Regular quadrangles in Beijing generally sit in the east-west hutong facing south. The basic form is the north room (the main room), the south room (the inverted room) and the east and west rooms separated on all sides, and then surrounded by high walls to form a four-in-one and open a door. The gate is located in the southeast corner of the house. Generally, the total number of rooms is 5 rooms in the north room, 3 rooms in the east room and 3 rooms in the west room, and 4 rooms in the south room, not counting the gate hole and the hanging flower door *** 17. If calculated by11-12 square meters per room, the total area is about 200 square meters.
Because the courtyard is spacious, you can plant trees and flowers in the courtyard, feed birds and fish, and stack stones for landscaping. Residents not only enjoy comfortable housing, but also share a beautiful world endowed by nature.
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brief introduction
The quadrangle in Beijing is a brick-wood structure, with purlins, columns, beams (rafters), sills, rafters, doors and windows, partitions and so on all made of wood, and the walls around the wooden shelves are made of bricks. Beams, doors, windows and eaves rafters should be painted with colorful pictures. Although they are not as splendid as the palace garden, they are also colorful.
Walls are used to building walls with ground bricks and broken bricks. As the saying goes, "There are three treasures in Beijing ... rotten bricks can't build walls". Most of the roof tiles are made of green tiles, which are interlocked with each other, dripping water is installed in front of the eaves, or no tiles are laid, and all the roofs are plastered with green ash, which is called "grey shed".
1. Gate
The gate of a quadrangle generally occupies the area of a room, and its spare parts are quite complicated. Only the names are gatehouse, doorway, gate (door leaf), door frame, waist girdle, stopper, walking board, door pillow, sill, threshold, door hairpin, big edge, plastering, wearing belt, door core plate and door cymbal.
The gate is generally black and oily, and couplets with red, oil and black characters can be added. Entering the gate, there are hanging flower doors, moon doors and so on. The hanging flower door is the most gorgeous decorative door in the quadrangle. It is called "hanging flower" because the outer eaves of the door are arched, which is used to separate the inner and outer courtyards. Outside the door is the "outer house" such as the living room, the concierge and the garage, and inside the door is the bedroom "inner house" for the main living. If there is no hanging door, the moon door can be used to separate the inner and outer houses.
2. Window sill wall
Windows and sill walls are embedded in the upper sill (without lower sill) and the large frame between the left and right pillars. The upper sash can be supported and the lower sash is generally fixed. In winter, Korean paper or cellophane is often used to paste windows, which are bright from the inside and dark from the outside, which not only prevents the cold from invading, but also keeps sufficient indoor light.
In summer, window gauze or cold cloth is used to paste windows. This is a window gauze woven from wood in various counties in southern Beijing. It looks like cloth instead of cloth, which can provide ventilation and relieve indoor heat. A piece of paper is added outside the cold cloth, which is rolled up during the day and put down at night, so it is also called "rolling window". Some people use windows with upper branches and lower branches.
3. Door curtain
There are many sandstorms in Beijing in winter and spring, and door curtains are often used in residential buildings. In general, people should hang a cotton curtain with plywood in winter, a sandwich curtain with plywood in spring and autumn, and a bamboo curtain with plywood in summer. Poor families can use straw curtains or broken felt curtains. The door curtain can be hung, and the purpose of installing plywood in the upper, middle and lower parts is to increase the weight so as not to be lifted by the wind. Later, the door curtain was replaced by the air door, but bamboo curtain was still used in summer, which was cool, bright and practical.
4. Ceiling
The ceilings of quadrangles are all made of sorghum poles and covered with paper. Beijing ceiling pasting is a technology. In quadrangles, the ceiling, walls, curtains and windows are all pasted with white paper, which is called "four whites in the end". Ordinary people mount it once every few years, while rich people do it "four times a year".
It's very cold in winter in Beijing. Residents in the quadrangle all sleep on the kang. In front of the kang, a coal stove is buried underground, and a fire is made in the stove. When the kang is empty and the fire enters the kang hole, the kang bed will be heated, and people will feel warm when they sleep on the hot kang. Most of the coal used to burn kang is produced in Xishan, Beijing. There is a difference between raw coal and coal powder. Coal powder and loess are shaken with briquettes for burning kang or cooking.
5. Screen wall
In the past, there was a wall-like thing inside or outside the courtyard gate, which was the shadow wall, also known as the zhaobi. Screen walls are found in every yard, and most of them are in the gates. As the old saying goes, ghosts can't turn, but only go straight, so setting up a screen wall in the door can play a blocking role. At the same time, the screen wall also plays a role in blocking the line of sight, so that the whole yard can be seen through without being seen at a glance.
The screen wall is also an important place to highlight the owner's status, taste and financial resources. The screen wall is divided into three parts from top to bottom, and the top is the tile, which, like the tile on the house, leads the rain away from the main body of the screen wall so as not to erode the main body of the screen wall. In the middle is the main body of the screen wall, usually a brick frame with various auspicious words or patterns in the middle. Below is Sumeru, which is generally a mountain and sea scenery.
References:
Beijing Siheyuan (traditional courtyard-style building in Beijing) _ Baidu Encyclopedia