Craft culture and morality: architectonic imperatives in pre-modern China

Abstract

In pre-modern China, craftspeople and literati played the role of today’s architects, and literati were crucial in setting a direction for craft culture. Today, in many fast-developing regions, there is great pressure to act with speed and to pursue growth and originality. This mindset may effectively boost the economy and hasten development, but it can generate dilemmas as well. This paper traces a thread of discourses in pre-modern China that contribute ancient insights and address challenges about craft culture and morality. It shows how certain values were established and consolidated, how codes of conduct, building standards, and legislation carried pertinent ethical values, and how the paradox of human nature and the seduction of technology were observed and handled. These discourses suggest that several underlying but significant themes prevailed in pre-modern Chinese craft culture, such as valuing thrift and controls, being wary of flamboyance and the seduction of technological novelty, as well as seeking out what might ultimately contribute to lasting contentment. Though they may not provide an instant remedy to these dilemmas, they enable certain crucial reconsideration of the quiddity of good life and architecture.