Common Housing Types
The most common vernacular housing types in Quanzhou include:
- Traditional Wide Gong Ting Courtyard Houses
- Traditional Narrow Shou Jin Liao Courtyard Houses
- "Western" Villas
- Shophouses
- Work-unit Apartments
- Transitional and Hybrid Forms
- Speculative Housing and Shophousing
Some General Observations on the Character of Quanzhou's Vernacular Architecture
This distinction between a public face on the housing and a private back is absent in modern, planned Chinese urban housing, which generally reflects a socialist egalitarianism, utilitarianism and lack of occupant-ownership. But it is also rare in traditional housing, which reserves most of its ornamentation for the private interior court, and which turns a relatively blank face to the street.
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