1

Artificial Intelligence in the Revival of Traditional Chinese Style

Student Name: Shen Weizhen

Course Name: 数字设计理论 01

Abstract: Imitation of existing architectural styles is one of AI's deep learning

functions, however, imitation has long existed before AI. This essay investigates
the relationship between style imitation and humanism in a broader spatial and
temporal dimension, examining the revivals of traditional Chinese styles in
modern and contemporary times and arguing that the style revivals are influ-
enced by the context of the times, social concerns, national identity, and tech-
nological level, while AI-assisted design today is also rooted in a centuries-old
humanist tradition.
Keywords: AI, traditional Chinese style, the first digital turn, the second digital
turn

1 Introduction

According to Alois Riegel and Hegel, architecture is the reflection of ‘artistic will
(kunstwollen) ’ and ‘spirit of the times(zeitgeist) ‘. Whether in the Renaissance,
the Baroque or the era of artificial intelligence (AI hereinafter), when people
designed and built houses, they were influenced by the overall cultural atmos-
phere of their time, so that each age presented its own recognisable architec-
tural style. Professor Mario Carpo argued in his lecture that the imitation of
styles appears as the new humanism of AI. This technology assists in designing
architecture through the process of observing, reasoning, absorbing and creat-
ing. As a student major in Traditional Chinese architecture, I recognize that
modern and contemporary Chinese architects have often imitated and inter-
preted traditional styles, whether by handcraft, machine or AI, as expressions of
local culture within a modern and globalised vision. Furthermore, the styles
presented by the revival of tradition in different eras are not free from the sub-
tle influence of the context of their respective times

1
In this article, ‘traditional Chinese style’ generally refers to high-style and vernacular-
style from Tang to Qing Dynasty, contrasted with concrete buildings from more re-
cent times.
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2 Early stylistic diffusion by printing technology

For centuries in the West before the Renaissance, images of artworks or archi-
tectures had been transmitted primarily by word of mouth or by alphabetical
writing, until the invention of printed images made drawings easily reproduci-
[1]
ble. Cases are similar in China. The earliest known dissemination of architec-
tural images occurred around the 11th century due to the invention of mova-
ble type printing in the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). The official building
code, Yingzao Fashi （营造法式）, regulated on the dimensions of construc-
tion units, processing methods, labour wages and material costs of buildings by
both sentences and images. The diffusion of this code gave national officials
and craftsmen the opportunity to imitate and build 'standard' architecture
（Fig.2.1）.

Fig.2.1 A photographic image of the earliest surviving edition of Yingzao Fashi,

th
found in Recalibrated Geographic New Book (13 C.)

Style does not mean a specific method of construction, but an overall spatial
quality made up of various kinds of details. In accordance with Yingzao Fashi,
we can clearly see an elegant yet imposing Song high-style through the fol-
lowing aspects: the eaves constantly rise upwards to form a gentle curve; the
beams are carved carefully like the crescent moon; and the brackets (枓栱) are
arranged in an orderly manner. Take two groups of Buddhist buildings as an
example, the Saint Mother’s Hall at Jin Ancestral Temple（晋祠圣母殿） in
Shanxi Province and the Great Hall at Baoguo Temple（保国寺大殿） in
Zhejiang Province are not identical in details, but both show a harmonious and
mellow quality (Fig.2.2). This style was born out of the context of the Song dyn-
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asty when the emperor and the citizens all admired culture and reached the
peak in terms of literature, arts and costume. As Chen Yinke said,’The Chinese
culture has evolved over thousands of years, and was at its height during the
Song dynasty.’

Fig.2.2 The Saint Mother’s Hall at Jin Ancestral Temple

Style is constructed by comparison, and if we look at just one type of building,

it is difficult to describe what their 'characters' are. If we observe the public
buildings (such as palaces and temples) in northern China in the Song and
Qing dynasties respectively, we will find that Qing style gives a feeling of rigidity
and authority (especially around the capital): the eaves of the Qing buildings
are flat and straight, only abruptly raised at the ends; the beams are mostly
straight, not curved or arched; the brackets are dense but made of smaller ma-
terials. This style is also inextricably linked to the political environment of the
time when the central government was powerful with unprecedently strong
imperial power. At the local level, however, an interesting phenomenon can be
found that the literati in the southeast of the country revered the Song style. As
exemplified by the Zhao’s posterity in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, who were
descendants of the Song imperial family, their family ancestral hall clearly imi-
tated the Song style. Moreover, with the publication and printing of a local
craftsmen code Yingzao Fayuan, the Jiangnan practice became a popular style
different from the north. It is thus clear that the choice of architectural style in
ancient China was influenced by the spirit of the times and identification.

3 Inherent Architectural Style (中国固有式) in Modern China

At the beginning of the 20th century, the two-thousand-year-old feudal sys-

tem collapsed under the impact of Western military, political systems and ideas,
but the genes of traditional culture were still present. Modern architects gradu-
ated abroad had both a love for the essence of traditional Chinese culture and
an eagerness to learn from Western ideas in order to cleanse the feudal dregs.
4

In this context, the goal of Chinese public architectural design shifted from the
show of imperial orthodoxy during the Qing dynasty to a search for 'Chinese-
ness' in a global perspective, which lead to the question of how to construct
modern Chinese architectural style. What qualities of traditional architecture
need to be maintained and passed on? What are the genes that can be trans-
formed into future architecture?

Chinese and foreign architects, represented by Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin,
sought for 'Inherent Architectural Style' from the perspective of Western mod-
ern architecture. They argue that structural rationality of ancient Chinese archi-
tecture is inherently modern for it adopted the beam and column framing sys-
tem. In further analysis, the so-called Chinese inherent style meant a 'structural'
system with an orderly layout, a system of materials, a straightforward and ex-
posed structure (especially the brackets), a curved roof, and traditional col-
[2]
ours.

The use of traditional Chinese style in modern architectural design seemed

symbolic and rhetorical. In the 1950s, sloping roofs were prevalent, however,
the roofs were no longer raised by carefully calculated wooden beams and
purlins. Instead, they were designed as a symbolic Chinese tradition. The eth-
nicity of flat-roofed buildings, such as the Great Hall of the People (Fig.3.1),
was also reflected in the ‘yellow glazed eaves, the pillar bases decorated with
lotus petals, girdles and scrolling grass patterns, and the frontal beam carved
[3]
with traditional motifs ......’. The structure of the buildings adopted modern
concrete frame and the proportion of the facades no longer corresponds to
traditional Chinese style, as the columns and storeys are raised. Eventually,
most public buildings in 1930-1950s appeared in modern style as a whole, with
selective absorption of ancient elements in the decoration.
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Fig.3.1 The Great Hall of the People

Aside from the requirement to reflect an independent national spirit in the

midst of a global wave of modernization, the architect's personal aesthetic
tastes affected the architectural style choice. For the Nanjing Museum, for ex-
ample, Liang Sicheng preferred the boldness and majesty of the Second Em-
pire period to the weakness and rigidity of the Ming and Qing dynasties, saying
that the former better expressed the spirit of Chinese culture(Fig.3.2). Another
example is the different choices of style for queti（雀替） in the design of the
Nanjing Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum by Liu Dunzhen and Lyu Yanzhi, which
demonstrated their affinity for the Ming and Qing styles respectively(Fig.3.3).
Liu added a linear foot to the side, giving the piece a more three-dimensional
and soft feel, and the pattern on the surface was as smooth as if hand-carved.
In contrast, Lyu's design seemed more like the Qing form, with a simpler, ma-
[4]
chine-carved pattern, showing a stronger influence of modernism.
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Fig.3.2 Nanjing Museum

Fig.3.3 Queti in the Nanjing Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, upper by Liu, lower by
Lyu (photos taken by Lai Delin )
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4 Interpretation of Traditional Chinese Style in the Era of AI

4.1 Computer Tools for Making

Along with the first international digital turn in the 1990s came a growing inter-
est in rural construction in China. As domestic and international interacts ex-
panded as a result of the reform and opening up, the countryside became
more prosperous, and European continental style, as a symbol of fashion, luxu-
ry, and status, began to dominate urban and rural construction (Fig.4.1). Many
locals pushed their four- or five-century-old buildings to the ground and con-
verted them into three-story new dwellings. The diversity of the rural landscape
lost swiftly, and the dissolution of the vernacular social structure deteriorated.
The focus of architectural history switched from high-style architecture to ver-
nacular architecture during this time period, and the architects experimented
with new forms of building in the countryside.

Fig.4.1 New rural dwellings in Chongqing, China

The ‘In Bamboo’ Community Service Centre, designed and erected by Profes-
sor Phillip Yuan's team in 2018, is an extraordinary case of new architecture
with an antique charm (Fig.4.2). The spatial organization and logic of its struc-
ture are consistent with traditional wooden architecture: the plan consists of an
outer corridor with grey space, an inner courtyard, and an interior transition
space, all with clear and readable spatial relationships. The construction se-
quence of beams, purlins, rafters, and tiles, as well as the wood colour, contrib-
8

ute to the traditional architecture's ambiance. The new building's advantage is

that it avoids the sense of closure and hierarchy provided by historical court-
yards, with the outer walls covered in glass and the vivid digitally constructed
roof, expressing the maximum welcome to visitors.

Fig.4.2 Interior photos of ‘In Bamboo’ (taken by Yuan’s team)

The machine is utilized as a design and construction aid, allowing for mass-
produce variations. The project employs prefabricated assembly methods,
which are difficult to produce due to the varying dimensions of the beam and
column structure of each row of the roof frame in the parametric structural
system (Fig.4.3), as well as the varying angles of the steel and timber structure's
connection nodes. The utilization of numerically controlled machining equip-
ment for modification in this project has resulted in a very high prefabrication
rate. The robotic automatic integration system forms a digital construction in-
dustry chain and proposes new ideas for future rural regeneration projects.
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Fig.4.3 Parametric structural system of ‘In Bamboo’

4.2 Computer Tools for Thinking

Early in the new millennium came the Web 2.0: the participatory Web, based
on collaboration, interactivity, crowdsourcing, and user-generated content. It
then became evident that the open-endedness of parametric scripting inevita-
bly challenges the authorial mode of design by notation that Western architects
[6]
have adopted and advocated since the Italian Renaissance. This would result
in ‘the style of many hands’ just as Wikipedia did.

The network society's spatial and temporal compression has given rise to digital
technologies, and during the 1990s, the rapid growth of the internet and in-
formationalism has strengthened globalisation. With the shortening of the
capitalist production cycle and the advancement of transportation and satellite
communications, we now live in a 'mobile space' in which hierarchical relation-
10

[7]
ships are fluid around the world and new centers can form at any time. As a
result, design must adjust fast enough to social change. The fundamental tech-
nological logic of the digital science is predicated on the 'permanent unfinished
[6]
state,' which means that once an object or an understanding is fixed, it im-
pedes further advancement. Computer-assisted thinking in architecture refers
to generic solutions arrived at through negotiation rather than excellent, un-
conventional ideas put forward by individuals, which often result in an eclectic
appearance of architecture.

China-fashion(国潮) revival is gaining traction in today's globalized society.

People's imaginations of national history are no longer satisfied by real-world
architectures, thus they have moved to building flourishing ancient cities in vir-
tual game worlds. GAN has been frequently employed to create two-
dimensional graphics due to the necessity to save labor expenses and the fact
that most Internet employees are not competent in historical architecture de-
sign, although its sense of style is still quite biased.

I attempted to get the AI to generate a contemporary community center in a

traditional style on a non-commercial rendering website. When the keywords
'traditional' and 'bamboo' were supplied, the overall image appeared to be
positive, with the AI capturing aspects such as the sloping roof, pillars, raised
ground floor, and wooden doors and windows. However, a closer inspection
reveals that many of the structural junctions are illogical, and the entryway and
roof ridge showed Japanese forms (Fig.4.4).

Fig.4.4 Community center in a traditional style generated by AI

It appears to us that the AI provides most people with an 'impression' of tradi-

tional architectural style, which no longer distinguishes between styles of a par-
ticular dynasty or location, but merely provides the 'old' style as opposed to the
'modern'. Similarly, the AI's comprehension of many modern styles may also be
hazy. As a result, if the AI's learning ability does not increase, it will be incapa-
ble of actively designing contemporary and diversified rural architecture. Fur-
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thermore, young people may be misled by the AI-generated images and gain
false impressions of the traditional Chinese buildings.

5 Conclusion

We've seen how, in the age of artificial intelligence, AI's ability of imitation,
deep-learning and creation has greatly improved, making it a useful assistance
to mass production. However, we must recognize that AI may only replicate an
overall impression, failing to understand the logic of building. Thus, more deep
learning remains to be accomplished if it is to become a thinking tool. More
importantly, architectural design is a reflection of the spirit of the times, and it is
therefore harmful to just replicate existing building without creating it.

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