CHENGDU / ARCHITECTURE
Architecture that works with water
Read the Chengdu plain through Dujiangyan.
Follow the river
Dujiangyan is a water-management system rather than a single monumental building. Its beginnings date to the third century BCE. It redirects part of the Min River to support the farmland of the Chengdu plain.
Design through landscape
The system uses the shape of the terrain and the behavior of flowing water. Water diversion, sediment management and irrigation work together. This makes it an introduction to architecture and engineering as relationships with a landscape.
Two places, one inscription
UNESCO lists Dujiangyan together with Mount Qingcheng, associated with the history of Daoism. They offer different perspectives: a working water system and a mountain with religious buildings.
A WORD TO KNOW
Irrigation
The deliberate supply of water to land where crops grow.
Keep reading.
Sources and further context for this introduction.
