Introduction

Location

Details

Creative Product

Public Exhibition

Our Team

Introduction

Zaojing, an architectural feature in great halls of traditional Chinese buildings, refers to a dome-shaped, inward curving ceiling, often adorned with carvings or vivid paintings that illustrate a variety of designs. In Ningbo, zaojing is typically found in the great hall of Baoguo Temple built in 1013. It also prevails in ancestral halls particularly on their theatre pavilions. Preliminary data collection reveals that there are over 300 traditional theatres in the Ningbo area.

Location

Location of Zaojings(Theaters) in Ninghai County

Hu Ancestral Hall

The stage is a four-column square pavilion without balustrade. In the middle, there are 6 screens with ancient poems written on them. The plaque "Feiyun Zhu" was hung, the I-shaped corridor and the three zaojing were built at the same time. The zaojing on the stage is round, built in a spiral shape and spiraling on the right direction into the top center.Hu Ancestral Hall is located in Aohu Village, Meilin Street. It contains a theatre stage with three zaojing on its ceiling. In 1797 (the second year of Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty), Hu Yuanshi, a local scholar, built the Hu family's ancestral hall, named "Jiqing Hall".

The front hall is relatively simple, with three bays in width. In the fourth year of Xianfeng (1854), Hu Yinjie took the lead in rebuilding the front hall, expanding from three bays to five bays. The funds were donated by various families in the clan and the building process used the "splitting construction" technique, that is, splitting the whole building complex into two halves and hiring two building teams for each halves as a competition to complete the construction.

Three Zaojing in a Theater Ceiling

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Cultural and Creative Product

Zaojing Phone Stand

Phone Stand designed by Xinyu Cao

The digitalised image of Zaojing is used in designing a phone stand. This stand can be particularly handy for propping up phones when watching videos or studying on it.

Public Exhibition

Invited by Ningbo Science and Technology Bureau, the project showcased the 3D digital model of the traditional theatre and Zaojing at the 2023 Maritime Silk Road Culture and Tourism Expo.

Photos from the exhibition

Related Research Publications

[1] Jing Xie, The Origin and Development of Dougong and Zaojing in Early China, London and New York: Anthem Press, 2023.
[2] Jing Xie, From earth to heaven: the origin and development of zaojing in early China, arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, 2019, vol.23, no. 4, pp.349-363.
[3] Yang Gucheng杨古城, Zhou Dongxu周东旭, Zhejiang East Ancient Theater浙东古戏台[M]. Zhe Jiang : Ningbo Press,2021.
[4] XU Peiliang徐培良, YING Kejun应可军. Ninghai Traditional Theater 宁海古戏台[M]. Shang Hai : Zhonghua Book Company,2007.
[5] ZHAO Xiaoliang赵晓亮. Ningbo Traditional Theater宁波古戏台[M]. Zhe Jiang: Zhejiang Gongshang University Press,2010.
[6] ZHOU Hang周航. Research on the Traditional Theater Building Group in Ninghao 宁海古戏台建筑群研究[M]. Zhe Jiang: Zhejiang University Press,2015.
[7] Corentin Fivet,Jingxian Ye, , and Peiliang Xu. The Caisson – Review of a Unique Wooden Construction Typology in China. Proceedings of the Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress on Construction History, 2018(10pages).
[8] Jingxian Ye, Corentin Fivet. The Ancient Chinese Opera Spiral Wooden Domes. Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Conference of the Construction History Society, 2019(22 pages).
[9] Jingxian Ye, Corentin Fivet. The Zaojing: Review of a Unique Wooden Construction Typology. Construction History, Vol. 35, No. 1 (2020), pp. 23-50.

Our Team

Jing Xie, Tengyue Zhang, Xuanrui Zhang, Lulu Qiu, May Yan
Xiao Huan,Yuchen Yang, Xixi Wang, Yuyan Zhou, Yining Lin

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