When Architecture Meets Painting. A Utopian Community Inspired by Landscape Painting in Song Dynasty

Abstract

Architecture and painting are fascinating arts, which are both close to our daily life. Some paintings record real life, while others depict the ideal life that people yearn for. On the other hand, architectural design usually provides a space for real life. From these two kinds of art, people’s understanding of their ideal life and their pursuit of beauty can be seen. Therefore, the two arts should be able to influence and stimulate each other. Through the analysis and study of the painting, designers can apply what they have learnt during this process to architectural design, thus providing a completely different idea for architectural design. To be specific, how the painting is composed, how to create the artistic conception conveyed by the color scheme and the texture of the strokes, how to organize the spatial relations in a picture, how the painting works reflect the trend of thought at that time, etc., all of these can give some inspiration to the architectural design. Concurrently, this thesis investigates the Song Dynasty landscape painting, which is a representative of traditional Chinese painting. The picture composition, surface content and color texture of Song paintings were studied. At the same time, it explores the historical background, philosophical thoughts and life pursuit of literati in Song Dynasty reflected in the paintings. Inspired by this, an ideal modern community is created, to provide people in contemporary society with a choice of a traditional but innovative life space and lifestyle.