Abstract
The term ‘Qilou’ is the Chinese name for a particular building type which can be found throughout South China, Taiwan and the general south east Asian region. Qilou usually take the form of a series of shops set at ground level with an arcade alongside. On the streetside of the arcade, columns are constructed at intervals of 3 or 4 meters. Above the shops is mostly residential accommodation which look into the continuous open space of the arcade below. The arcade can be considered as an ‘in-between’ space, fronted on one side, by the private houses and on the other, totally public side by the street with vehicular traffic etc. This semi-public urban space serves a number of purposes; to control the climatic conditions of the region, with its strong summer sun combined with continuous rainy squalls and at the same time to create a place where people can partake in various outdoor activities such as shopping or chatting with friends and neighbors. Over the years which we have been involved with our field works on Chinese dwellings, we recognized the positive qualities of the Qilous, with their all encompassing atmosphere of rows of shops and houses on a street and the accompanying life around them. This attracted our interest and we began to research them in more detail. The main purposes of our research were; firstly to understand the arrangement of day to day activities and lifestyles around the Qilou spaces from an urban viewpoint and secondly to find out the distribution and route of propagation of Qilou-style constructions and their differing appearances throughout the region. We made surveys, and collected data and materials in various cities in Fujian, Guangdong province, in Lin Shui Jie, Zhejiang, Anhui province and in various cities in Taiwan where Qilous are also found. The types we found in cities in south China were mainly Qilous with western-style facades and there were few that conveyed the old style. However, in Lin Shui Jie, we did find ones with traditional elevations and atmosphere. In Taiwan, the Qilou style houses were called Heng Zai Jiao. In contrast to the Qilous on the Chinese mainland which have the tendency to have been rapidly built in special cities, we found that in Taiwan they had been individually built throughout the island and some research had already been made by others. For the second part of our research, we concluded that the Qilou had spread along the trade routes of the overseas Chinese merchants. They had originated in Singapore, then through south east Asia to cities in south China and eventually to Taiwan. (refer to theses of Huang). However, we have to wait until future research is carried out before we can under-stand if traditional Chinese dwellings influenced their eventual forms. What we can conclude though, is that one of the construction styles does relate to major historical social-economic movements and as a result they are the reflections of the overlap between the east and the west. If one considers the area and depth of the subject, we felt the research undertaken so far has just touched the starting point.
