Algorithmic Architecture in Twelfth-Century China: The Yingzao Fashi

The Yingzao fashi (Building standards) is a Chinese building manual published in 1103, written by architect Li Jie (d. 1110). Li’s approach was rule-based, reflecting a tradition in which knowledge was transmitted orally in the form of easily-remembered procedures. For instance, the method of determining the characteristic curved roof section, called juzhe, is a two-step process; Li’s first rule was to use modular units, the absolute values of which varied according to the rank of the building. This has led to the Yingzao fashi being called a “grammar book of Chinese architecture.” The use of a formal tool, shape grammar, makes it possible, for example, to understand juzhe as a recursive algorithm and, indeed, to propose a completely generative definition of the Song architectural style. The work can be extended to comparative formal studies of extant Chinese buildings and a second “grammar book,” the Gongcheng zuofa zeli (Structural regulations), published in 1733.