Page 139 - JCAU-7-1

Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism Development of the Thirteen Factories

Guangzhou could rent a house from a hang merchant to
use as a factory. Several ships from the same country could
consolidate their goods in a single factory, and merchants
were also free to rent other Chinese houses (Noble, 1762).
Therefore, early factories displayed clear features of local
architecture. These buildings typically faced both north
and south, with façades three bays wide and depths of three
or more halls separated by courtyards. Surrounding walls
were constructed of bricks (possibly mixed with wood),
while internal partitions were made of wood. Each building
had two gates: one facing Factory Street and the other
opening onto the Pearl River. Charles Frederick Noble of
the British East India Company recorded in 1747:
The English Factories are situated in one of the best
streets in town. It is very large, has a number of courts,
halls, and warehouses, with convenient rooms for
lodging a great number of people. One large gate
opens to the street, and another to the river, where our
boats load and unload. At each gate, a centinel is kept
day and night (Noble, 1762, p. 223)
In the early period, the buildings of the hangs
retained their native architectural characteristics after
their conversion into factories. For example, the Swedish
Factory (Figure 6) retained the typical layout of a hang.
Its plan (drawn in 1748) illustrates a three-bay building
Figure 6. Plan of the Swedish Factory, 1748. Source: Gustaf Fredrik
Hjortberg, Ost-Indisk Resa 1748 och 1749, World Digital Library with a depth of five halls. The southernmost section of
the 1 floor featured a porch leading to the foyer of the
st
trade system’s reliance on brokers, who played a central first courtyard. Auxiliary rooms, including kitchens,
role in commodity trading. In Guangzhou, these brokers sentry rooms, and lodgings for compradors, flanked the
not only facilitated trading channels for traveling foyer. A large corridor, paved with square sisal stones,
merchants, including foreign merchants, but also provided connected the foyer to other areas, with storage rooms
accommodation and storage spaces. This business model or warehouses opening off the corridor. The final hall
laid the foundation for the creation of the Thirteen had a door on its back wall, providing access to Factory
nd
Factories: local merchants rented out hangs to Western Street. The 2 floor of the Swedish Factory accommodated
traders, who subsequently transformed them into trading a dining hall or venue hall in the first and second halls,
factories. The Portuguese were unique in being granted while Swedish merchants’ offices and residences occupied
permission to reside on the island of Macao in 1557, the third to fifth halls. Despite undergoing renovations,
which served as their base for trading with Guangzhou for the Swedish Factory retained the original hang building’s
several centuries. Due to their special position in Macao, scale and layout. It preserved the spatial pattern of five
the Portuguese maintained regular trade with Guangzhou halls separated by courtyards, maintaining the same spatial
before the establishment of the Guangzhou Customs in elongated, narrow composition: bordering the Pearl River,
st
1685. Instead of maintaining a factory in Guangzhou, they with storage space on the 1 floor and living space on the
nd
leased warehouses from local merchants. 2 floor. These localized architectural features were also
preserved during the later renovations of the Thirteen
3.2. Spatial characteristics of the hangs in the Factories.
Guangzhou factories As more Western merchants rented Chinese hang
The Guangzhou hangs shared many functions with buildings for their factories and Western architectural
Western factories, such as providing traveling merchants forms spread globally, the Thirteen Factories gradually
with space for both storage and accommodation. These transitioned from local to Westernized architectural
characteristics made them the natural choice for Western styles. This transformation reflected the globalization of
merchants to establish their trading posts in Guangzhou. the Thirteen Factories, not only as nodes of global trade
In the early 18 century, foreign merchants arriving in but also through the global mobility of their architectural
th

Volume 7 Issue 1 (2025) 6 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.3676