The Song era is often seen as offering a pinnacle of design excellence. This can be attributed to two apparently competing trends. Firstly, a reaction against the extravagance of late-Tang design was encouraged by Song-sponsored Neo-Confucianism which emphasised simplicity both in design and in a social structure taking its lead from a superior being—the Emperor—and looking back to some of the classics of the pre-Qin era for inspiration. The second trend was rapid technological change, with improvements in agriculture, the invention of printing with movable type, and the perfection of paper and of gunpowder. The succeeding Yuan dynasty added the creation of the first true porcelain. Ceramics more generally are emphasised in this chapter as illustrating the outcomes of design thinking during this period, but building techniques and furniture were also involved. Under the Yuan, China briefly became part of a wider Mongol empire, bringing the first substantial connections with Europe and initiating the western diffusion of Chinese design cultures.

Authors and Affiliations

1. School of Fine Arts, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China

   Qi Shao

2. School of Design, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

   Xiaojing Wen

3. Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

   Paul White

Corresponding author

Correspondence toQi Shao.

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