The front gate of Sanwei Study.

The former residence of Xu Xilin immerged in green plants.

    The famous Mansion of Lti at Shaoxing, a residence of Lti Ben, a minister in the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty (1522-1566), is a typical representative of vernacular mansions. On the east, the mansion of Lit started from the Wan'an Bridge to the Xiegong Bridge on the west, on the south starting from Xinhe Lane to the Dayou Storehouse on the north. There were two channels of water and a street in the mansion area. The whole mansion is composed of 13 halls and rooms in rows, called "Thirteen Halls  of Mansion Lti". From the entrance's stairs to enter, along the central axis from the south to north, there were Sedan Hall, Yong'en Hall, the Third Hall, the Fourth Hall and the Fifth Hall in turn; and there are five buildings along left and right axes respectively. Its patios were large, halls commodious, materials solid, reflecting some features of official mansions in the southern China in the Ming Dynasty. In addition, because this mansion was located at a land of rivers and lakes, it merged some fresh, lucid, lively, elegant and simple features of Shaoxing dwellings.

    The Qingteng Study is a typical representative of garden-style folk dwellings, with a superficies of less than two mtt, a silent, elegant and uncommon environment, full of strong human flavor. This study was the birth and study place of Xu Wei (152 I- 1593), a famous calligrapher, painter and litterateur in the Ming Dynasty. Besides, Chen Hongshou (1598-1652), a great painter in the late Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty, also lived here for admiring its reputation. The study was an one-storied house built against the hill, with stone columns, brick walls and wood grilles; it had two rooms: the fore room facing south, a figure of Xu Wei, a script written by him "Not Soiled by a Speck of Dust" and a horizontal inscribed-board written by Chen Hongshou were hanging on the wall. There is a called "Heaven Pool" in the patio outside of the southern windows, Xu Wei said: "'the pool has no bottom, not dry even in arid days, some divinities seem in it". The well. the bench. the door, the pool, and the vine, are with simple form but  comprehensive meanings, show fully the extraordinary artistic savor and garden technique of this painting master.

    The former residence of Lu Xun, Sanwei Study, Baicao Garden and the ancestral house of Lu Xun are the birth and growth place of Mr. Lu Xun, an eminent writer of China. They showed the true aspect of common folk houses at Shaoxing in Lu Xun's adolescent times. Many times, Lu Xun described these places in his works, such as the very known essay From Baicao Garden to Sanwei Stud~: The Sanwei Study was a famous private school at Shaoxing in the late Qing Dynasty, where Lu Xun studied from 12-17 years old. The former residence of Lu Xun and Sanwei Study were houses with white walls, black tiles, and columns painted with black paint, simple and elegant, reflecting sufficiently Shaoxing traditional dwelling's dimensional form in the late Qing Dynasty and the early years of the Republic of China. The Baicao Garden is located at the back of the former residence of Lu Xun, originally a vegetable garden where young Lu Xun played frequently, tasting amaranthine mulberry and sweet but vinegary raspberry, capturing crickets and pulling out polygonal multiform. These interesting things in childhood left nice and indelible impressions in Lu Xun's mind and make people taste the life in old traditional dwellings from children's visual angle.

    Shaoxing dwellings are situated at the residential environment full of poetic and artistic conception built by ancestors of the ancient region on the base of their deep understanding of the environment of land of rivers and lakes; furthermore they are a group of vivid life scenes and a high-grade culture continued for long times.