Page 196 - Ming_China_Courts_and_Contacts_1400_1450 Craig lunas

Plate 20.9 Competition for state
resources in China 1400–33

undoubtedly merited ‘fast-track’ priority on resources, not remarkable, in particular the use of lobed ogee arches. These
least because its progress would have been conspicuously are not unique in China. There are other examples including
visible on the city roofline from the imperial palace. another site in Nanjing, the Linggusi temple, where a fireproof
However, there were distractions, many of which certainly sutra repository of revolutionary design had already been
commanded higher priority, and this is best seen as a completed in 1381 (Pl. 20.10a–b). However, these arch forms
timeline (Pl. 20.9), which indicates how various projects of are not Chinese. They are seen in various locations stretching
national importance were simultaneously inter-linked across Central Asia to the Near East and into Western
financially and hence capable of creating immovable Europe. Many of these date from the late Yuan or early Ming
blockages for important but lesser local projects such as this (contemporaneous with the Late Gothic in Europe).
pagoda. The ‘northern’ projects around Beijing, the Grand The porcelain cladding is an obviously unique quality,
Canal and the repeated Mongolian campaigns would and the Da Baoen Monastery Pagoda has an ingenious
ultimately continue until Yongle’s death, and were matched solution for a challenging design requirement, but the
in the south by equally costly ‘foreign policy’ targets such as broader question concerns the use of keys and tenons for
the Annam campaign and Zheng He’s expeditionary fixing such parts. Curiously, the cladding solution adopted
voyages. for the Da Baoen Monastery Pagoda was very different
from the applied brickwork used by the builders of the ‘Iron
Some important but still outstanding questions Pagoda’ (Tieta 鐵塔) at Youguosi 佑國寺 (Protecting the
I would like finally to list various questions for which there State Monastery), Kaifeng 開封, nearly 400 years earlier.
are presently no ready answers, some of which link with Keys and tenons that would normally be cut in stone are
ongoing studies on cultural transmission. foreign to Chinese building traditions of timber-frame
36
We do not know who designed the pagoda. Whilst in structures, movable partitions and brickwork in-fill. The
many respects its conceptual design follows conventional use of ceramic masonry keys in China is rare but not
preceding forms, there are elements of its detailing which are unique, but none matches in boldness and quality the

Plate 20.10a–b: a) (above) Detail of reconstruction of lobed ogee arch
surround from Da Baoen Monastery Pagoda in the Nanjing Museum; b) (left)
Lobed ogee arch of Wuliangdian 無梁殿 (Beamless Hall) at Linggusi 靈谷寺
(Numinous Valley Monastery), Nanjing

186 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450