Timber halls, stone mountains and island cities. From the Potala in Lhasa to the temples of Java, this region holds two of the world’s great building cultures. China set the pattern for its neighbours — Korea, Japan, Vietnam — with bracketed roofs, axial palaces and walled capitals laid out to mirror the order of heaven. Further south, kingdoms shaped by Indian ideas raised Angkor, Borobudur and Bagan in stone and brick, and Buddhism, arriving by land and by sea, linked the two. Far out in the Pacific, islanders built on their own terms: Nan Madol’s basalt islets rose from a coral reef off Pohnpei, and on Rapa Nui, giant figures were carved from volcanic stone.
A weekly dispatch of forgotten buildings, untold stories, and the craft behind the world’s greatest architecture.
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