Chang'an Archway

The Paifang (Archway), or Fang for short, is similar to a Pailou, and is a very important type of traditional Chinese architecture that has spread to the Korean Peninsula, Japan, Vietnam, the Ryukyus and other areas of the Chinese cultural sphere. The Paifang is also used as a symbol of Chinese culture overseas, and is found in many Chinatowns. Under strict distinction, a Paifang is different from a Pailou in that those without arch and roof structures on the columns and horizontal panels are called Paifang, while those with buildings on the columns and horizontal panels are called Pailou.

It was called Que during the Han Dynasty, Biao during the Six Dynasties, Wutoumen during the Tang Dynasty, and the official name was Biaojie, Fayue, and Wutoumen during the Song Dynasty, commonly known as Lingxingmen. The early Paifang were very simple, just two columns with a horizontal piece of wood and two pairs of wooden doors, focusing more on their practical value as gates. After the Han dynasty, Chinese urban architecture gradually took on a certain form, with Lifang in the middle of the city, which had walls and gates, like "a city within a city", similar to today's residential communities. According to historical documents, if a good deed was done in a village, a notice had to be posted on the gate as a token of appreciation, thus giving the gate a new function. In order to ensure that the notices of praise posted on the gate would last forever, additional gates were made of stronger materials and inscribed with the cause of the praise, such as the Jiexiao Fang for filial piety, the Zhuangyuan Fang for number one scholar and the Dezheng Fang for benevolent, which is the prototype of today's Paifang.

During the Song dynasty, the Lingxingmen gradually lost its role as a passage and the wooden door disappeared, becoming a purely decorative building, and its architectural form became more and more complex and beautiful, developing from a two-pillar door (i.e. one horizontal board and two pillars) to a five-gap, six-pillar, eleven-plaque tower (i.e. six pillars and five horizontal boards in the Ming and Qing dynasties. The structure was also built with an arch roof above the columns, such as the Qianmen Wupailou on Qianmen Street outside Zhengyangmen in Beijing), forming the Paifang we see today.