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A model of a building

Eastern Han watchtower (an ancient Chinese model, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

What did people build in the Han Dynasty?

By the time of the Han Dynasty, about 200 BC, architects were building all kinds of different buildings including watchtowers, palaces, temples, and store-houses.

Earlier Qin Dynasty architecture
Han Dynasty history
Han Dynasty art
All our ancient China articles

Using baked brick

Architects started to experiment with more complicated roofs, using gables and overhanging eaves. They also started to experiment with building in baked brick during the Han Dynasty – just about the same time as Roman architects were beginning to build in brick at the other end of Eurasia.

What is brick?
Roman architecture in brick 

Building Buddhist temples

In the 200s BC, people in China learned about Buddhism, the new religion from India, and so they started to build Buddhist temples for the first time.

Buddhism in China
Indian stupas

These early Han Dynasty Buddhist temples look like Indian temples or stupas from the same time. They are wooden towers.

Learn by doing: build a watch-tower, a palace, or a temple out of Lego bricks
More about the Han Dynasty
Han Dynasty art
Three Kingdoms architecture

Bibliography and further reading about ancient Chinese architecture:

Han Dynasty History
Han Dynasty Art
Three Kingdoms Architecture
More about Chinese Architecture
Ancient China