Dunhuang Architectural Studies, 1926–2024

This field statement reviews the sources, issues, approaches, and missions of Dunhuang architectural studies from 1926 to the present. The studies of Dunhuang architecture constitute a subfield at the intersection of Dunhuang studies, Silk Road archaeology, and studies of Chinese architectural history. Dunhuang architectural studies primarily investigate three corpses of materials, i.e., the images of architecture represented in mural paintings, the cave typology, and the timber-framed façade screening the caves. This study outlines the three phases in which scholarly concerns evolved from images to their material carriers, from forms to spaces, and from disciplinary to interdisciplinary. The first phase, 1926–1950, features Chinese, Japanese, and German scholars’ early explorations of the images of architecture, mostly based on photographic reproductions of murals and timber façades. They established connections between the Dunhuang materials and the modern studies of art and architectural histories. In the second phase, 1950–2000, scholars, mainly Chinese, explored the majority of the primary materials and managed to establish a research framework for research that is still valid today. Some others conducted refreshing studies from the perspective of spatial conception. The third phase, from 2001 to the present, witnesses the emergence of new materials, perspectives, and technologies, which stimulate interdisciplinary and innovative studies of the Dunhuang materials. Finally, this review reflects on the received conceptions the field has brought us to consider the architecture of a Dunhuang cave temple and points out issues of space for future investigations.