ABSTRACT
The central building in the Buddhist Chongming Temple, the Mid-Hall of Buddha, erected in the tenth century at the city of Gaoping in the Shanxi Province, displayed a well-preserved, daring yet perplexing ceiling structure. The dimly lit interior of the temple inconspicuously reveals that the main beam responsible for transferring the heavy roof load to the supporting columns is not made from a large continuous timber in accordance with the conventional wisdom for structural integrity. Instead a few slender and short pieces of timber were assembled to work as a whole. The assemblage oddly constructs a visible one-fourth inch gap in the mid-span which makes the beam assembly appear to be one broken long beam. Therefore, this building is nicknamed as the Broken Beam Hall.
Much like how a dream intensifies one’s waking experiences in the views of the fourth century BCE Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, this puzzling and obscure detail astutely heightens one’s awareness of both the interior space and the ceiling structure. This dreaming detail intends to make the readers savor the gourmet craft of ceiling structures which inspires deeper, richer architecture experiences.
