Towards Western construction in China: Shanghai brickwork and printed technical resources 1843-1936

Abstract

China's move towards western models of construction is documented by an account of the inconspicuous brickwork of Shanghai - one of the earliest western construction methods introduced into modern China. A series of questions are raised, based on extensive fieldwork. This article records the study of printed resources set within the broader context of circulating western knowledge in China, and summarises types of literature important for construction studies. The paper considers three Chinese books to help explore the sources of western masonry and reveal hitherto un-noted facts. The paper concludes, for the first time, that the simple technology of Victorian brick masonry was a principal source and antecedent of modern Shanghai brickwork. Distinct from the tradition of transmitting construction-related technology by oral instruction, textbooks, handbooks and manuals constituted a new, and powerful means for the dissemination of technical knowledge in modern China. The interpretation of western technology appears to have been selective in Shanghai; a typical example is the brick bonding methods independent of closer bricks compared to English construction. Interestingly, Chinese authors did not fully adopt western construction modes, and old Chinese knowledge was incorporated into new systems of construction, greatly conditioned by material problems, as this study reveals. The spread of construction technology knowledge involved broad cross-field collaboration in and across Shanghai, the complexity of which suggests a shift of knowledge systems, rather than a direct transfer of building technology based on western construction methods.