Chinese Architecture and Metaphor: Song Culture in the Yingzao Fashi Building Manual by Jiren Feng (review)

The study of Yingzao Fashi(Building standards; hereafter YZFS), the Song dynasty construction manual originally published in 1103, has been predominantly focused on the technical aspect of traditional Chinese architecture since its rediscovery in the early twentieth century. ¹Scholars such as Liang Sicheng and Chen Mingda researched meticulously the meanings of terms, measurements of parts, types of buildings, significance of the module, and the structural and decorative details of the ancient text with the help of literary sources, extant buildings from the time of its first publication, and modern “scientific” concepts and illustration methods. ²Jiren Feng took a different approach in his Chinese Architecture and Metaphor: Song Culture in theYingzao Fashi Building Manual. While the previous efforts on YZFSwere mainly to interpret the text and make it accessible to modern readers, Feng aimed to do more than that. He maintained that “behind the detailed technical methods and government rules are distinctive cultural factors of contemporary building practice” and to uncover the cultural meaning requires a different way of reading (p. 7). The result is a book with an overall framework highlighting architectural practice as an integral part of Song culture and, at the same time, introducing some key issues in the scholarship on YZFS, for instance, its terminology and relevant classical bibliography in sinology.

Chapter 1 offers an overview of architectural records in Chinese literature before the Song dynasty. Except for a few specialized treatises, such as contemporary accounts of Buddhist monasteries, theoretical discussions on important ritual monuments (e.g., Mingtan), and the imperial architectural regulations, most of them are classical Sinological texts, including Confucian classics, pre-Qin philosophical works (Mozi, etc.), their annotations by scholars since the Han dynasty, significant scientific and geographical treatises, dictionaries, Han rhapsodies, and entries to encyclopedic collections. Chapter 2 analyzes the literary sources during the Northern Song period leading to YZFS, for instance, Mujing, annotations and treatises on Confucian classics (especially Zhouliand Erya), encyclopedic works (e.g., Taiping Yulan), geographical and military works (e.g., Dili Xinshu, Wujing Zongyao), and the Song government construction regulations (e.g., Xiucheng Fashi). Relationships between YZFSand these texts are delineated through the comparison of content and terminology. Here, Feng tries to set up a base for the future argument about YZFS’s integration of craftsman and literati sources. He proposed that though Yu Hao, the author of Mujing, was a craftsman and might have been illiterate, a scholar might be responsible for taking down his oral account of practical building methods (pp. 61–63).

The last three chapters deal with YZFSdirectly. Chapter 3 introduces the historical background for the original publication and its content, later editions, and the classical and orthodox roots of its terminology. Feng provided an admirable summary for English readers about the social and economic context of the manual, that is, the Song court’s reinforcement of fiscal control of public construction by establishing an official standard and its relationship with the earlier Wang Anshi reform. The relationship between YZFSand contemporary practice was explored through the comparison between the texts and the extant Song architectural relics. The author argues that YZFSwas a selective standardization of a more diversified reality. Li Jie, the compiler of YZFS, made the judgment of legitimacy for inclusion based on classical tradition, which was a standard of the 1090s Song court. The manual compiled, thus represented “an artificial, authoritative ideal of the practical method, an adjustment at a level of appropriateness.” It was created at a time when “the importance of the practical tradition in architecture was recognized by the central government and all of society equally with the classical, textual tradition” (p. 137).

The central theme of the book, the architectural metaphors, eventually appears in chapter 4. After exploring some key terms’ original meanings, an etymological...