What's the difference between a gatehouse archway and an archway?

The architectural differences among the three are not great, but their representative significance.

The gatehouse is a symbol that the rich and the poor bring a family. There is a cantilever building at the top of the gatehouse, and there is a double-sided brick carving on the lintel, which is generally engraved with plaques such as "Purple gas comes from the east", "Bamboo, corn and pine". The edge of the barrel frame is decorated with flowers, bats, butterflies and other patterns. The lintel of Lin Mansion, located in the gypsum hall on the street, embodies this feature. Some plaques also show where the ancestors of the house are. For example, Laohe Village in Daqi Street is a A Qing dynasty building named "Flower Wall Gate", and there is a brick carving of "Jianhu Legacy" on the lintel, which shows that the root of He is in Shaoxing. Some big houses put a pair of stone lions or a pair of stone drums on the left and right sides of the gate. Stone lions and drums not only have decorative beauty, but also have the significance of exorcising evil spirits and keeping peace.

The gatehouse, the gatehouse, is the main aisle of a family (the back door and side door are not the main aisle), and it is also the "facade" of the owner, which directly reflects the social status, occupation and economic level of the owner. The height and size of the gatehouse, the quality of the brick village, the characters drawn, and the relationship between the neighbors and the right platform are all stipulated, which should be consistent with the identity. For example, most officials live in the north of Hutong, and the gatehouse is located in the southeast of the main house, using Liangguang Gate or Zhu Jin Gate.

Memorial archway, also called memorial archway, was first seen in the Zhou Dynasty. Originally as a memorial to show filial piety, it was later built in gardens, temples, palaces, mausoleums and streets. Beijing has the largest number of archways in China.

The archway is a unique landscape of China's architectural culture, and it is a characteristic building born of Chinese culture, such as the cultural welcoming gate. It is also a unique carrier of China's architectural art and culture. There were 65 archways in Beijing during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, including 6 glazed brick archways, 42 wooden archways and 7 stone archways/kloc-0. There are only six archways on the existing streets, namely, four archways on the Guozijian Street, the glazed brick archway in front of Dongyue Temple on Lu Shen Street outside Chaoyangmen and the archway in front of the East Palace of the Summer Palace. In some large-scale celebrations, there are also temporary archways built of bamboo and wood. Shanghai Xinzhong Media specializes in designing and producing colored doors, gatehouses, archways and flower market archways, and provides nationwide door-to-door services. In the streets of old Beijing, there used to be many archways, the most famous and typical ones are Dongdan archway, Xidan archway, Dongsi archway, Xisi archway, East-West Chang 'an Avenue archway, Qianmen archway and so on. Due to traffic jams, most of these archways were demolished in the 1950s.

Archway is one of the architectural cultures with Han characteristics. It is a building built by feudal society to commend meritorious service, science, virtue, loyalty and filial piety. There are also some temples that use memorial archways as mountain gates, and some are used to mark place names. Also known as the memorial archway, it is a gatehouse-style memorial building, which promotes feudal ethics and flaunts merits. The memorial archway is also an affiliated building of the ancestral hall, which shows the noble character and great achievements of the family ancestors and has the function of offering sacrifices to their ancestors.

The memorial archway evolved from Lingxingmen and began to be used for offering sacrifices to heaven and holes. In order to pray for a bumper harvest, Emperor Gaozu stipulated that the spiritual star should be sacrificed to heaven first. In the Song Dynasty, Confucius was honored by the ritual of offering sacrifices to heaven, and later the spirit star was changed to the coffin star. Archway originated in Han Dynasty, matured in Tang and Song Dynasties, and reached its peak in Ming and Qing Dynasties. It has evolved from practicality to memorial architecture, and is widely used to show merit and glory, not only in the altars and Confucius temples in the suburbs, but also in palaces, temples, tombs, ancestral temples, offices and gardens, as well as the starting points, intersections and bridges of main streets, which are also very scenic.

Another way of saying this is that structurally, the original prototype of the archway is called "Transverse Gate", which is the simplest and most primitive door composed of two pillars and a beam. Regarding "Hengmen", the earliest record we have seen so far is "Poetry Martin Hengmen": "Under Hengmen, you can stay overnight." The Book of Songs was compiled in the Spring and Autumn Period, probably from the early Zhou Dynasty to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period. Accordingly, "Hengmen" appeared in the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period at the latest. This "horizontal gate" was later applied to the "square gate" between various residential areas in the city. From the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period to the Tang Dynasty, China adopted the Li Fang system in urban residential areas. There is a wall between the square and the square, and there is a door in the center of the square wall, which is called the square door. At first, this square door was like a "balance door", consisting of two columns and a crossbar, but the side of the column was equipped with an openable door.