The Combination of Chinese and Western Architectural Styles in The Guangzhou and Guangxi Regions

Abstract

Since the outbreak of the Opium War in 1840, Western forces gradually penetrated mainland China, and a new wave of Western architectural styles began to emerge on the Chinese mainland. Thus a combination of Chinese and Western architecture appeared more frequently in the private sector. This article takes the former residence of Xiang Hanping and Chen Jitang's residence as examples to analyse the application of the combination of Chinese and Western architectural styles in the architecture of modern Chinese private houses in the two regions. The result is that both the former residence of Xiang Hanping and the Chen Jitang Mansion belongs to the inherited transformation style of modern private house architecture. The former home of Xiang Hanping has a green brick façade with glazed tile sloping roofs full of classical Chinese elements and is decorated with various traditional Chinese motifs. In contrast, the residence's interior is delicately decorated in a Western style, actively using new Western building materials and techniques. The Chen Jitang Mansion, on the other hand, is more daring in its construction, with a prominent 'foreign façade' combined with a magnificent interior, bringing the Western architectural style to the forefront but actively using the traditional Chinese classical garden concept in the conception and design of the courtyard, combining East and West to complement each other. The two examples are typical of the inherited transformation of the East-meets-West architectural style in the context of the same period.