Why do ancient buildings have curved roofs in Japan and China?

Everyone saw in photographs from Japan and China ancient pagodas and other buildings with curved roof slopes:

The most common answer about such a roof shape is this architectural style. But the ancient masters simply did not do anything. Many details were imprinted not only by aesthetics and generally recognized style, but also by the now invisible necessity and manufacturability of the design.

It is clear that building such a roof with curved edges is more difficult than with straight beams. So why did the ancient masters complicate their work?

In areas of Japan and the eastern territories of China, torrential rainfalls are very frequent. They are not only strong, but also protracted, up to several months. So, so that the flow of water not only rolls off the roof, but also diverts as far as possible from the facade and base of the buildings - and this roof shape was used. Water slides down them like a springboard. A strong stream of water flies away from the building.

This can be traced to the roof truss system of small buildings. The beams are specially curved:

Of course, there are also myths about this. In China, there is a legend about a peasant, Liu Tian, ​​who invented such a shape for roofs in order to protect buildings from dragons. So that they would not just slide down the roof, but also fly back up like a springboard.

This is probably also connected with the teachings of Feng Shui, where attention was paid to the circulation and flow of energies. But back to construction technologies.

If you look at the rafter system, you can see that it has a complex structure. This is the so-called post-and-beam structure or "dou gun". This complexity pursued two goals: the roof was carried out further from the vertical of the walls and the roof acquired greater seismic resistance due to the system of beams above the supports.

Many parts of China and Japan are seismically active zones. And the ancient engineers applied the principles of vibration damping in their structures without destroying the beams. Therefore, the curvature of the edges of Japanese roofs is not just an architectural style. This is, first of all, mechanics and strength materials. According to history, such roofs were found in this region thousands of years ago.

This ancient knowledge allowed the construction of tall pagodas that resisted earthquakes and were protected from getting wet during the rainy seasons. The tree is known to be afraid of getting wet and fungus.

This form of roofing is used almost throughout Southeast Asia. Where a similar climate and common roots in culture.

***

Subscribe to the channel, add it to your browser bookmarks (Ctrl + D). There is a lot of interesting information ahead.