Rishengchang is famous for its first draft bank. However, when I saw Chang's former site with my own eyes, I couldn't help admiring its architectural style! Rishengchang is adjacent to the bustling market in front and the quiet alley in the back, covering an area of 1.600 square meters, with 2l buildings. With its architectural style, it has formed a complete and fully functional commercial store courtyard, which has both the commonness of commercial buildings and its distinctive particularity. Rishengchang architecture, as a carrier of history and culture, provides valuable physical materials for in-depth understanding and research of history and culture, business feelings and architectural art, and is an important non-renewable tourism resource. As a commercial shop, Rishengchang's overall layout presents a kind of natural aesthetic feeling, with external circle inside, complementary master and slave, combination of up and down, different streamline and outstanding practicality.
According to preliminary research, the former site of Rishengchang belongs to two different construction periods, the front yard and the second yard, including the central hall, belong to one construction period, and the backyard, back passage and back door belong to another construction period. Its notable feature is that the central hall and the shopkeeper's room stand side by side, with large height difference between the two walls and different ground levels. However, the buildings belonging to the two phases can achieve exquisite workmanship, perfect harmony, natural transition and perfect integration, which shows the designer's artistic accomplishment and the builder's superb architectural technology level. The main buildings formed in different construction periods adopt the symmetrical and balanced layout of buildings in northern China. The main buildings are arranged in order on the central axis, from the hard roof pavement of the wooden attic to the middle hall of the single-slope roof and then to the back hall of the single-slope roof. Secondary buildings such as East-West Cabinet, Accounting (East), Information Room (West), Kitchen (East) and Guest Room (West) are symmetrically distributed on both sides of the central axis. This layout is fully reflected in many shops in Yaogu Town. For example, the former site of Baofenglong Bank diagonally opposite to the former site of Rishengchang, and the former sites of Weitaihou and Weifuhuang Bank on the east side of the former site of Rishengchang all belong to this layout. The difference is that the non-main building on the east side of Rishengchang main building is more perfect because of its reasonable layout, proper layout and outstanding practicability. The establishment of Rudong study filled this vacancy; The building of the East Attic enhances the overall aesthetic feeling of the central hall; The setting of the east corridor is convenient and elegant; The construction of the east toilet not only facilitates life, but also supplements the gap formed with the adjacent courtyard wall; Worry-free rear passage, connected with the back door and located under the high walls of the two houses, is conducive to the passage of cars and horses and convenient for the transportation of cars, cash and other valuables of Rishengchang Bank Dong Zhang Branch; Perfect and convenient wing building is not available in general shops.
Throughout Rishengchang's architectural style, there are the following five characteristics:
Waixiong Neixiu
Rishengchang's architecture gives people a feeling of heroic beauty. Five-room-wide pavement, two-story tiled wooden structure, hard hilltop building, supplemented by five steps of bluestone and heavy black painted doors make people feel magnificent. Looking out from the back wall of Rishengchang, we can see the extraordinary momentum of the deep house compound, which can't reach the top, the wall thickness can't be estimated, and it is higher than the adjacent houses at once. You have no choice but to sigh.
If Rishengchang's architecture has obvious advertising purpose, then the "inner show" of its architecture is more focused on artistic appreciation. In the Qing Dynasty, local craftsmen with superb skills carefully treated the interior decoration of the building, which was absolutely exquisite. For example, the indoor partition of Rishengchang is completed with finely carved partition fans. The front corner of the porch is decorated with exquisite carved finches. Craftsmen apply brick carving, wood carving and stone carving techniques widely used in folk houses to the construction of the firm, which increases the life interest of the firm and makes the tall and powerful building light and warm.
Positive and negative combination
The main building of Rishengchang, from the paving direction, seems to sit south to north, showing an inverted seat. But through the central hall, I came to the backyard. As if in this direction, the courtyard turned into a sitting style with the north facing south. This kind of upside-down combination store is really rare. As mentioned above, this pattern has objective reasons for the completion of the whole building by stages, but it also shows the superb architectural art and cultivation of local architects with ingenious ideas according to local conditions. It is difficult for architects without experience and technology to achieve such a perfect, harmonious and unified design.
Master-slave complementarity
The complementary architecture of Rishengchang from master to slave further embodies the perfection and coordination of its architectural style. Take the front yard of Rishengchang as an example. Hard mountain buildings and tall pavements undoubtedly give people a feeling of closed and depressed backyard. However, the affiliated buildings such as the east and west cabinets tend to be low-rise and single-slope buildings, forming a patchwork, epoch-making and ups and downs spatial effect. Another example is that there is a wide hall at the junction of the main hall and the wing, which not only makes up for the lack of sunshine between the east and the west of the main hall, but also slows down the excessive gap between the main building and the auxiliary building, making people feel a gentle and stretching psychological effect.
On the east side of the axis series buildings, other auxiliary building facilities should be low, not high, and should be connected and not broken, which are coordinated and complement each other, greatly increasing the overall aesthetic feeling of Ding, a commercial store.
Simplification is different.
In the middle of Qing dynasty, the hierarchy was strict, which was also reflected in the construction of commercial shops. In Rishengchang 2 1 building, there is a clear difference between exquisiteness and simplicity. General manager's bedroom, the building is more exquisite; The compartment for boys is much simpler. In the accounting room, Mr. Zhang lives in a single room in the back room, and his deputy lives in a large room and sleeps on the kang. Simplification is different, which is a common phenomenon in Rishengchang and other stores.
Highlight practicality
Rishengchang architecture is characterized by its outstanding practicality. This is an important embodiment of merchant materialism principle in architectural concept. In many buildings in Rishengchang, the principle of outstanding practicality is embodied. The most obvious, such as kitchen architecture. In the east room of the backyard, there is a good top cabinet for putting dried vegetables and fresh vegetables. In the neat closet, there are stoves, chopsticks, oil, salt, sauce and vinegar. Where the flue crosses the gable, in order to prevent fire, stone eaves are used instead of hanging wood.