inside (lots of people were here because it was morning, when it is at its most busy)
>It's literally a fucking barn.
>A fucking BARN.
>Interior is completely the same as the exterior
>Just wooden walls with a chair in the middle and some randomly placed fixtures along with one of those imperial 万岁万岁万万万岁 caligraphic banners
>Dumbfounded. Decide to move further into the complex, perhaps there's an actual palace with, you know, palatial things somewhere here
>Nope. Just more barns. Barns after barns after barns. Barns that look pretty much exactly the same as the other barns (red color, no difference between interior and exterior, curvy rooves, rinse, repeat).

In all seriousness. I've never been more disappointed than I have when going to East Asian cultural/traditional sites. You've seen one pagoda/curvy hip roof, you've seen them all pretty much.

Shit can't hold a candle to European and some of the more impressive Indian/Mughal architecture. St. Peter's alone blows away anything I've seen in East Asia.

Architecture that broke feng shui rules was destroyed by some government department from my recollection.

Just more Asian autism basically.

Yeah, if you go to the Temple of Heaven park in Beijing you'll see some religious structure was destroyed for such a reason.

I felt the same way after a couple of days in kyoto.

East Asian high culture bores me.

that's a shame :/

Weirdly enough the only impressive things in East Asia are a result of westernization, like supertall skyscrapers designed by French architects and shit like that. Their traditional architecture sucks dick.

And it gets even worse when you go inland. Like the capital of Mongolia was literally a bunch of toolsheds until Russians built them a proper city.

I love Asian culture. Then again I think Asian culture is generally beautiful .
t.White American.

I have a theory for why East Asian art and physical culture is so unremarkable when you compare it to how impressive the sheer longevity of China is and it basically relates back to Chinese and East Asians being the only people in the world who successfully built a civilization with adaptive long term values while also internalising de facto atheism and the consequences of this.

Basically they have no sense of transcendalism like the other races do. For better or worse.

What about cultural determinism?

Some will point to traditional Chinese religion but this never offered a real theological worldview. It was even less explicitly theistic than indo European pre Christian beliefs like Hinduism or zeus. In fact it seems more focused on codifying a sort of highly elaborate set of superstitions which perhaps have some sort of evolutionary benefit.

The anti Chinese writer Ralph Townsend described it as "hollow rites".

>The anti Chinese writer Ralph Townsend described it as "hollow rites".
Do you think that's accurate?

No. That's exaggeration. The bureaucracies and the professionalism of pre modern government was very impressive.

But the physical culture is lacking. For whatever reason. Perhaps they think building things is just ephemeral. Ozymandias comes to mind.

If that's the case. It's a sad worldview. Not much joie de vivre.

Yes. But in the government sphere they served a purpose of helping to make sure government wasn't so hasty. It built patience.

On the level of everyday peasantry it seems pretty hollow. Like people going to gravestones and pretending to sob for the allotted period of time that the relevant text or tradition mandated.

Well I'm sure they had a lot more but they destroyed most of it in the cultural revolution.

Interesting. I don't know much about Taoic religions so this is all new to me.

This is actually a common misconception. Chinese material culture like architecture has always been ephemeral. Always not lasted that long. It is built from wood for goodness sake.

The cultural revolution meme is a HK Taiwan and overseas Chinese trick to excuse traditional Chinese cultures failings. Don't fall for it.

go worship mao more u faggot

Wrong, most buildings were wooden anyway. The CR was more about destroying archaeological finds and shiet.

I dislike communism in general and all left wing ideologies. You've got no idea what you're talking about.

Cultural revolution is just a catch all way of shielding the traditional culture from criticism.

Why do Chinese do x or believe in x?

Cultural revolution.

Probably because it was (in my opinion) one of the most culturally destructive projects in modern human history. When you look at comparable states; Meiji/Imperial Japan, the USSR and Nazi Germany, you'll notice that all of them coopted rather than outrighted attempted to obliterate the preceding culture.

I don't htink the CR is used as some bubble to deflect from criticism of traditional chinese culture.

>build houses with wood because cheaper than stone
>durable enough for the day-to-day basis
>easy to replace should needed
>less is more
>hoaitto piggu go home.

Idk how relevant is this, though this doesn't apply to all of them, but Sinotic culture like China and Japan are heavily influenced by concept such as Zen and Fengshui, which was influenced by Buddhism. art, aesthetics, and buildings are made according to this teaching which heavily aspire for cleanliness and minimalism, it was deliberately meant to be hollow, architecture was merely a frame to nature in Japanese principle for example

as for why they build out of wood instead of permanent building is also tied to religious belief, reflecting how their architecture function, for example, the only reason Temples in Japan survive today because they are constantly rebuild every 50 years in sort of traditional rite, the same way as ordinary buildings

in Japanese traditional houses, the rooms doesn't have specific function as in western houses, but all used as multifunctional rooms that are furnished and change function quickly according to need, (aka from futon bedroom to tea house, etc), also according to zen masters (forgot the name) a good room should only have only 2 or 3 decoration and it must be meaningful, if not its considered decadent

Its long topic but basically asian architecture reflect the minimalist and transient nature of Zen/Feng Shui belief, maybe thats what he mean by hollow
in contrast the more Indian influenced asians such as Tibetans and southeast Asians has very ornate architecture compared to EA

I know this isn't very good explanation, sorry for bad english

Asians, especially Chinese, have a habit of purging anything that is to individualistic and not conformist.

The most recent purge was by the communists. It's why the forbidden city no longer houses all of the luxuries and art pieces it once did.

That sort of architecture predates the adoption of Buddhism.

At least a lot of the old Chinese architecture is still standing and properly preserved.

Compare that to Rome where they pillaged everything for building materials and left the ruins to fall down and rot, and all that's left of most of it is a few stumps.

How was the dog?
Can i get dog at street vendors still or does the party not like that

It isn't though. The forbidden city is ming dynasty era. Ie. Well over a millennium after romes heyday and most of it is qing and modern reconstructions anyway.

Extant architecture in East Asia is not as ancient as extent architecture in Europe.

Ancient Chinese architecture was made of wood. Almost none of it survives save for tombs and other similar constructs.

Doesn't help they rebuilt on old city sites over the millennia.

>Ancient Chinese architecture was made of wood.
They also used rammed earth.

what about the Terracotta Army?

That's sculpture mate.

Plenty of tombs survived because they were the only structures the Chinese built to last.

The Roman Emperors spent all their dosh on cities of marble and settled into simple tombs (Augustus' mausoleum was a building on a hill, though still nice). Qin Shi Huang spent his on mercury pills and building a giant fucking city and a pyramid for him and his retainers after death.

>Some will point to traditional Chinese religion but this never offered a real theological worldview.

As some one who who has read up on the matter this is but true and untrue. It is true if we are talking about the form it carried on in when westerners started to learn about it. It is untrue if you go back to how it was. Really rather then a single religion it was like 4 or 5 mythoses with common practices. Buddhism killed the high culture theistic outlook during the later parts of the Ming dynasty. However it did not really attack low culture folk takes on traditional Chinese religion. Confucianism made sure that the old rites were done still even if no one still cared about why those rites were done in the first place. Tradition mattered, belief in the subject did not.

> even less explicitly theistic

From the Han to the Song dynasty daily prayer to a number of deities was common.

Chinese Buddhism is degenerate shit. Always has been.

Buddhism in general is degenerate

Right, but the Buddhism of Northern India/Nepal was at least better than the assemblage of hollow rites and superstitions called Chinese Buddhism.

t. Memespouting retard

>theology
>better, worse

Why is Kung fu useless in real fights?

Why do chinks pretend it is a superpower?

whoa whoa whoa. If your not coming at this from an materialist/anti-religious perspective, i'm curious as to your reasoning why you feel this way.

If you ARE coming at it from an atheist/materialist perspective, its not that i'm dismissing you so much as I already know the reason you think Chinese Buddhism is shit.

Mostly because for quite a long time roman emperors pretended to not be monarchs.

That's pretty Egyptian KANGZ tier

Was that big barn you posted where the Emperor lived OP?

That was where the black bean sauce was made.

>China
Should have gone to Japan. Everything about their culture is superior to China's.

Have you been to the summer palace, that's a lot more impressive imo. It's hard to generalize such a large and old civilization as China, I'd hold off on the judgment my dude.

I'm doing my degree on China and i assure you, they burnt down a hell of a lot of ancient and traditional buildings. Why the fuck do you think the only ones you ever see are modern rebuilds or tiny temples?

>The cultural revolution meme
How on earth is it being called a meme. I literally know 100s of people who lived through it and took part in it.

To be honest this kicks the shit out of Versailles, I don't know what crack OP is smoking but he's no architect.

Neither are you, buddy.

I took one class, which qualifies me as an expert as far as Veeky Forums is concerned.

One can compare the above pic to the Versailles reflecting pool. The above looks cozy. As if one were still living in the garden of eden. Versailles looks like a good place to freeze your ass off in the winter. Vast amounts of wasted space, and an "epic" building that consists of a rectangle on top of a rectangle. But it has urinating statues! So cool!

You've got to go back Chang. You're not getting any more of those Lockheed Martin blueprints now that the God Emperor is in charge.

there's nothing to fight here, they're both are beautiful in their own way, while classical architecture exemplifies grandeur, symmetry, order and a sense of grandness, the forbidden palace is more about harmonising with nature, human scale and sense of "cozyness" (casual wise), they're both are build with different standard

stfu weeb

Wow, it's a wooden, un-ornate building with a curved gable roof overlooking a pond.

It's like nothing ever seen before in East Asian architecture! It's definitely not the same thing they've been repeating verbatim for three thousand years or anything!

Fuck off Chang. And Versailles can't hold a candle to Northern Italian palaces as far as architectural quality goes.

>I took an architecture class
>it looks "cosy"

It looks like a barn you literal mongoloid.

Go praise Ho Chi Ming elsewhere.

There is absolutely nothing 'cosy' about this. Go to the Forbidden City and see it for yourself instead of looking at pictures. It is, as OP states, a succession of barns with very little inside of them.

European architecture actually has this thing where interior spaces are distinct to exterior facades. It's pretty amazing.

Did you visit anyplace that wasn't a throne room or meeting area? Those spaces are there to fit the entire imperial court, all the officials, soldiers, and servants. It's like looking at buckingham palace without the weaselhats. The people are part of the architecture. These areas would certainly not have been empty.

You're some chink living in North America? And yes. I went to see things like the Treasure Rooms, and the Nine Dragon Screen - which is so hugely hyped up you need to pay extra but is a complete letdown and boring like most East Asian art. Here's the Emperor's Bridal Bed for example, it just looked so... underwhelming.

I honestly saw more great art and architecture at Hampton Court, a small palace or a relatively (for the time) small European monarchy.

Chinese just have zero aesthetic taste.

I like this room though,
looks a bit as if it were coated in dust tho.

*also needs warmer lighting.

So far I'm the only one who has even posted western examples. If you want to argue that one thing is better than the other, please post an example of that thing, at least for the sake of the rest of the people in the thread who haven't been there. Otherwise you shouldn't bitch when your personal dislike of a place which leads you to post that it objectively sucks is not universally acclaimed by all.

From your posts I can tell you also know jack shit about western architecture as well, you don't even compare apples to apples. Pic is a nice Roman villa with interior space, because guess what the Romans also loved walled housing complexes and interior courtyards.

I'm actually a westerner who's lived in China.

You don't deny you're some piece of shit Chink American from a place like San Fran?

Leland Yee supporting chink subhuman yellow ape.

>Pic is a nice Roman villa with interior space

Yes, it's an interior courtyard, it also formed one contiguous space and had rooms for various purposes, which makes it markedly different to any East Asian architecture by that fact alone. Most siheyuan were not even joined up after all, because most housed more than one family.

I'm not sure what exact point you're trying to pull here Chang. I know chinks are incapable of admitting defeat on any cultural matter (even while they send their kids to study violin rather than guqin, even in the PRC itself) but this is ridiculous. It is an attested fact that western architecture has more variety within it than Chinese does.

And before we continue, at least have the decency to admit you are a chink. So funny how quickly it changes from "PROUD DESCENDANT OF THE DRAGON!" to little bitch who won't even declare his ethnic background. Fucking Eddie Huang cunt.

Dog eating is actually still legal. There's a festival for it.

Are you really getting angry, racist and defensive over an architecture discussion?

I hate chinks. I cannot underscore how much I hate them. I speak pretty good Mandarin, I lived in Singapore for a while and then Hong Kong.

I cannot emphasize enough how much I hate Chinese "Americans". They are the most transparent fifth column I have ever seen in your country, assuming you are American.

They need a fucking pogrom.

Why should it be illegal?

>Yes, it's an interior courtyard, it also formed one contiguous space and had rooms for various purposes, which makes it markedly different to any East Asian architecture by that fact alone.


Can you guess which one is the Chinese and which one is the Roman?

[spoiler]Chinese is on the left, Roman on the right.[/spoiler]

They're significantly different though....

And you're talking about villa urbana in cities specifically, other types were more free flowing.

Architecture isn't just room layout by the way.

They are literally normal people, consider not taking out your inner anger on an arbitrary race.

And im fucking british ya twat

Listen, if you spent any time in China or the Greater China region, speak Chinese/Putonghua with any degree of skill and are still claiming that chinks are "just like us", you're delusional.

The average chink holds racially supremacist views that would mark him out on the far right over here. Now! There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but what it does mean is that courting them and kissing their asses just serves to inflate an already insanely pumped up ego and helps them engage in confirmation bias about the "superiority" of Chinese culture.

Your white knighting for Chinese traditional culture ITT would never be replicated by a Chinese person for your own culture. Chinese do not respect the notion of reciprocity, they only respect force/strength.

Death to Buddhism.

If barbarians were busting your door down, the left example is easier to defend. On the right once they breach the front door they are already in the courtyard. Oblique entrances are something you'd expect more from the Al-Hambra than just some random person's house.

It's a domestic villa, it wouldn't even be defended in the event of an invading enemy - The inhabitants would just fuck off to their villa rustica.

Ridiculous chink-tier argument. Ho Chi Minh would be proud.

>your white knight
>being this obsessed with yellow people

Self hating Asian spotted. I can tell because of your dogshit tier English and your tendency to shout at your own race.

Only Asians ever do this, usually males. I don't get it.

>circus factions rioting outside
>i'm sure no one will notice if my family and possessions decide to leave at this very moment

That was Constantinople you stupid faggot. Byzantine architecture was different by that point.

Are you kidding? Most overseas Chinese are, even third-generation ones, absolutely loyal to the People's Republic.

You mean it was Nova Roma, catamite. They don't call you loose Lucius for nothing. That ass is raggedier than Lavinia. Pic related, btw it's the new capital of Italy. Shit is cash.

Been to both Japan and China. I have to say that Chinese architecture is more 'grander' in the scale of simply being more massive/bigger; the great wall, the massive forbidden city complex, etc. But it just ends there. Up close, it isn't very impressive but it seems that the Chinese just pride themselves at creating massive structures. The Japanese on the other hand focus on making things aesthetic.

I think the Chinese-style of big/bland architecture was in a way to intimidate other states, foreign emissaries and their own serfdom in a way that modern Fascist stone architecture does (massive, stone-faced Roman-esque buildings).

The Summer Palace is hardly ancient

>Are you kidding? Most overseas Chinese are, even third-generation ones, absolutely loyal to the People's Republic.
Have you only been speaking to American diasporas? Singaporeans and Malaysians (now on our third, fourth, fifth generations and up) are contemptuous at best of the uncultured and greedy "Chinamen" from the mainland. Though I'll admit we are often ethnocentric to a degree that would get us called fascists if we were white.

Fucking go back to China, you yellow. Fucking Asian Jews, getting away with every Jew things you do by playing the victim card.

Are you Indonesian?

>Implying they're not hated in all of Asia

lol

Your definitely an asian kek

Kek..Too many butthurt chinks in this thread

Why don't you dog eaters admit that your shitty architecture will never be superrior and beauty as the West?

Wow what a based "white" man. Kek white people don't hate/care about asians, only other asians do silly Indonesian.

You're so cucked and your civilization is so unimpressive that you hide behind western culture as a shield. Why aren't you proud of your own "civilization"?

>implying i'm that user

3/10, Zhao

>your civilization is so unimpressive that you hide behind your culture as a shield
literally what did they mean by this

Oh, your not gook user? Nvm, gtfo out then. I don't want to talk with white people, I want to argue with other asians

>terracotta acrobats

There's probably a whole court there, terracotta Mandarins and eunuchs included

There is nothing civilized about the chinese, only an imitation of it. Anything that came out of them is just mere superficiality. From their products, culture, their way of living...Even their women are shallow and materialistic, totally incapable of abstract concepts such as love and faithfulness, as they are eager to whore themselves towards the next guy with higher status and leaving their previous men in the dust. In short, everything is disposable, and noble ideals are unthinkable for them. They do not have any attachment at all, nor any worthwhile ambitions, satisfying themselves with utter mediocrity. The average chinaman is content with third-rate video games like DOTA, before the little chinaman goes to sleep and work like a slave the next day. Within this unremarkable little guy there is not an ounce of anything resembling subjectivity and consciousness at all, as they are incapable of being anything other than robots. Their sole existence is to be used and treated as a corporate tool until his death, before he gets replaced by yet another chinaman.

How sickening it would be if you have to live among these contemptible beings? How you have to tolerate their hideous physicalities everytime you meet them? With your urge to rough them up and show them how much of a mistake their lives are, for being born like that? Yet, you can't blame them at all, as Nature has dictated them to be so. The best thing is just to deport all of them back to their country, and avoid them from ever setting foot in another country ever. It will be hard, of course, but nevertheless a necessary evil.

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>East Asian Architecture - What Went Wrong?
You mean what went right. I couldn't disagree more. East Asian architecture's great and alot of times pretty comfy
/pol/ pls go

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Probably some Noam Chomsky posting, and the CIA is at fault for the loss of traditional Chinese culture.