Architecture

The Yangshi Lei Family: Imperial Architects of Qing Dynasty China (1662-1900) Geographic Connections Heading northwest from Yongxiu County, Jiangxi, along the Xiushui River valley, you reach the ancestral village of the Lei clan. Continuing north some 100 kilometers brings you to Jiujiang Prefecture, then onward across Poyang Lake to Nanjing—这是 the traditional route from Jiangxi to Beijing in the early Qing. It was along this road that Yongxiu’s Lei Fada first entered the Forbidden City during the Kangxi era, beginning the longest family lineage in Chinese architectural history. ...

Geographical Connections Specific locations mentioned in this article include: Quanzhou Prefecture, Licheng District (Old City), Zhongshan Road, Kaiyuan Temple, Confucian Temple, Tianhou Temple, Qingjing Mosque, Cai Family Ancient Dwellings (Guanqiao), Luoyang Bridge, Anping Bridge, and Nan’an. Have you ever thought about how a city’s face grows out of a pile of bricks and stones? I was flipping through the Quanzhou Architectural Records when one number stopped me cold: 12 years. That’s how long it took to build the Twin Pagodas. Not a building — a pair of stone towers, one 48 meters high, held together with nothing but mortise-and-tenon joints. No steel, no concrete. And it survived an 8-magnitude earthquake during the Ming Dynasty. ...