All the 16 paintings in this exhibition are to depict the residential buildings from water-towns in Jiangnan, China. Initially Jiangnan refers to the regions in the medium and lower reaches of the south of Yangtze River, including Suzhou and Hangzhou. In ancient times, Jiangnan also means the prosperous and developed economy, culture and education, and beauty, richness and populous. Therefore, there is a saying that goes up above there is heaven; down below there are Suzhou and Hangzhou. Since the spectacular escaping of gentries from China Central Plain to the south of China in the East Jin Dynasty (AD317-420) and later the establishment of the capital of Chinese authority in Jin-ling, currently the city of Nanjing, Jiangnan Region has superseded China Central Plain as the most developed core region of China's economy and culture, which advantage has lasted till now. Therefore, Jiangnan is also a synonym for good life style to Chinese people.

　　Jiangnan is well-known for its prosperous culture and education. Generations of literati were born here. Especially during the time before the Republic of China, many of the Chinese celebrities, scholars and political elites were from Jiangnan. From ancient time till now, quantitative literary works and paintings praising Jiang have built what Chinese perceive as the image of "Jiangnan".

　　From the perspective of transportation, Jiangnan is characterized by water network, where rivers and streams interconnect with each other, combined with quantitative artificial canals, making the transportation among towns and villages literally water-born traffic. In the past, the primary transportation vehicles were boats and therefore road traffic is actually a secondary option for locals. To guarantee the convenience of the transportation for pedestrians, bridges have been constructed on most crossings of rivers in Jiangnan towns.

　　Roads usually run parallel with the trends of rivers. But the roads and rivers are usually separated by residential buildings, forming a layout mode of town that residential buildings are backed by rivers while facing roads. Such a living mode is very convenient for water utilization, which means that residents usually set stages on one side of the rivers to build self-use private wharfs, which make boat trips very easy. Even the selling of vegetables in the past was carried out on boats in rivers.

　　In cities and towns, residential buildings are typically in a format of front shop and back workshop. The side adjacent to the road lies the shop, which is convenient for customer reception while the side adjacent to the river lies the workshop, which is convenient for raw material transportation. Similarly, teahouses and restaurants and others utilize the position along the rivers suitable for viewing as the guest area to attract clients.

　　Bridges are important transportation links connecting roads which can therefore go over river courses. But the set of bridges can also function as obstacles for passing-by water vehicles. To guarantee the normal transportation of larger boats and ships, arched bridges are usually applied for major rivers and canals while only secondary river courses without water-born traffic adopt flat bridges. As a result, to guarantee the transportation for larger boats, the arches are both high and big, making the bridges very high. From the perspective of landscape, arched bridges are very beautiful and become the commanding elevations for towns, and allow an overview of surrounding scenery. Especially in foggy dawns or rainy days or under other special weather conditions, the arched bridges can express a unique charm and grace. The only disadvantage of arched bridges is that pedestrians have to climb up a high slope to go across which is not as pleasant as passing on flat bridges.

　　Residential buildings in Jiangnan possess multiple models. For example, the horse-head walls which function as a fire-proof structure can be of many different curve formats. Jiangnan water-town residential buildings are characterized by white walls and black tiles. Tightly packed rows of roofs made of black tiles and concise white walls together make a distinct visual contrast. Exactly due to such contrast, Chinese people have advocated and admired the aesthetic effect of a mixture of extreme scattering and concentration.

　　Being populous with less land, people in Jiannan region highly value the full use of residential land. The parts of buildings along roads or rivers are mostly not wide; some of them are only of the standard width of a room in an old-style house. Such arrangement can make sure that more family members can enjoy the convenience of roads in front and rivers at back. To allow larger internal space, depths of building are relatively large. Besides, while improving the lengths, most houses are three storeys high, which guarantees enough internal space for people to utilize.

　　To expand residential land area, people tend to turn to river courses. A commonly referred to method is to set part of the buildings toward rivers built on stilts so that more space is gained from above the rivers. However, limited by construction materials, the parts built on stilts cannot be very large. For this reason, some households even build several stilts in the river, and the bearings of such stilts extend to the construction on the river and therefore form stilted buildings above rivers.

　　As for the treatment of elevations of buildings, locals also value variation. Waist eaves are a commonly adopted modeling method. While setting the waist eaves for the roofs of the ground floor, they are usually set upwards and extend below the windows of the first floor. Though the ground floor and the first floor are the same in height, the exteriors of the buildings give an illusion of higher first floor and lower second floor, which as a result make the buildings seemingly stable.

　　The parts of the buildings along rivers are usually set with semi-open grey space which is similar to balconies. The sides along rivers are set with a specific kind of handrail which is called 'handrail leaned on by beauties' in Chinese architecture, by which structure people can sit in the semi-open space and lean to enjoy the beautiful scenery around the water.

　　Sotto portico is a format to construct architectural space hanging over the streets. Part of the ground floor of buildings of two or more storeys along roads or rivers are reserved to serve as public roads and therefore the residential buildings overhang the public roads. Such an idea could fully exploit residential land and realize maximum efficiency. Also, due to shelters formed by the buildings above the roads, strong sunshine and rain are blocked out, with which the pedestrians are pleased. Since sotto portico is suitable for pedestrians to have a short rest, usually the buildings beside it are developed as shops.

　　In all, such residential architecture is so sophisticatedly designed that residential land is saved while larger indoor space is gained. It is convenient for residents to get and utilize water and is convenient for transportation, too. The exterior of the architecture is versatile in format and produces a visual effect of rich variation of road scenery and river scenery. All these merits of Jiangnan residential buildings are created and concluded by local ancestors from long term life practice and is an excellent cultural heritage.

　　From the time when I was studying in the Department of Fine Arts in Nanjing Academy of Arts during 1974 to 1977, I have painted a large amount of sketches on traditional Jiangnan residential buildings, which have been used as the settings for my comic books. During 1987 and 1990 when I was a postgraduate in the department of architecture in Chongqing Institute of Architecture and Engineering, I majored in architectural design and theory, which made me not only focus on the beauty of modeling, but also be aware of the rationality of the design.

　　Later I published such books on residential building research and was granted some awards. In 1993, I was admitted to pursue a doctorate degree in architecture history and theory in the department of architecture in Qinghua University. After that, my understanding of traditional Chinese residential buildings was expanded on a cultural level. Some of my academic books introducing Chinese residential buildings have been translated and published in German, Japanese, French，English and Korean. My English book Chinese Architecture has been published in New York. The oil paintings presented to guests in this exhibition can be interpreted as a comprehensive reflection of the understandings of residential buildings by architects and artists.

　　I sincerely hope that this exhibition can be a window for more German friends to get familiar with China and fall in love with Chinese culture.

　　I thank you all!