南禅寺大殿

Main Hall of Nanchan Temple — timber-frame assembly study

Location: Lijiazhuang, Wutai County, Shanxi, China
Period: Tang dynasty, 782 CE (rebuilt; dated by a beam inscription)
Type: Three-bay hall, 11.75 m wide, 10 m deep, 12 eave columns
Structure: No interior columns, no ceiling, five-puzuo bracket sets, hip-and-gable roof

The oldest timber-frame building still standing in China, and the simplest famous hall of the Tang. Every joint is modelled from the description in the Yingzao Fashi building manual.

Assembly order

Timeline 0%

Drag to scrub the whole build. Step buttons jump one stage.

Age of the timber 0 — new

0 new100 ancient

Darkens the wood, fades and peels the paint, makes the grain rougher and lets the frame lean and twist as it settles.

Now showing

Component map

Secondary members in the model

台基 tái jī — platform: raises the hall clear of ground water.
柱础 zhù chǔ — plinth: spreads each column load onto the platform.
驼峰 tuó fēng — camel-hump block lifting the upper beam.
蜀柱 shǔ zhù — king post under the ridge purlin.
叉手 chā shǒu — fork-hand brace, a signature Tang detail.
托脚 tuō jiǎo — foot brace stopping the roof frame from spreading.
角梁 jiǎo liáng — corner beam along the hip.
瓦 wǎ — clay barrel and pan tiles.
山花 / 博风板 shān huā / bó fēng bǎn — gable panel and bargeboard.
板门 / 直棂窗 bǎn mén / zhí líng chuāng — plank doors and bar windows.

Mortise-and-tenon joints

Markers in the frame0
Shown only in X-ray榫卯 sǔn mǎo

Nothing here is nailed or glued: each marker is a tenon seated in a mortise. Turn on X-ray to see them.

How to use this

Play builds the hall in the traditional order; Step and Back move one stage at a time; Reverse take-down plays the same five stages backwards, stripping the roof first and lifting the columns last.

Drag on the model to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom. Hover or focus any part to read its name. Click a row in the component map to light up every instance of that member.

Keys: Space play or pause · → next stage · ← previous · 1–5 jump to a stage · X X-ray · L labels · V reverse · C centre · R restart · ↑↓+− orbit and zoom.

Motion and colour follow your system settings; with reduced motion on, the build runs without auto-orbiting or pulsing markers.

About the model

Simplifications: the bracket sets are modelled as five-puzuo, double-hua, heart-stealing sets; the tile surface is generated as a ribbed sheet rather than individual tiles; wall bays are plank panels rather than the later brick infill. Proportions follow the published dimensions (11.75 m by 10 m, twelve columns) with the bay grid, the four-rafter beam and the lifted eave corners following the Yingzao Fashi rules.

The hall was repaired in 1086 and again in the 1970s, which is why records disagree about some of its original detail.

Drag to orbit · scroll to zoom Hover a part for its name Space play · → step · X X-ray

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