非遗文化双语短片：中国传统木结构营造技艺 | Living Heritage: Chinese traditional architectural craftsmanship

非遗文化双语短片：中国传统木结构营造技艺
Living Heritage: Chinese traditional architectural craftsmanship for timber-framed structures

方寸之间，严丝合缝，阴阳相合。几个世纪以来，榫卯结构一直为中国木质建筑提供坚固耐用的支撑。对于保护和守护这一遗产的匠人们和在中国各地那些世世代代生活在木结构建筑空间中的老百姓来说，木材和木结构一直都是中国建筑的重要组成部分。传统木结构建筑各式各样，却万变不离其宗。中国人道法自然、和合共生的长久追求，同样蕴藏在这一抹木香之中了。#璀璨非遗

Tight as a thread, seamless as a seal, and coupled like yin and yang. For centuries,sunmao structures have been providing sturdy and durable supports for Chinese wooden architecture.

Large components of traditional Chinese wooden architecture, including columns, beams, purlins and dougong (interlocking brackets), are often pieced together using sunmao structures. The convex sun (tenon joint) and the concave mao (mortise), when interlocked, both support and contain the adjoining parts. This augments stability, but also adds flexibility to the architecture, strong enough to resist earthquakes. Craftsmen can make and process the components in advance and assemble them quickly on site, which is simple and efficient

The Hemudu site in Yuyao, East China’s Zhejiang province, dates back around 7,000 years.Hundreds of wooden components with sunmao structures have been unearthed from the remains of stilted houses there, the earliest known application of sunmaostructuresin China in wooden-frame buildings.

Since the Shang (c. 16th century-11th century BC) and Zhou (c. 11th century-256 BC) dynasties, generations of carpenters, with their ingeniousness, have produced more than a hundred types of sunmao structures. From such, a whole set of systematic methods was devised, from selecting locations and choosing materials, to structure, measurements, manufacture and assembly.

For the craftsmen who have preserved and guarded this heritage, and for the generations of people who have lived in and among the spaces defined by it across China, wood and wooden structureshave always been an important constituent of Chinese architecture.

Their styles may differ, but they all share the same root. Chinese people’s love of nature and pursuit of harmonious coexistence is also embedded within.