From the intermediate bracket set of the second bay the rafter ends advance progressively outward, so that at the corner the eave projects further (by 4 cun for a hall of one bay, 5 for three bays, 7 for five bays) and rises with the corner beam.
Rules · Columns · Ornament · Optics
Round off the ends: juansha
Shape the underside of every arm’s end in four or five facets, and reduce the upper third of a spindle column by the same method, so that no member ends in a hard corner.
Juansha, “rolling and cutting”, is the Chinese counterpart of entasis (Vignola’s entasis: straight for a third, curved above). The ends of the bracket arms are cut back along a series of short chords that approximate a curve, and the spindle column (suozhu) is divided in three, its upper third tapered in a similar faceted curve toward the capital. The effect is to soften the timber skeleton so that the eye reads it as living rather than cut.
Related rules
Make the central bay (mingjian) the widest and let the bays diminish toward the ends; keep the eave columns no taller than the width of their bay.
Make each column a little taller than the one nearer the centre, so that the corner columns stand highest: by 2 cun per column outward from the central bay, giving 6 cun at the corners of a seven-bay hall and 1 chi 2 cun for thirteen bays.
corner rise = (bays − 1) cun · each step outward = 2 cun
Set the heads of the outer columns inward: on the front and back by 1 fen for every chi of height (1/100), on the ends by 8 li per chi (8/1000); the corner columns lean both ways.
lean = 1/100 of height (front) · 8/1000 (flanks)
Run a single great pillar up the centre of the pagoda to carry the spire, but do not let the storeys rest on it: each storey stands on its own frame, stacked around the pillar.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “Round off the ends: juansha”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/juansha. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.