001 Architecture Nanchan Temple The main hall of Nanchan Temple is located in Lijia Village, Wutai County, Shanxi. An ink inscription under the beam reads “restored in the third year of Jianzhong of the Great Tang,” making it one of the earliest surviving Tang-dynasty timber structures with a definite date. Pre-restoration survey photos from 1953 show that the front-eave doors and windows, the eave bracket projections, and structural details still preserve original Tang construction. Tang Dynasty Wutai County, Shanxi Province Nanchan Temple Main Hall · Nanchan Temple · Wutai County →
002 Architecture Yongle Palace Yongle Palace in Ruicheng, Shanxi began as a small shrine to Lü Dongbin in the town of Yongle. After the old shrine burned down, the Mongol court resolved to raise it to the rank of Chunyang Wanshou Palace and bestowed a plaque, and the Quanzhen order put Pan Dechong in charge of the construction. In the late Ming the halls still held murals of three hundred and sixty celestial deities and more than four hundred spirit tablets in ranked rows, and Qing restorations left Qing-style roof frames inside the Yuan-dynasty halls. During the twentieth-century relocation project, the timber structures were dismantled piece by piece and the murals were detached for protection. Yuan dynasty Ruicheng County, Yuncheng, Shanxi Province Daoist architecture · Yuan dynasty architecture · Quanzhen order →