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Abstract
The trade town of Chikan, in the southern part of the Chinese region of Lingnan, is characterized by its arcaded streets built during the 1920s and 1930s – streets lined with buildings whose ground-floor shops open out onto a covered pavement, with dwelling spaces and stores above. Similar buildings exist throughout Lingnan and other parts of Southeast Asia, but they particularly flourished in Guangdong province, and are well preserved in Chikan, where redevelopment has not yet led to large-scale demolition. This article seeks to study Chikan’s arcade buildings as elements of an “architectural sociology” in which they are considered functionally, socially, aesthetically and culturally. It is an investigation of vernacular architecture that aims to reveal the significance of Chikan’s arcade buildings for the locals’ aspirations, identities and lives. It argues that the buildings have a civility or decorum that potentially reveals much about what a town could or should be.
Notes
1 See Lin Lin, Gang Ao Yu Zhujiang Sanjiaozhou Di Yu Jian Zhu: Guangdong Qi Lou [Regional Architecture in Hong Kong, Macao and the Pearl River Delta: Guangdong Arcade Building] (Beijing: Ke Xue Chu Ban She, 2006), 13; Dehua Zheng, Guangdong Qiao Xiang Jian Zhu Wen Hua [Architectural Culture of Overseas Chinese Hometowns in Guangdong] (Hong Kong: San Lian Shu Dian (Hong Kong) You Xian Gong Si, 2003), 9.
2 Roland Robertson, “Glocalization: Time–Space and Homogeneity–Heterogeneity,” in Global Modernities, eds. Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash and Roland Robertson (London: Sage Publications, 1995), 25–32.
3 See George De Vos, “Introduction: Ethnic Pluralism: Conflict and Accommodation. The Role of Ethnicity in Social History,” in Ethnic Identity: Problems and Prospects for the Twenty-First Century, eds. Lola Romanucci-Ross, George A. De Vos and Takeyuki Tsuda (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006), 11, quoted in Ho Hon Leung and Raymond Lau, “Making of the Pacific Mall: Chinese Identity and Architecture in Toronto,” in Imagining Globalization: Language, Identities, and Boundaries, eds. Ho Hon Leung, Matthew Hendley, Robert W. Compton and Brian D. Haley (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 109.
4 While etymologically speaking an “arcade” has arches, I borrow Dhiru A. Thadani's broader definition of the word: it is a walkway “defined by a succession of columns that support arches or lintels.” See Dhiru A. Thadani, The Language of Towns and Cities: A Visual Dictionary (New York: Rizzoli, 2010), 32.
5 The operation of the bazaars was recorded in the Kaiping Country Annals compiled in the twelfth year of the Kangxi Emperor (1673). See Guoxiong Zhang, Chikan Gu Zhen [Chikan Ancient City] (Beijing: Zhongguo Hua Qiao Chu Ban She, 2011), 36.
6 Ibid., 36–47.
7 Chikan occupies an area of 61.4 km2 and had a population of approximately 45,000 at the turn of the twentieth century. Its population peaked at about 83,000 around 1950. See Zhang, Chikan Gu Zhen, 13. It now has a resident population of about 48,000 and an overseas Chinese population of about 72,000. See Yu Wang, Zhongguo Lu You Wen Hua [Chinese Tourism Culture] (Sichuan: Xinan Caijing Daxue Chuban She, 2011), 56.
8 Watt Stewart, Chinese Bondage in Peru: A History of the Chinese Coolie in Peru (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1951), vii, 16.
9 June Mei, “Socioeconomic Origins of Emigration: Guangdong to California, 1850–1882,” Modern China 5 (1979): 464, 480.
10 Annian Huang, Chen Mo de Dao Tie: Jianshe Beimei Tielu de Hua Gong [Silent Railway Nails: Chinese Workers of North American Railway Construction] (Beijing: Wu Zhou Chuan Bo Chu Ban She, 2004), 106; Mei, “Socioeconomic Origins of Emigration,” 464, 467.
11 Huang, Chen Mo de Dao Tie, 20; Yuan Li and Dazhang Chen, Hai Wai Hua Ren Ji qi Ju Zhu Di Gai Kuang [The Profile of the Overseas Chinese and Their Dwelling Places] (Beijing: Zhongguo Hua Qiao Chu Ban She, 1991), 1–6. The Chinese Exclusion Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1882, substantially reduced Chinese emigration to the United States. See Mei, “Socioeconomic Origins of Emigration,” 464, 472.
12 Zheng, Guangdong Qiao Xiang Jian Zhu Wen Hua, 16.
13 These conditions carried a high rate of illness and death. See Huang, Chen Mo de Dao Tie, 17.
14 Ibid., 25, 106.
15 Ibid., 90.
16 Mei, “Socioeconomic Origins of Emigration,” 475, 487; Patricia R. S. Batto, “The Diaolou of Kaiping (1842–1937),” China Perspectives, 66 (July–August 2006). Available online: http://chinaperspectives.revues.org/1033 (accessed July 6, 2017).
17 Huang, Chen Mo de Dao Tie, 17.
18 Mei, “Socioeconomic Origins of Emigration,” 488–489.
19 Zhang, Chikan Gu Zhen, 53–54.
20 Ibid., 58.
21 Ibid., 91–96.
22 Ibid., 100.
23 Ibid., 127.
24 Johann Friedrich Geist, Arcades: The History of a Building Type (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983), 4.
25 This typical arcade building type is also known as the “integrated arcade,” as the walkway is a space carved from, rather than additional to, the building. See Dhiru A. Thadani, The Language of Towns and Cities: A Visual Dictionary (New York: Rizzoli, 2010), 33.
26 The label “riding building with legs” first appeared in one of the building ordinances for Guangdong in 1912. See Lin, Gang Ao yu Zhujiang Sanjiaozhou Di Yu Jian Zhu, 25.
27 Robert Jan van Pelt and Carroll William Westfall, Architectural Principles in The Age of Historicism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991), 156, 160, 166.
28 All measurements were taken by the author on site and refer specifically to buildings on the West Embankment. A “bamboo house” is in fact mainly built from brick, wood and concrete.
29 Chih-Lung Chen, “A Study on the ‘Arcade Building’ from Chikan of Cantones Kaiping” (Master of Design thesis, National Yunlin University of Science & Technology, Diuliu City, 2009), 66. The measurements were taken by the author on site.
30 Jan Gehl, Life between Buildings: Using Public Space, trans. Jo Koch (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2011), 94.
31 Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Architecture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980 [second printing, with corrections]), 175–176.
32 Nancy S. Steinhardt, “Chinese Architecture on the Eve of the Beaux-Arts,” in Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts, ed. Jeffery W. Cody, Nancy S. Steinhardt and Tony Atkin (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011), 4–5.
33 Yingzao Fashi, the most significant Chinese technical manual on buildings, evolved from inherited oral traditions of construction practice and the available historical documentation of well-established rules for Chinese buildings in the Northern Song dynasty (960–1125). See Qinghua Guo, “Yingzao Fashi: Twelfth-Century Chinese Building Manual,” Architectural History 41 (1998): 1, 4.
34 Xinian Fu, Chinese Architecture, ed. Nancy S. Steinhardt (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 44, 85.
35 The eclectic mix of Indian and Chinese elements is well illustrated by the stylistic synthesis of the Songyue pagoda at Mount Song, built in 523 – see Sicheng Liang, Chinese Architecture: Art and Artifacts (Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2011), 272, 274 and Steinhardt, “Chinese Architecture on the Eve of the Beaux-Arts,” 11.
36 Zhang, Chikan Gu Zhen, provides only brief descriptions of the appearance and stylistic elements of Chikan’s arcade buildings. In studies of Lingnan/Guangdong arcade buildings in general, the functional and social aspects are well discussed, but the aesthetic aspect receives a less-thorough investigation. See Lin, Gang Ao yu Zhujiang Sanjiaozhou Di Yu Jian Zhu; Xiaoxiang Tang, Lingnan Jindai Jianzhu Wenhua Yu Meixue [The Culture and Aesthetics of Contemporary Lingnan Architecture] (Beijing: Zhongguo Jian Zhu Gong Ye Chu Ban She, 2010); Honglie Yang, Lingnan Qi Lou Jian Zhu De Wen Hua Fu Xing [Cultural Renaissance of Lingnan Arcade Buildings] (Beijing: Zhongguo Jian Zhu Gong Ye Chu Ban She, 2010).
37 Scruton, Aesthetics of Architecture, 172.
38 Ibid., 173–178.
39 Scruton notes that “architecture represents an almost indescribable synthesis” of functional (e.g., structural, environmental, spatial) and aesthetic considerations (The Aesthetics of Architecture, 6, 223). If we are to study Chikan’s arcade buildings thoroughly, we must consider the effect of what the buildings look like as well as their other properties.
40 Leon Battista Alberti, De Re Aedifictoria (written by 1452, published 1485), VI, 2, quoted in Roger Scruton, “The Art of the Appropriate,” Times Literary Supplement (December 1977): 1463.
41 M. Gottdiener, “Disneyland: A Utopian Urban Space,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 11, no. 2 (1982): 142.
42 The description here is of the more elaborate facades, which dominate Chikan’s central streets. Some buildings are much more plain and Art Deco or modern in appearance.
43 Honglie Yang, Wenzhong Hu and Guangqing Pan, Xiguan Da Wu Yu Qi Lou [Xiguan Mansions and Arcade Buildings] (Guangzhou: Ji Nan Da Xue Chu Ban She, 2012), 120, 123.
44 Scruton, Aesthetics of Architecture, 13, 189.
45 Roger Scruton, The Classical Vernacular: Architectural Principles in an Age of Nihilism (Manchester: Carcanet, 1994), 15.
46 Scruton, Aesthetics of Architecture, 244. Scruton is drawing on the Hegelian notion of “Bildung.”
47 Ibid., 247.
48 Ibid., 248–249.
49 Scruton, Classical Vernacular, 15.
50 Ibid., 18–19.
51 Ronald W. Smith and Valerie Bugni, “Symbolic Interaction Theory and Architecture,” Symbolic Interaction 29, no. 2 (2006): 124, 129, 132.
52 It is in this way that the veranda shop-house type differs from Chikan’s integrated arcade type, in which the upper stories are built above the arcade.
53 Barrie Shelton, Justyna Karakiewicz and Thomas Kvanof, The Making of Hong Kong: From Vertical to Volumetric (New York: Routledge, 2011), 33, 34; Fuhe Zhang, ed., Zhongguo Jin Dai Jian Zhu Yan Jiu yu Bao Hu (Si) [Study and Preservation of Chinese Modern Architecture (4)] (Beijing: Qing Hua Da Xue Chu Ban She, 2004), 130.
54 For example, George Dromgold Coleman, the first architect who worked in Singapore, introduced modified European building forms and neo-Palladianism into the local context. See Shelton et al., The Making of Hong Kong, 34.
55 Fuhe Zhang, ed., Zhongguo Jin Dai Jian Zhu Yan Jiu yu Bao Hu (Wu) [Study and Preservation of Chinese Modern Architecture (5)] (Beijing: Qing Hua Da Xue Chu Ban She, 2006), 65. These more exuberant buildings have been given labels such as “Singapore Eclectic” and “Late Straits Eclectic.”
56 Shelton et al., Making of Hong Kong, 36.
57 Zhang, Chikan Gu Zhen, 81.
58 Zhang, Zhongguo Jin Dai Jian Zhu Yan Jiu yu Bao Hu (Wu), 84.
59 Zheng, Guangdong Qiao Xiang Jian Zhu Wen Hua, 47.
60 Jonathan Andrew Farris, “Thirteen Factories of Canton: An Architecture of Sino-Western Collaboration and Confrontation,” Buildings and Landscape 14 (2007): 67–68.
61 From the time of the First Opium War (1839–42), Western architectural styles, construction materials and technology were imported into most of China’s foreign trading colonies and concessions. For example, when Shamian of Guangzhou became a concession of Britain and France under the Treaty of Tianjin (1858) in 1861, the foreign consulates, banks, foreign firms and churches of Shamian were chiefly designed in Western styles. The architects of these colonial buildings were foreigners, while the builders themselves were local. Like the “Thirteen Factories,” Shamian thus became a window that allowed local workers a preliminarily understanding of Western styles. See Tang, Lingnan Jindai Jianzhu Wenhua Yu Meixue, 35.
62 Jonathan Andrew Farris, Enclave to Urbanity: Guangdong, Foreigners, and Architecture from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016), 215; Zhang, Chikan Gu Zhen, 129–131.
63 Lanhua Teng, “Jin Dai Guangxi di De Li Fen Bu Ji Qi Yuan Yin Tan Xi” [“Analysis of the Geographical Distribution and Reason for Contemporary Guangxi Arcade Buildings”], Zhongguo De Fang Zhi [Chinese Local Chronicles] 10 (2008): 49, 52; Zhang, Zhongguo Jin Dai Jian Zhu Yan Jiu yu Bao Hu (Wu), 65, 66.
64 Quatremère de Quincy, “Type,” in Encyclopédie Méthodique: Architecture, vol. 3, Part II (Paris: Panckoucke, 1825), trans. Anthony Vidler, Oppositions 8 (spring 1977): 148–150, quoted in Van Pelt and Westfall, Architectural Principles in The Age of Historicism, 149.
65 Lin, Gang Ao yu Zhujiang Sanjiaozhou Di Yu Jian Zhu, 38–39.
66 Ibid., 17, 27. See also Yang et al., Xiguan Da Wu yu Qi Lou, 88; Zheng, Guangdong Qiao Xiang Jian Zhu Wen Hua, 43, 47.
67 Yang et al., Xiguan Da Wu yu Qi Lou, 92–95.
68 Howard Davis writes of the “diffusion of type over a wider geographic area,” where type is the “commonly understood configuration […] of building arrangement or construction that characterize[s] the buildings of the culture.” See Howard Davis, The Culture of Building (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 140, 131.
69 John Fiske, “Communication, Meaning, and Signs,” in Introduction to Communication Studies (New York: Routledge, 1990), 47. This is C. S. Peirce’s definition of “index.”
70 Some residents and small businesses have already moved away due to the development. Many inhabitants, especially the elderly, are not so willing to leave their hometown. Aesthetic, cultural and social changes to the place are expected.
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Kwok Wah Tung
Kwok Wah Tung holds a Ph.D. in Visual Studies from Lingnan University and a Master of Architecture from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Besides acting as the principal designer of Replaces Studio Ltd., he serves as a part-time lecturer in the Department of Visual Studies, Lingnan University, and as a part-time visiting lecturer at the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He teaches philosophy of architecture, architectural history, cultural theories in design and interior design studio.