Chinese Opera Domes: reciprocal, cantilever, or stack?

Jingxian Ye and Corentin Fivet (sxl.epfl.ch) have introduced the audience of the 6th International Conference of Construction History (www.6icch.org) to the unique wooden domes built in rural South China. Highly delicate prestige objects, the domes have not been studied by scholars in construction technology yet. Combining interlocking assemblies and balanced stacking in a dome geometry, the structural typology is totally stranger to Western culture. The paper presented at the conference reviews domes from North and South China, proposes a first taxonomy based on their geometry and structural behavior, reports their construction and renovation processes, and highlights a series of research questions.

Jingxian Ye and Corentin Fivet also presented a paper on construction technology transfer in 19-20th-Century Shanghai.