I thought this week was pretty interesting. I knew that we were going to be discussing ancient Chinese buildings. I always thought that these buildings were amazing. Then I found out how some of them were made and I became more amazed. So here are three things I took away from this week.
Dougong’s are made without nails: This is still unbelievable to me. The fact that these buildings are made without nails is amazing. A base block called a “Dou” is placed down. This is followed up by placing a “Gong” into the Dou to support wooden beams or another Dou. They did not have to worry about balance because this structure was designed to balance itself.
You can add on to them after they have been constructed: Say you wanted to add on to the building after it was constructed? Well you can! This type of designs allows for the building expansion. There about about thirty different ways for Dougong’s to be constructed. With the buildings having many different combinations and the ability to expand, that leads me to my next point.
The taller the building, the more prestigious it is: During the Ming dynasty, the the taller the building, the more superior it was towards other buildings.
References
Hernandez, Marco. “The Dougong: A Nailless Chinese Construction Method.” South China Morning Post. June 11, 2018. Accessed October 14, 2020. https://multimedia.scmp.com/culture/article/forbidden-city/architecture/chapter_02.html?src=follow-chapter.
