Xing RUAN was born in Kunming, China in 1965. He studied architecture, and currently is Guangqi Chair Professor and Dean at the School of Design, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He was Professor of Architecture at Sydney's University of New South Wales (2004-20). His books include: Fusheng Jianzhu (Floating Life and Architecture), 2020; Allegorical Architecture, 2006; New China Architecture, 2006; Hand and Mind, 2018; Topophilia and Topophobia, 2007. He is co-editor, with Ronald Knapp, of the book series Spatial Habitus: Making and Meaning in Asia's Architecture.

Explores the previously overlooked concept of the Chinese 'Good Life' - a virtuous, yet pleasurable, secular existence - founded in ancient principles, and key to understanding much of Chinese society and culture, even today.

Prologue Part One: Heaven
A Panacea from the Courtyard

1. What Makes the Chinese House
I. The Conceptual Parti
II. Confucius' Courtyard
III. From Object to Void

2. Heaven and What is Below
I. The Chinese Tian
II. The King's City
III. The Built World and the Literary World

Part Two: Heaven and Earth
Equilibrium in the Courtyard

3. The Divergent Tower
I. The Emergence of the Individual and Metaphysics
II. Immortality and Freedom Imagined

4. Secluded World and Floating Life
I. The Middling Hermit
II. The Artful Transition

5. A Deceiving Symbol
I. The Travelling Merchant and the Oddity of their Courtyard
II. Women in Chinese Marriage and Household
III. Behind Good Taste and Refinement

6. Literary Enchantment and the Garden House
I. Li Yü's World
II. Internalized Garden and the "Horizon" beyond
III. Courtyard and Decorum

7. The Golden Mean Finely Tuned
I. The Anatomy of a Beijing Quadrangle
II. Life and Ambience in the Hutong
III. The City as a Large Quadrangle
IV. Distinctive Character versus Uniformity

8. Living like the Chinese
I. The "Guest" Chinese and their Chinese Courtyards
II. Chinese Form and Exotic Meaning

Part Three: Earth
The Emancipation of Desire and the Loss of Courtyard

9. The Irresistible Metropolis
I. Modern City Born of Refugee Crisis
II. From Diminishing Courtyard to Porous House

10. The Assault of Modernity
I. Quadrangle without the Confucian World
II. The Lingering Courtyard
III. Nothingness, Horizon and Discreet Pleasure

Epilogue
The Four or the Five

Bibliography
Index