In the Jinling Palace, Elizabeth looked at the small building in front of her. Having read many books on Tang culture over the years, she knew that this was a modern style building that had gradually emerged in the Tang Dynasty in the past ten years.
In the West, it is also called Neo-Tang style architecture.
Its characteristics are the use of large-area glass windows with good lighting, the use of stone pillars on the exterior, and some Western-style carvings. The interior decoration is not too complicated, but is mainly simple and elegant.
This kind of New Tang-style architecture is very different from the Tang-style architecture that began to rise thirty years ago and gradually became the main architectural model of the Tang Dynasty in the past thirty years.
After cement and steel became popular, Datang began to use steel and cement to build houses, but at first it was mainly used for official buildings, commercial buildings, etc. The skyscrapers that followed were typical examples of this building type.
The new architecture of this period has several very obvious features.
One is that they are generally dominated by public buildings, because the new buildings in this period are tall and large, often tens of meters or even hundreds of meters high, and cover a very large area, because such large-scale buildings are generally
It is a commercial office building, hotel, government building and other public buildings.
In terms of specific architectural patterns, the halls on the first floor are generally very high and hung with huge crystal chandeliers. Most of the exterior walls are built with expensive stones such as marble.
As a result, the first floor often requires large glass windows for lighting and huge curtains for shading.
The most typical building among them should be the Hanlin Academy in the imperial palace. It is tall and magnificent, and the conference hall on the first floor is enough to shock anyone.
In addition, most of the series of skyscrapers on Yanjiang Road in Shanghai are also representatives of this architectural style.
However, during this period, private residential buildings were not greatly affected. Although cement and steel bars were widely used as materials, they tended to favor traditional building models for a long time.
It was not until later that the architectural model of private residences such as two-story and three-story buildings gradually appeared.
After continued development, today a relatively unique Neo-Tang style architectural model has been formed, which combines elegance, simplicity, brightness, luxury and other elements, and is very popular among literati.
How can I put it this way? To put it bluntly, this architectural style is low-key luxury.
It’s in line with the Tang Dynasty people’s pretentious habits!
People in the Tang Dynasty showed off, especially the literati in the middle and upper classes. They would not brag about how rich they were or how powerful they were. If they really did, it would be vulgar in the eyes of others and should not be vulgar.
It is difficult to integrate into the local upper class society in the empire.
What do people from the Tang Dynasty generally pretend to do?
Generally speaking, it can be said with the word "elegant".
What is elegance in the Tang Dynasty?
It is made of green bamboo tiles and stone steps in a wooden house. It is best that it leaks. In the words of the ancients, it is a shabby house.
However, this is just an appearance!
The shabby houses favored by the Tang Dynasty people were also made of green bamboo tiles and stone steps.
However, this bamboo must be Xiangfei bamboo!
If you make a yellow bamboo or something like that, it would be so vulgar that it would be impossible to watch.
The tiles must also be blue tiles, and they must be high-end celadon tiles produced in a few producing areas. Ordinary blue tiles produced in ordinary tile factories may look the same, but in fact there is no difference in appearance, but they are still
Vulgar, vulgar is intolerable.
There are also wooden houses. You have to use traditional precious woods such as rosewood, ebony, and rosewood, or you can use precious woods produced overseas such as Nanyang teak and Brazilian mahogany. These precious woods may seem precious, but in fact, Datang has
With so many territories, imports were very convenient, especially the mahogany from the Brazilian area controlled by the Spanish and Portuguese, which was very popular among the Tang Dynasty people.
However, if you build a wooden house with ordinary wood such as fir or pine, it is very vulgar!
And that step seems to be an ordinary step, but in fact it is not an ordinary step.
Needless to say, if you build a concrete step or something, no one will say you are vulgar, because the literati are too lazy to pay attention to you.
If you carve marble with many patterns, it will still be vulgar, just like someone who suddenly became rich, and the literati will still ignore you.
You have to use bluestone, and it cannot be new stone, it must be old stone, preferably the kind that has been washed over time and has wear marks on it.
If there is moss growing on it, it would be even better, it would be totally elegant!
There are also rockeries, paths, and the like. You cannot use these stones indiscriminately, even if they look exactly the same. For rockeries, you must use lake stones, otherwise they will be vulgar and vulgar.
You also have to use lake stones for paving small stones. There is also a special word among literati, "Lake Stone Path". What does this lake stone path mean?
It refers to the stone paths produced in Taihu Lake.
If you just use a road paved with cobblestones, that would be vulgar and unbearably vulgar!
Wooden houses with stone steps and green bamboo tiles, this is the elegance that the people of the Tang Dynasty admired!
Low-key and elegant!
Neo-Tang style architecture generally follows this architectural style. It seems simple, but in fact the materials used are very luxurious, but this luxury is not expressed.
Inadvertently, maybe the stones on the steps at the door of the house were transported thousands of miles from Taihu Lake and are of great value.
Wooden railings are made of Brazilian mahogany or Nanyang teak, etc.
Even the windows are made of high-strength glass newly developed by Hanyang Glass Company and specially produced for construction. Ordinary glass cannot cover such a large area and remain firm and strong.
The elegance of the Tang Dynasty means that you may not be able to do it if you have money, but you will definitely not be able to do it if you don’t have money.
Although Elizabeth is Spanish and grew up in Spain, she has been receiving education from the Tang Dynasty since she was ten years old. She has more than ten tutors sent by the Palace Affairs Department of the Tang Dynasty.
Although she has not seen or come into contact with many things with her own eyes, she must have read the descriptions and picture albums, and has the most basic understanding.
Without asking anyone, she knew very well the Xifeng Building where she lived. This neo-Tang style courtyard had a two-story building and a surrounding courtyard. It looked simple, but without the hundreds of thousands of Tang Yuan, it would not be possible at all.
It cannot be repaired, and this only calculates the cost of building materials and decorative materials, and does not count labor costs and the like.
But she didn't show any surprise, and she even thought that everything was normal.
This is the Jinling Palace of the Tang Dynasty!
Here lived the most powerful man and his family in the world, the Holy Emperor and his Li family.
Any degree of luxury is not surprising or even normal.
Elizabeth watched her maids enter and start cleaning up the house. She did not go in immediately, but turned around and asked the female palace official next to her in a standard Jinling accent: "When can I see His Majesty?"