From the point of view of the impact of modernity

From the point of view of the impact of modernity, we could conclude that the Xianxian-Daming handbook is rather conservative. On the one hand, the Western authors refused inculturation and any stylistic evolution to a Sino-Christian style. On the other hand, they say nothing about modern techniques of reinforced concrete, use of metal in general, stone carving, and use of colors. In the mid 1920s, recent technological advancements in the West were indeed largely unknown in China, except in great cities and the treaty ports, and were impossible to afford by local congregations building a parish church with a limited budget. It is, however, hard to believe that De Moerloose, who was often in Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai, had contacts with Western construction firms and read architectural journals, was not aware of the technical possibilities of reinforced concrete and iron structures. This allows us to conclude with a paradox. The handbook describes and illustrates a type of Western traditional Gothic architecture from the Northern European brick countries. In Europe, this architecture was contested since the 1890s and completely outdated after the First World War. At the same time in rural China, the techniques described in the handbook remained difficult to realize. In many villages of Northern China, building a Gothic or an Italianate church was an expression of a completely different architecture, which could be qualified as “foreign” or ‘imported’ in aromatase inhibitor to the local tradition. Missionaries needed people for building their churches and trained Chinese workers to Western medieval techniques. They should therefore be considered as agents of technological and architectural transfer, but not as agents of modernity like Western architects and engineers who developed Art Deco and modernism in the 1920s in the treaty ports.
Introduction The contributions of China in the historical development of graphics around the world declined during the Ming and Qing dynasties. After this period, the nation completely lost its role in the field and withdrew from the historical stage. Around this time, China experienced a slow development in science and technology, but despite such difficulties the scholars of graphics of the period made some advancement in sorting out and elucidating theories of graphics and techniques of drawing and painting. They also absorbed the theories and techniques of western graphics while studying and disseminating them, thus helping increase the knowledge and innovative achievements in graphics both at home and abroad. The emergence of Shi Xue (Study of Vision) and Qi Xiang Xian Zhen (The Engineer and Machinist׳s Drawing Book), the two representative works on modern theories of western graphics introduced during the Qing dynasty, exemplifies the achievements in engineering graphics and techniques of architectural drawing in this period. These books concretely reflect the evolution of traditional graphics into modern and contemporary graphics.
In ancient times, the Chinese produced work instruments based on their observations of the workings of nature. This process continues to develop until today. Nothing is exempted from the rule “construction in line with the drawings” from ancient times to the present, both at home and abroad. The archive of architectural drawings during the Qing dynasty is called the “Yang Shi Lei Tu Dang,” which refers to the drawing files named after the Lei family who was in charge of the bureau of design for many generations. Graphics flourished during this period and was a booming phenomenon crowned with great achievements. However, its theoretical basis, particularly that of the application of the method of projection, the definition of the proportion of patterns, grid drawing, and iron modeling, remained steeped in the theory of graphics and techniques of contracting inherited from the earlier Qin dynasty to the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties. Many problems remained unresolved in the field of graphic theories. Valuable works on the method of projection and the innovation of drawing techniques were seldom produced. These issues were left by unresolved by the “Yang Shi Lei Tu Dang.”(Needham et al., 1971)