yìxínggǒng 異形栱

Note

Yixinggong 異形栱 literally means “irregularly-shaped bracket arm,” and are different from regular arch-shaped bracket arms (gong 栱), the ends of which support small bearing blocks (dou 斗), as defined in the Yingzao fashi. Homophonous with “wing-shaped bracket arms” (yixinggong 翼形栱), the use of irregular (異 yi) instead of wing (翼 yi) was first seen in 1955 and became more widespread after 1978, but usage was not consistent in all sources. The two forms of “yi” were sometimes used interchangeably, but “irregular” 異 was also used to as a means to differentiate a variety of irregularly shaped gong (rhomboidal, cloud, etc.) in buildings constructed after the Yuan dynasty from those bracket arms with an actual wing-like shape. Generally speaking, today scholars use this term to refer to all irregularly-shaped bracket arms, wing-shaped or otherwise, where the two ends do not support any block (dou 枓)(張 1979；南京工學院建築系 1987；郭 2003).2

“異形栱”字面意義為形狀特異的栱。“異形栱”一詞最早出现于1955年，1978年後使用漸廣泛但較為混亂。其涵義既有可能與“翼形栱”互換使用，也有可能为了与“翼形栱”进行区分，用以描述元、明、清建築中，形狀特異的栱（張 1979；南京工學院建築系 1987；郭 2003）。總體來說，異形栱可指称所有栱身與弓形栱不同且兩端不承鬥的栱。2

Related concepts

翼形栱 yìxínggǒng

Broad Match: bracketing