This exhibition featured over seventy photographs exploring the role of the traditional Chinese home, focusing on utilitarian and spiritual meanings, as well as social and economic organization. Using traditional principles of feng shui 风 水, in which locations of special floral and geometric wall patterns are believed to bring longevity and wealth, Chinese people arrange their homes and interiors to incorporate this living cultural heritage. The photographs, many of which were taken by Li Yuxiang between 1993 and 1999, focused on interiors and exteriors of domestic dwellings, some dating back to the fifteenth century. The photographs primarily were taken in five urban and rural regions in China: Shanxi, Wannan (south Anhui), Jiangnan (Jiangsu and Zhejiang), Minxi (west Fujian), and Hong Kong. In addition to the photography, a reconstructed traditional Chinese living room allowed visitors to see and experience traditional interior space.
Living Heritage: Vernacular Environment in China
古承今袭：中国民间生活方式
January 25 – June 10, 2001
Curated by Kai-yin Lo
Catalogue published by Nobel World Printing Co Ltd., Hong Kong; copyright 1999 by Yungmingtang, Hong Kong.
Media Coverage
- Elaine Louie, “House Home: Currents: To Record, Perhaps to Save, China’s Endangered Old Houses,” The New York Times, January 25, 2001.
- Karen Elliott House, “Shoes to Dao For,” The Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2000.
- Fred Stern, “China Lives,” Artnet, January 31, 2001.
“Westerners generally view the architecture of an Asian country, particularly China, as all of one piece. This exhibition teaches differently. Given climatic variations and the historical perspective, it is easy to understand why the style of family dwellings change from province to province.”
- Wendy Law-Yone, “A Living Heritage: An exhibition and book celebrate the vernacular houses of China,” Architectural Digest, November 2001.
“That this exhibition—the first of its kind in the United States—drew visitors in record numbers may be one sign of the growing interest in Chinese vernacular houses, which, as Kai-Yin Lo defines them, are dwellings ‘without imperial associations’.”
Media Coverage
- Sing Tao Daily 星岛日报
- World Journal 世界日报
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