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DAVID LUNG
desires and aspirations are no longer a priority in design. The trend toward brutalism in architectural design has urged theoreticians in the field like Robert Vickery and Christopher Alexander to advocate a return to basic principles, to refathom the timeless way of building and to rediscover the fundamental 'pattern language' in environmental design.
In the long search for meaning in Chinese architecture, I have come to the conclusion that buildings should reflect the characteristics, the values and the sensitivities of a culture so that people who live in them can sense their archetypal foundations and, in turn, heighten their awareness of their own culture and values. Hence, architecture is didactic, a device for expression. Architecture becomes a life-sustaining process, and not an end object itself.
Chinese architecture, like its civilisation, is an accumulation of a continuous, monolithic tradition. Unlike its European counterpart where building types of certain periods characterise certain architectural styles, Chinese architecture basically carries one archetype throughout the ages. Be it a commoner's house, or a palace, or a temple, they share a common set of design principles and methods. From the founding of an imperial city in Peking to the building of a farm village, the same tradition is followed. Chinese farm villages do not just 'grow in a haphazard fashion' as a number of scholars have suggested. Rather, they follow the same set of values as city building of the Chou Dynasty (1122-256 B.C.). I have chosen Kat Hing Wai, a farm village in the New Territories in Hong Kong, to demonstrate one significant theory that "vernacular architecture and the monumental buildings of the grand design tradition have a common root and serve the same symbolic function, both express the meaning, values and needs inherent in public form of life." This village was built in the Ming Dynasty (1368—1644) and is the best surviving example of Cantonese farm architecture remaining in the Colony. It still serves as a viable living habitat for the original Tang clan who migrated to this region during the tenth century. I want to document and preserve this 'vanishing' farm village in drawings, photographs and writing, as well as to examine the reasons why this architecture, and the life it supports, have survived into the twentieth century. What lessons can we learn from the village built forms that can significantly contribute to the making of future environments?