It has taken dynasties to develop what we see today as exquisite roof structures in traditional Chinese architecture, so exquisite that contemporary buildings crown themselves these roofs to appear even more exquisite.
These four images to showcase this very phenomenon; from the top:
Beijing Friendship Hotel, built in 1954
Beijing West Railway Station, built in 1996
Building belonged to China Merchants Bank
Jimei University campus
The cycles of adaption of traditional roof as an icon are rather of short time intervals, and of little alternation. Roofs become pure ornaments of no structural necessity.
Beijing West Railway Station, built in 1996
Building belonged to China Merchants Bank
Jimei University campus
The cycles of adaption of traditional roof as an icon are rather of short time intervals, and of little alternation. Roofs become pure ornaments of no structural necessity.
The tradition of this rampage goes back to the Monument to the People's Heroes at Tiananmen Square. Designed by Liang Sicheng, construction began in 1952, and finished in 1958, a time when the early People's Republic was heavily aided and influenced by the Soviet Union, where Socialist Classicism, otherwise known as Stalinism, was the official stylistic agenda in architectural design. This inevitably brought the trend of "Socialist content with ethnic forms" to China, giving birth to the first wave of "modern" Soviet-inspired Da Wu Dings.
by Neil Yan, 3rd Year Standing
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