Nancy S. STEINHARDT
Architectural drawing of a Chinese building by William Chambers, 1757.
Chinese architecture—from the Great Wall to the Forbidden City—has long distinguished itself from building traditions in other parts of the world. Its breadth of design encompasses not only individual buildings like pagodas, palaces, and temples but also cities, gardens, and tombs—complex interconnected structures built according to court-produced plans.
From as early as Neolithic times, wood has been a dominant material in Chinese aboveground construction. The timber
