Research On Architectural Culture Of Tibetan Vernacular Housings

Tibet is an important border area of China.Its unique culture is shaped by both its unique geographical circumstance and religious belief.As the physical carrier of its traditional culture,Tibetan vernacular housings are one treasure of China's multiculturalism.However,this local landscape full of ethnic characteristics is under big pressure of decline from the rapid urbanization.On this condition,it is necessary to analyze and sum up vernacular culture of Tibetan folk housings that will help the modern architectural design and protect the local culture.As key points of Tibetan folk housings,some fundamental problems listed below are analyzed by cultural anthropological,religious,environmental psychological and other theories.This work tries to research into the deep reason and find the culture logic and living wisdom behind the forms rather than simply "demonstrate" the apparent features of Tibetan housings.(1) The backgrounds and contents of Tibetan view of nature and the deep influence on their life mode and building notion by the concernded taboo are surveyed with methods in environmental psychology and religious anthropology.The result indicates that Nature Worship and natural taboo are the basis of Tibetan traditional culture and the safeguard to survive on the snowy plateau.(2) Due to the animatism,there live lots of moody gods ubiquitously in Tibetan spiritual world full of insecurity.To obtain gods' bless,they try their best to comply with the sacred orders of the Cosmos by inosculating human space-time with the cosmic orders that make a microcosmos pattern in their settlements and housings.(3) As devotional believers,Tibetans has different ideology of "purity" from the concept of "sanitation" in nonbelievers' mind.In Tibetan traditional society,there are religious rules that forbid confusing the "purity" and the "pollution" which leads to the formal and spatial distinctions between temples and housings in settlements,the stratified spaces from inside to outside within housings and the specific meaning of building colours.(4) Based on Tibetan ethnic psychology,the collective subconsiousness namely constant defensive attitude are analyzed in their settlements and dwellings.There are two kinds of defence mechanisms,the physical that depends on substantial materials and the psychological one on religious consolation.The psychological defence mechanism of traditional dwellings around Lhasa area is put more attention here:the "local god" functions as a spiritual ancestor,building and maintaining the invisible boundary of Tibetan settlements;and the yard wall guards the family with special symbolistic meaning.(5) According to their survival challenges,experiences of ecological architecture in Tibetan folk housings are sum up from several aspects of layouts,configuration, space,construcation,life style and energy utilization.That concludes a series of architectural modes easy to guide the practice such as Topographic Accommodation, Close Yard,Facing sun and Lee Configuration,Cubic Cell and Wide Living Room, Low Space,Massive Envelope,Surrounding a Stove,Local Materials,and so on.(6) A field study,a Village named "Tshe-Ch'o-Ling" in the Lhasa area was conducted as a typical case of Tibetan architectural culture.Some conclusions are brought forwads,for example,there are "two cohesive cores" in the space configuration,and influenced by the ideology of purity there are also stratified spaces of Tibetan settlements and dwellings.Finally,Tibetan living wisdom achieves a subtle balance between the religious restriction and survival choice.Tibentan vernacular housings are found on special natural and cultural environments with regional ways and materials.They construct a spatial system to satisfy the physical and spiritual needs for human beings in special habitat that unites harmoniously various factors such as the climate,the geography,the human,and the god.The rich latent architectural culture makes that the Tibetan traditional settlements and housings are still glamorous today.It also provides useful reference for Tibetan modern housings design to adapt the climate,the landform,the tradition and so on.This is precious vernacular heritage that professional architects should pay attention to and inherit.