Bulletin of Catholic University of Peking

36 BULLETIN NUMBER FOUR

lines of the roof-tiles correspond to the lengthwise threads of the warp. The whole is laid over the erected columns and binding beams, falling, as it were, in graceful curves towards the edges. The marginal tiles are in some cases differently colored from the rest, so as to resemble the border of a rug. - In buildings of the rotondo type, the canopy effect is still more heightened. Here a conical roof culminates in a huge knob of gilded bronze to which all the radial lines of the roof-tiles converge.

Although the upward curve of the gable-ends is one of the most characteristic features of the Chinese roof, we find, notwithstanding, some very important buildings in which this motive is toned down to a pianissimo. Examples of this are more frequent in North China. The Imperial Palaces at Peking, for instance, show, for the most part, only a slight upward tilt of the roof-edges. The impression thus produced is more severe, and this, combined with their grandiose dimensions in beautiful proportion, endows them with an aspect solemn and majestic. The roof-crest and the other ornate ridges, which frame the intersecting surface-planes of the roof at the various lines of juncture, beside constituting a happy decorative motif, are suggestive of the fanciful function of being superposed there to clamp or fasten down the ceramic canopy.

These, then, are the three component motives of the Chinese Temple Hall. Each of them presents a striking point of contrast with Western conceptions of building.

First of all, the base. In Chinese architecture this is a conspicuous part of the construction, whereas Western

usage tends to conceal it, or to relegate it to a very subordinate status. In Chinese construction, the base is never minimized. In larger buildings, on the contrary, it is uniformly a prominent feature, often accentuated and put in evidence, as we have seen, by means of balustrades and flights of steps.

In the second place, there is a fundamental divergence with respect to the body. The facade of the Chinese Temple is on the long side of the building, and not on the short side or gableend, as in Western churches. The facade in Chinese architecture always faces the South. This predilection for a southern exposure constitutes a sacredand immemorial tradition of China. All houses, palaces, yamens, and even towns have, wherever possible, their axis directed towards the Sun in the Meridian. Everywhere the endeavor is made, so far as space permits, to augment the southern exposure of the buildings. The consequences of this universal tendency are important. For the resulting elongation of the southern front brings into dominance the horizontal lines and proportions, in contrast to the dominating verticals of the narrow European gable-end facade. The typical form in Chinese architecture is the oblong rectangle with its long sides in the horizontal position. Some have thought that thedominance of the horizontal in this architecture is due to the fact that Chinese buildings are limited, as a rule, to a single storey. But this explanation does not go to the root of the matter; for even in the many-storeyed pagoda, wherethe ground-form is repeated over and over again in diminuendo proportions, the same tonality of horizontal deminance