Based on the historical records and field investigation, this paper aims at elaborating the architectural styles, interior space design and architectural landscape of modern church architecture in Yan’an, analyzing the influence of Chinese and western culture on modern church architecture in Yan’an and expounding the historical and cultural value as church architecture, which will play a great role in the protection, inheritance and utilization of modern architecture in Yan’an area.
Christianity became widely spread in mainland of China after the Opium war. As the center of Shannxi province, Christian culture inevitably exerts a profound impact on Yan’an area. Situated in Northern Shannxi province on the Loess Plateau, Yan’an area is in eastern Lvliang area of Shanxi province, western Qingyang area of Gansu province, northern Yulin area and southern Tongchuan area in Shannxi province, forming a relatively isolated geographical location. Yan’an area includes twelve counties and one city respectively: the city of Yan’an, Yanchuang, Yanchuan, Zichang, Ansai, Zhidan, Zhidan, Wuqi, Ganquan, Yichuan, Fuxian, Luochuan, Huanglong, and Huangling. Yan’an area, which overlooks the middle reaches of the Yellow River, the cradle of Chinese civilization, possesses its special Loess Plateau culture.
After a long time of collision and fusion of local Loess Plateau culture and Christianity of western culture, a new class of religious architecture, called church architecture, is created in Yan’an area. In this paper, we will adopt the literature analysis method and case analysis to collect the information of church architecture and investigate the representative church in Yan’an area, recording the architectural styles, interior space design and architectural landscape of modern church architecture in Yan’an area. The research of church architecture in Yan’an area not only has special evaluation on the propagation of western culture and the promotion of the blend of Chinese and western culture, but also makes up for blanks of church architecture in remote areas.
In Chinese history, there are four missions about the spread of Christian. In the fourth mission, the western countries opened the gateway of China with their military power after the Opium War. This mission also opened the Chinese modern history prologue, causing the collision and fusion of Chinese and western culture.
The Christian first came into Shannxi province at the end of Ming Dynasty. After the Opium War, a large number of Christian congregations came into mainland of china. Meanwhile, the Christian in Shannxi province got great development. Under the great effort of preachers, the Christian got widely spread in the relative self-con- tainment Yan’an area. The Christian church was first established in Fuxian at the early of Qing Dynasty. There are two Christian churches in Dong village and Beidaode village which are the earliest Christian churches recorded in the Yan’an history [
The Protestant first came into Huangling County in Yan’an area in 1901. In 1910, a Protestant church was built by a Swedish priest in Yichuan County which was destroyed by the Japanese airplane in 1940. This is the earliest Protestant church in history record in Yan’an area.
From the above discussion, the widest spread religious in Yan’an area is the Christian and then Protestant. And there is no record about the Orthodox in local history record. There are no records of Christian spread in Zhidan and Wuqi counties. The Wuqi County is the end of the long march of the Red army and Zhidan County is the earliest Soviet area in Northwest of China. It can be inferred that the no records about the spread of Christian in these two counties is related to not-much history record of these two counties.
The missionary of Christian use their memory and old drawing to build Christian church by employing local workers. The Christian church in Yan’an area became an exotic landscape which has totally different architecture style compared to local vernacular architecture.
The church is a place where the Christian can do worship and meeting. Because of the common belief and evaluation system, the church developed as a location for spreading their doctrine and power. Therefore, the spatial distribution characteristics of the Christian culture propagation can be analyzed by the spatial-time variation.
We first summarize the local history record of Yan’an area and checked the quantity and location of the Christian church during 1840-1849. Based on this investigation, we take field investigation and measurement of the church in significant areas. Finally, we get the conclusion that there are totally 23 churches in the modern Yan’an areas, where the Christian church number is 12 and the Protestant church is 11, respectively.
From
From the above discussion, it can be seen that the distribution characteristics of the Christian church has the trends from the boarder of southern and northern of Yan’an area to the center of this area. As the development, the church power has diffused to the center of Yan’an area which can be called from the village to county and town.
From
Name | Christian church | Time | Location | Summation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
County | Town | Village | ||||
Fuxian | Chuankou village | Tongzhi period [ | 1 | 2 | ||
Dong village | Early in Qing Dynasty | 1 | ||||
Huanglong | Shendi village | Unknown | 1 | 2 | ||
Taipingliang village | Unknown | 1 | ||||
Luochuan | Wangjiaxiang | 1922 | 1 | 2 | ||
Pengjiahe | Unknown | 1 | ||||
Zichang | Wayaobao | 1928 | 1 | 2 | ||
Wujiaping | 1931 | 1 | ||||
Ansai | Xinlezhai | 1924 | 1 | 1 | ||
Huangling | Pingtian village | 1925 | 1 | 1 | ||
Yan’an | Qiaoergou | 1931 | 1 | 1 | ||
Yanchang | Ganguyi | 1931 | 1 | 1 | ||
Summation | 3 | 2 | 7 | 12 |
Name | Protestant church | Time | Location | Summation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Town | County | Village | ||||
Yichuan | West street in downtown | 1910 | 1 | 3 | ||
Jiyi town | Unknown | 1 | ||||
Gaojiawan | Unknown | 1 | ||||
Yanchuan | Yongping town | End period of Qing Dynasty | 1 | 2 | ||
Yanshuiguan | End period of Qing Dynasty | 1 | ||||
Yanchang | Lichangsan reiver | 1920 | 1 | 2 | ||
Downtown | 1922 | 1 | ||||
Fuxian | Downtown | End period of Qing Dynasty | 1 | 1 | ||
Luochuan | Downtown | 1913 | 1 | 1 | ||
Huangling | Downtown | 1923 | 1 | 1 | ||
Yanan city | Downtown | 1931 | 1 | 1 | ||
Summation | 6 | 5 | 0 | 11 |
in Yan’an area. First, there are 7 churches located at the eastern of Yan’an area, including Yichuan, Yanchuan and Yanchang. Among them, only 5 churches are in the town while two of them are located in the counties. Second, there are 3 churches located at the southern of Yan’an area, including Fuxian, Luochuan and Huangling. All of them are located in the downtown. And only one church located at the Yan’an city.
From the above discussion, it can be seen that the distribution characteristics of the Protestant church has the trends from the boarder of southern and eastern of Yan’an area to the center of this area. As the development, the church power has diffused to the center of Yan’an area.
The Yan’an area is located at the northern of Shannxi province which belongs to a multilevel ecological transition zone. From the
After the Christian came into Yan’an area, Yan’an area experienced culture collision under the strong impact of western culture. In order to avoid direct confrontation with local traditional culture collision, the missionaries first selected the southern of Yan’an area to spread Christian. In this intersection area, near the center of Shannxi province, eastern of Shanxi province and southern to Yulin area, the traditional religious belief is relative weak. The continuous western culture diffusion force Yan’an area to break through relative closed and conservative situation. Furthermore, the western church even established in the middle of the traditional downtown.
Under the influence of Chinese and western culture, the explanation of modern church architecture in Yan’an can be described from the perspective of architectural styles, interior space design and architectural landscape.
In Europe, church is a Christian sanctuary where the religious Christian can gather together. Since the church’s first outcome, it is the integration of the highest level of the day of architecture, architectural technology, structure, material, construction and the architecture decoration [
The Qiaoergou Christian church is located at 5 km northwest to the Yan’an city. In 1924, Yixinghua, a Spanish missionary, purchase the site and build the church and then began to build in 1931 and finished in 1934. Now this church is an indoor training area of Yan’an Luxun Art College.
As shown in
As shown in
Region environment | Characteristic |
---|---|
Geomorphic feature | Typical loess gully and gully area of Loess plateau |
Climate feature | Eastern monsoon region and transition of inland arid area |
Vegetation distribution | Forest and transition of shrub steppe |
Production type | Agriculture |
Regional culture | The Yellow river culture, the culture of Huang Di Loess culture |
The two towers on both side of the hall use the three stage structure. The first floor has three concentric circular arch form small coupons door. The second floor has two consecutive long narrow windows. There is a tracery window which is similar to a round brick rose on the wall. The third floor is the arch window. As shown in
In
The wall of the Qiao’ergou church is large and thick but with narrow window. This structure creates a dark mystery atmosphere. The simple hall and ornate altar formed a strong contrast. The church uses the Rome style carefully and combined the heavy structure with vertical movement. Because of abundant use different form of column and coupon decoration, the church achieves a stocky, balance, strength and heavy full, the integrity of the aesthetic effect [
The Ganguyi church is located in Baota district Gangu town in Yan’an area. In 1924, a Spanish missionary purchase the site and build the church beginning at 1931 and finishing in 1934 by 300 workers. The interior of the church is destroyed during the Cultural Revolution period in China. Now this church is a food grain storage house of Gangu station.
The Ganguyi church is north face and the main building has two layers of stone base brick structure and gray wall. As shown in
The second layer has three sharp coupons-like long narrow window with banner carved with “Catholic”. The wall of the church decorated with continuous cusp securities constitutes the gallery bar. The third layer is a hexagonal tower. The surfaces are decorated with strip-shaped ventilating shutters and bell tower housed inside. The pilasters are decorated with many small spires. The entrance has gable walls symmetry. Each wall has a sharp coupon-like stone false window. The window is carved with dragon and plant style decoration. There is a rose window round the false window carved with lotus pattern with strong local color style.
As shown in
With respect to interior space design, owing to the influence of Chinese and western culture, the interior design combines elements in Chinese traditional culture and religion elements in western countries. In general, the design of interior space conforms to the architectural styles of western culture, while the nuances manifest Chinese traditional culture. We will take Qiao’ergou as the example to expound the interior space design of church architecture in Yan’an area.
The middle hall of interior space is higher than aisle gallery, with its roof ceiling in stone semicircle arch structure. Constructed by a continuous arch, the aisle of both rows are divided into three parts by 12 Collins pillars, with the height of 4.5 m, the interval space of 7.2 m and the side space of 3.4 m. Each pillar is sculptured
with different Chinese plant types. Due to the use of continuous arch, the interior space appears a kind of mysterious atmosphere. At the northern end of the church, altar is build and decorated with bamboo, plum and lotus, which is different from western churches. Besides, setting steps leads to the altar higher than the room. The wall near to the altar is set with pilaster and beautifully decorated brick niche which has been paved over now.
Situated in the area of the Loess Plateau which owns its special geological landforms, loess characteristics, climatic conditions, native culture and other factors, Yan’an area constitutes the unique traditional settlement after a long history of evolution, named cave. The cave shows strong local tradition cultural characteristic, such as human settlement location, building construction, architectural form and architecture color.
The traditional settlement location of Yan’an area inherits the Chinese traditional Feng-Shui theory which strives to back mountain and face water. The architecture is normally face north and mainly arched with curve which embodies the world view of “circle sky and square earth”. The construction material mainly uses the local stone, green brick and loess. The tone of the construction is mainly yellow and grey. The decoration of the construction is mainly brick and stone carve with rough lines. These entire phenomena reflected the loess culture characteristics of broad, rough and thickness.
Modern church in Yan’an area can be divided into western architecture form according to the architecture system. Compared to other western building style church, these modern churches show the traditional regional culture characteristics of Yan’an area. From the site selection view, these churches present the principles of mountain adhere which agree with the local construction site selection principle. From the orientation view of the building, these churches towards are sitting west and head east which agree with the western Christian religious ceremony, while the Yan’an area church are towards south like the cave.
From the architecture form view, the church adopts the western style beam column masonry arch structure. Compared to the cave structure, both of them use the arch curve structure but different from that the western arch structure creates more varied deep space. From the building materials, the church is still use local stone and brick. From the tone of the construction, the church mainly uses yellow and gray and use red and green as supplement. The main tone is consisting with the cave tone while the supplement tone exhibits the auxiliary color of the church. From the decoration of the architecture, the decoration pattern of the church not only use the cross, angel, grape and sheep peculiar pattern, but also use a large number of Yan’an traditional culture, such as auspicious blessing, loyalty, justice and other meaning pattern.
From the above discussion, it can be seen that the modern church in Yan’an area is western-style building. But the church fuses the local building techniques of Yan’an area in building orientation, material, tone and decoration aspects which have both the western culture and local region architecture features. All of these aspects form a unique landscape of the combination of Chinese and western characteristics.
The modern church architecture left in Yan’an area is not only the dissemination history record of propagation of Christian culture, but also the history record of the communication between the western culture and local traditional culture in Yan’an area. In this paper, we fist analyze the situation of Christianity in Shannxi and we get the conclusion that there are totally 23 churches in the modern Yan’an areas, where the Christian church number is 12 and the Protestant church is 11, respectively. Then we mainly discuss the architectural style, interior space design and architectural landscape of the church architecture in Yan’an area. As for the architectural style, Rome architecture style and Gothic architecture style are representatives of the church architecture in Yan’an area. In regard to interior space design, it generally conforms to the western architectural tradition while it differs in details with Chinese traditional plants, patterns and habitations. Owing to the unique geological landforms, loess characteristics, climatic conditions, native culture and traditional settlement location, the architectural landscape of church architecture in Yan’an area inherits the Chinese traditional theory. Furthermore, these churches present the principles of mountain adherent to the local construction site selection principle and churches in Yan’an area are towards south.
The modern China is a time with strong collision between the western and Chinese culture. The church architecture is the most typical architecture style to represent the western culture. Because of the deep location in mainland, the quality and quantity of architecture in Yan’an area are much less than those in coastal areas and Yangtze River region. Therefore, it is seldom to see the church architecture in Yan’an area.
The modern church architecture is a footprint of the development of Yan’an area. Although it transplants the western culture character sometimes, the church architecture is an important example of the religious history and city culture. We investigate the modern church architecture of Yan’an area under the view of culture inheritance, and provide information for the continued and protection of architecture culture of Yan’an area.
Supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2452015041). The Doctoral Scientific Research Foundation of Northwest A & F University (No. 2014BSJJ031).
LiWang,YongjianQu, (2015) Influence of Chinese and Western Culture on Modern Church Architecture in Yan’an Area. Journal of Building Construction and Planning Research,03,180-188. doi: 10.4236/jbcpr.2015.34018