bridge in China, and an overall length of 47.6 meters and width of 4.9 meters. Among other notable covered bridges are the Yongqing Bridge, Liuzhai Bridge, and Dongguan Bridge, each with its own local characteristics.
In terms of internal building structure, only a relatively small number of covered bridges utilize masonry walls for the enclosed structure, an example of which can be seen on pages 208–11. As in dwellings and temples throughout China, the pillars-and-transverse-tie beams wooden framework, called chuandou in Chinese, and the column-and-beam construction, the tailiang framing system, are used in constructing bridges. Both of these wooden framework systems directly lift the roof. The pillars-and-transverse-tie beams wooden framework is common throughout southern China, and has been utilized in the Buchan, Yuwen, and Luanfeng bridges. This framing system is characterized by pillars of a relatively small diameter, with each of the slender pillars set on a stone base and notched at the top to directly support a longitudinal roof purlin. Horizontal tie beam members, called chuanfang, are mortised directly into or tenoned through the pillars in order to inhibit skewing of what would otherwise be a relatively flexible frame. Wooden components, as will be seen in many photographs, are linked together by mortise-and-tenoned joinery, practices that can be traced back 7,000 years to Neolithic sites in eastern China. Column-and-beam construction involves a stacking of larger building parts: a horizontal beam, large in diameter and often curved, with two squat queen posts, or struts, set symmetrically upon it, followed by another beam and a culminating short post. Bracket sets are frequently used to extend the eaves substantially beyond the walls of the bridge. The Yingjie Temple Bridge utilizes the tailiang framing system, with heavier and more substantial columns as well as large horizontal beams.
Built in 1797, the Yongqing (Eternal Celebration) Bridge in Taishun county, Zhejiang, is a cantilevered bridge with piled timbers laid atop its single midstream pier. With a length of 36 meters, the bridge rises 5.2 meters above the streambed.
Timber frameworks of this type create a kind of “osseous” structure analogous to the human skeleton, which allows great flexibility, including structures that rise and fall as well as those comprising multiple levels. Because many covered bridges in China are also the sites of a shrine or temple, the roof structures are often more elaborate than those found on homes and are more like the roofs of temples. Ceiling structures are quite varied, especially near shrines and altars, where elaborately carved and painted coffered forms are common. With sawn timber cladding, the walling on bridges is generally simpler than that found on dwellings and temples.
Placed in a repeating fashion, sets of pillars and beams support the roof of the Yongqing Bridge.
Midway across the corridor, a set of wooden steps leads to the loft containing a variety of deities on several altars.
Much like the practices adopted in building houses, units of the wooden framework are assembled on the ground before being raised to a perpendicular location, where they are then propped and secured to adjacent segments by longitudinal cross members. As with Chinese house building, the raising of the ridgepole as well as some of the columns are important steps that are accompanied with ritual. With shrines and altars, covered bridges are transformed into active sites of worship, a subject discussed and illustrated on pages 72–5.
Garden Bridges
While the term “garden” in the West brings with it the notion of a relatively diminutive space with landscaped elements and structures created essentially for pleasure, this is only partially true in China. Here, gardens include not only small private gardens of literati scholars but also large imperial complexes that sometimes are as much administrative headquarters and parks as gardens. Monastery and temple precincts, imperial tombs as well as sprawling natural areas such as are found around Xihu, West Lake, in Hangzhou, may also be considered today as gardens. In all of these areas, there was an ingenious reproduction and spatial interplay of mountains, streams, ponds, trees, and rockeries as well as carefully designed structures such as halls, pavilions, galleries, and, of course, bridges.
In the canal-laced Jiangnan region in the lower reaches of the Chang Jiang or Yangzi River, many towns and cities are renowned for their literati gardens, sites for contemplation, study, and the cultivation of plants. As later chapters will show, bridges in these gardens provide passage but also offer invitations to tarry and ponder the meaning of poetic allusions embodied in buildings and natural vistas. Lined with low balustrades, simple stone beam bridges seem to rest on the water so that one can enjoy the lotus plants and the swimming fish. Zigzag bridges help extend the appreciation of a compact space by augmenting the distance between two points. Arch bridges have a scale and charm that invites one to pause and enjoy a view from above. In Yangzhou, the Wuting Bridge, also called the Five Pavilions Bridge and the Lotus Flower Bridge because of its resemblance to the open petals of the flower, is as much a pavilion as it is a bridge, a magnificent structure of substantial scale.
Taken just outside Shanghai’s Yuyuan Garden, this late nineteenth century photograph shows the fabled zigzag bridge and teahouse with its upturned eaves, which is said to have been the inspiration for the blue-and-white willow pattern porcelain exported from China to England during the last half of the eighteenth century.
Looking back from the tea-house across a wooden version of the zigzag bridge, the viewer sees the low-rise buildings and narrow lanes of the old walled city of Shanghai.
These contemporary views of the teahouse and zigzag bridge reveal in the distance the futuristic skyline of modern Pudong. In pools such as this one, teeming goldfish are believed to keep the water from stagnating, thus promoting the movement of positive qi, the life-giving force.
While the imperial gardens, hunting preserves, and parks in and around capitals such as Chang’an and Kaifeng have all been destroyed, existing only in literary texts, paintings, and memory, Beijing, which served as the imperial capital of the Ming and Qing dynasties for more than 500 years, is enriched with many fine examples. These include what came to be known as the “Western Seas,” the linked southern, middle, and northern lakes along the western side of the walled Purple Forbidden City. Although these interconnected bodies of water have few bridges, several are distinctive and can be contrasted with smaller spaces with bridges within the walls of the palace complex. Today, in the northwestern suburbs of Beijing, it is possible to visit and appreciate some of the imperial garden complexes that developed especially in the eighteenth century but suffered grievously during the middle to late nineteenth century, only to be reborn in the century that followed.
Known as “Garden of Gardens,” this area includes not only the vestigial remains of the once glorious Yuanming Yuan but also the grand Yihe Yuan, known to Westerners as the Summer Palace, a late nineteenth-century reconstruction reborn through the efforts of the Empress Dowager Cixi. The disposition of hills, causeways, canals, and islands connected to Kunming Lake made possible the creation of some thirty bridges, some imposingly grand and others quietly simple. Imitating the famed Su Causeway along the western side of West Lake in Hangzhou, is a causeway along the west side of Kunming Lake replete with six bridges, four of which are capped with pavilions. “Borrowing” scenes from the surrounding hills and sky beyond, just as with much smaller gardens in southern China, bridges were sited
