Craftsmanship in Wood

Some pix of the Jade Buddha Temple in Shanghai. One of the few places in this Hi-Tech-Sci-Fi place where I was hoping to find some rest and adore beautiful carpentry. Well, rest.. not really, every hall had a gift shop next to it's shrine and plenty of ignorant tourist. One of them was complaining to his guide that he just saw some nails, while earlier he was told that these buildings where made with wooden joinery only. I didn't say anything and quietly moved on..
At least some of the carpentry was interesting to study.

A hip rafter of a shrine holding a statue. The quality of the carving was impressive.
A roof detail of the main Buddha hall.

Typical Chinese temple roof lines. I refer to them as hip's with an erection. Not my personal cup of thee, nonetheless a thousand times more enjoyable to look at then 99.99% of any other architecture in this monstrous metropolis.

Very cool, thanks for sharing Mathieu! I imagine some Chinese are puzzled why you are enjoying looking at these temples instead of all the glittering metal and glass of newly-modernized Shanghai? and I can see, despite the architecture not being your cup of tea (mine neither!) it is a welcome antidote to the sterility of the modern stuff. Are you going to get a chance to see any old residences of the city? Surely there are some around?

Interesting to see the stylized tail rafters treatment and the nose cuts on the outboard rafter plate in that first picture.

~C