Longmen Monastery, west side hall  龍門寺西配殿

Building Information

West Side Hall, also known as the Guanyin Hall (Guanyin tang 觀音堂), is the oldest structure with an overhanging-gable (xuanshan 懸山) roof as well as the earliest side hall extant in China (Miller 2011, 179). According to both the early structural characteristics and inscriptions, it was constructed in the third year of Tongguang reign period in the Later Tang (925) (Miller 2011, 179). The foundation of the hall is made of stone with a height of 0.20 meters. The hall is three bays wide and four rafters deep — 9.87 meters across the front facade and 6.8 meters across the side facade — with a single-eaves overhanging-gable roof (Miller 2011, 179). Inside of the hall, the four-rafter beams (sichuanfu 四椽栿) connect the front and back eaves. On top of the rafters, there are camel's-hump-shaped braces (tuofeng 駝峰) and large bearing blocks (dou 斗) to support the level cross beam (pingliang 平梁). The front eaves pillars (yanzhu 簷柱) are built into the front wall. The tops of the columns are rounded showing juansha 卷殺, often translated as entasis. The tie beam through the top of the columns (lan’e 闌額) is placed between the pillars with no pupaifang 普拍枋. The lan’e do not extend beyond the pillars and there is no intercolumnar bracketing (bujian puzuo 补间铺作). The central bay under the front eaves has a panel door (banmen 板门) and the secondary bays have windows. Both the door and the windows are slightly smaller than in later periods (Guojia wenwuju 2006, 304). 1