Positioning the Chashou Roof Support in Chinese Architectural History

ABSTRACTA form of roof support that transmits the force of the roof ridge through axial loading to its triangular components matured in China by the time of the Sui (581 AD–618 AD) and Tang (618 AD–907 AD) dynasties. The structure attracted the attention of pioneering scholar of traditional Chinese architecture Liang Sicheng (1901–1972) in part because the structure bore similarities to the Western roof supports that later developed in the direction of the modern truss, and represented a road not taken by Chinese traditional architecture. Liang referred to the structure as a chashou. However, in the years since Liang’s death, scholars have applied the term chashou to an ever-broader range of angular components found in the Chinese architectural repertoire. By examining structural properties rather than external triangular forms, a more precise classification is proposed. Clarifying the unique features of the chashou in the Sui-Tang, this essay illustrates how a structure that matured by the time of the Sui Dynasty and the Tang reflected the gradual replacement of diagonal beam (xieliang 斜梁) rafter supports by China’s characteristic column and tie (tailiang 抬梁) construction.KEYWORDS: Architectural structurechashouimperial Chinalarge-spanningofficial architectureroof supportsSui Dynasty, Tang Dynastytimber structuretraditional Chinese architecture AcknowledgmentsProfessor Ruan Xing, dean of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Design, and Abraham Zamcheck’s doctoral advisor, has provided support and assistance on this paper, which has represented a portion of Abraham’s doctoral work. The authors are very grateful for the insight and assistance provided by Professor Liu Jie on this subject, in particular in extensive conversations in 2018 and 2019 that spurred this research effort. We are particularly grateful for the advice provided by Tom Peters concerning essential structural questions described in an earlier version of this draft, as well as Ji Yuanzhen for his feedback. A special thanks is owed to co-author Cao Chen as well for his encouragement in sustaining and completing this work. Special thanks as well to Cao Yongkang for his feedback, as well as his support and encouragement for the primary author’s visit to Foguang and Nanchan Temples in July 2023. Thanks as well as to Director Lu Yi and his colleagues at the Shanxi Institute for the Protection of Traditional Architecture (山西古建筑保护研究所), and Li Huizhi for the generous and insightful feedback on a draft of this paper presented in Taiyuan on July 15 2023 by the primary author, and for the accompanying thoughts shared on a joint trip together with Institute members Wang Xiaolong and Han Ruobing. The primary author is also grateful to Frank Yih and Terry Zhu of the Shanghai Rotary Club as well as the larger staff for hosting him in the fall of 2022 during the difficult circumstances of the COVID pandemic, allowing this research to get back on track, as well as for related help from Du Shuai and others at Shanghai Jiao Tong University during this period.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Alternatively, this period is known as the Period of the Six Dynasties, or the Wei-Jin Northern and Southern Dynasties Period, though there is debate about the merits of each descriptor (Dien, Knapp, 2). The Period of Disunity is used here for its descriptive effect, though with the important caveat that readers not confuse this period with the “period of disunity” in the Five Dynasties Period (907 AD–960 AD) following the collapse of the Tang Dynasty.2 The term is used cautiously lest it create a pejorative bias as well as incorrect analogies to particular conditions in Europe (Dien and Knapp Citation2019, 2–3).3 Steinhardt writes at one point that there was no king post in Five Dragons Temple (Steinhardt Citation2004, 236) though elsewhere that the presence of the king post in the structure may be a sign that it originally was there rather than a sign of repair (243). Presumably during her research, it was suggested that the king post in the structure were latter additions. We did not come across such evidence or arguments. A local expert however explained though that to confirm the king posts dated to the Tang, further research would need to be completed (Li Huizhi, personal conversation with primary author, 13 September 2013).4 Li elaborated that in addition to Liang’s influence, his cohort of architectural historians since the 1980s were deeply influenced by Le-Duc’s work, though at the time they did not consider it acceptable to openly speak of this influence (Li Huizhi, personal communication primary author 15 August, 2023).5 Zhu also argues that Liang’s views of structural rationalism reflected an effort to present Chinese architectural history within a certain reductionist Western historical framework (Zhu Citation2014, 34–37).6 Ji Yuanzhen has also emphasized the congruence between Liang’s insight and the views of Viollet-Le-Duc (Ji Citation2016, 102, also Ji personal conversation with Abraham Zamcheck 26 November 2022).7 The principal author is grateful for Cohen’s elucidation of Le Duc’s thought and influence in a series of personal conversations of lectures, both including his November 19, 2019 morning lecture for the Idea of Education Conference hosted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, as well as in his final university lecture, delivered on July 15, 2023 at Jiao Tong’s Xuhui campus before his untimely passing.8 See (Liang Citation2001d, 207, 221) — Liang uses the word here to refer alternatively to the period of timber-frame buildings from the Tang-Liao (850 AD-1050 A.D), or alternatively from the rise of the Tang in the 7th and 8th Centuries up until the start of the Song Dynasty in the 10th and 11th centuries — this from Liang’s A Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture, the manuscript of which was completed in 1946. See (Lai Citation2014, 78) for associations of the Chinese word for vigor— (haojin 豪劲) —and observations about the use of the term by Liang (Lai Citation2014, 78), though also see (Liang Citation2001b, 21 and; Liang Citation2001a, 394) for Liang’s application of the term to features of art and architecture he ascribed to the as well Song. In the 1946 manuscript, Liang described the period of timber-frame building during the Song as “the Period of Elegance.”9 Li Huizhi pointed out the gap in Foguang Temple’s tuojiao structure in personal communication with the primary author on 13 September 2023.10 The Chinese for the temple Tangzhaoti (唐招提)is sometimes translated as the “Tang [Dynasty] Built Temple. Jian Zhen is still widely remembered in Japan for his contributions to Japanese culture and Buddhist practice, and as an emissary of Tang-era Chinese culture and technology (Liang Citation2001g). Liang Sicheng designed a commemorative center for Jian Zhen in Jian Zhen’s native Yangzhou in 1963 as a testament to Chinese-Japanese friendship (Liang Citation2001e, 28–39).11 The Tōshōdai-ji Main Hall was later retrofitted with a Japanese koya kumi roof structure ;(Chinese: 小屋组, i.e., “hut group”) in 1693–1694 in order to accommodate the heavy rain and storm conditions in the region by producing a steeper roof supported by an elaborate internal structural system that had developed by the 10th century (Meng Citation2017, 13–14). It is not clear if the original roof structure contained a chashou. Restorations have alternatively speculated on the existence of a chashou in the structure (Meng Citation2017) or a simple tailiang type frame without a chashou (Liang Citation2001g, 428). Liang’s 1963 design for the Jian Zhen Memorial Hall in Yangzhou was based on an interpretation of the original structure of the Tōshōdai-ji Main Hall (Liang Citation2001g, 425).12 See Fu Xinian “Chuandou construction originated in an ancient structural system with a purlin framework (linjia). The prominent feature of the purlin framework is that purlins (in the Song dynasty known as tuan) rely on laterally aligned columns for support. In other words, a lengthwise framework is formed before each column is joined and stabilized with additional timbers in the transverse direction. This way of construction gradually developed into what is known today as column-and-tie-beam. Column tops directly support the roof purlins, and penetrating tie-beams (chuanfang) bind the transverse frameworks that are aligned along the lateral building axis together into one entity. Chuandou construction should have existed in Eastern Han times, for it is seen in mingqi (pottery burial objects) in the form of buildings from Guangzhou” (Fu Citation2017, 281–282).13 Hinsch states, “By approximately 1400 raininess in China also reached its greatest extreme since the third century, adding an excess of precipitation to the cold”14 However as stated, the chashou arms in Foguang and Nanchan were not at the start of their march either, for they had already progressed from a position entirely beneath the bracket arms, as position demonstrated in the balcony in the balcony surrounding Hōryū-ji Temple as well as the image of the deconstruction of the structure in the north face of Dunhuang Yulin Grotto # 25. The mural is thought to have been painted around 775 AD.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by a Chinese Government Scholarship and by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 52068290).