Construction Technology of Centro-column Drum Towers of Dong Nationality

摘要

The building structure of a Dong nationality's drum tower is divided into two categories, namely, the tai-liang and chuan-dou hybrid structures, and the chuan-dou structure, which are from the major carpentry structure system of traditional Chinese timber structure architecture. Then, the most common "centro-column" type drum tower among the chuan-dou structure drum towers is defined and classified. The structure technology features of "single-column" and "ringed-column" drum towers, which are also those of a "centro-column" drum tower, are discussed in great detail. Through surveying and mapping, structure conversion models, such as those that "increased columns" and "reduced columns" of "ringed-column" drum towers, are studied mainly. In addition, many specific construction details that improve a drum tower's external image, like multi-eaves, columns that are inclined inwards, as well as the honeycomb Dougong, are also studied in this paper.