The correlation between the architectural and cultural origins of the academies and the ancestral halls in Guangdong, China, from the perspective of kinship politics

Abstract

The cultural formation of the academy and ancestral hall buildings in Guangdong have similarities and are closely related to the influence of the patriarchal system. Taking kinship politics as a perspective, this paper draws out the relevant factors affecting the cultural formation of the academy and ancestral hall architecture through literature analysis, and then interprets the influence of social variables (economic, political, and cultural) on the development of the two from the historical dimension of the time series, revealing the convergence of the two in their historical evolution. The study reveals that 1) political drive constitutes a major vein in the formation of the architectural culture of the academy and ancestral hall, as reflected in the continuation and development of kinship politics attributes; 2) the geographical distribution of the two is similar; 3) the social attributes and functional transformations of the two are coupled in the historical process. To summarize, the cultural formation of the academy and ancestral hall buildings is a continuation of the early patrimonial system and has an interdependent relationship. The ancient Chinese bureaucratic system was hereditary, which made the patriarchal system class-based; the ancestral hall was a continuation of the earlier tomb ritual system, while the cultural formation of the academy can be said to be a development of the patriarchal system, and both can be considered to be a tool for the consolidation of power to a certain extent.

Keywords

• guangdong ancestral halls
• academy architecture
• kinship politics
• historical evolution
• cultural origins