Located at the center of a courtyard house, the main reception hall was often the largest and most important room in a Chinese home. Chinese main halls served both ritual and secular purposes. Here, families honored their ancestors on religious holidays, birthdays, and New Years. It was also the place where honored guests were received or entertained. Furniture could be arranged freely to suit any occasion. Even wall decorations, such as hanging scrolls, rotated according to season or event.

In main halls, furniture was arranged in symmetrical groupings. In the Wu Reception Hall at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the tall yokeback chairs were reserved for the most honored guests. On shorter-backed chairs or stools sat guests of successively lower rank.

By contrast, the family garden and outdoor rooms were much more informal. Designs were deliberately asymmetrical - mimicking the random patterns of nature. In the garden, there was less emphasis on hierarchy with more attention paid to a sense of shared experience among family and friends.