Taoyuan City

Lianzuo Mountain Guanyin Temple is one of the rare Taoism religious architectures with single entry (straight ahead) in diagram and worship pavilion in front of the Main Hall. Though the Temple has been through numerous reconstructions, the Temple was almost torn down then reconstructed, which preserved most of the precious wooden and stone components from Qing Dynasty. Besides worshipping Guanyin majorly, the Temple also worships Sanguan Three Official Gods- the unique religious belief of Guangdong immigrants, so the population of worshippers includes Minnan people at Daxi and residents of Hakka at Taoyuan, Miaoli and Hsinchu. It is said that the Temple was initially built under the cooperation of Minnan and Guangdong people, under the background that Minnan and Guangdong people often came to conflict and brutal fight, the religious belief ecosystem of Lianzuo Mountain Guanyin Temple has sufficiently represented the competition and cooperation of Taiwan peoples during the pioneering times.

A.Architecture with Layout of “Straight Ahead”:

popular Lianzuo Mountain Guanyin Temple adopts the architecture layout as “Straight Ahead” as constructed in one straight line horizontally due to the geographic limit of insufficient range of straight depth. In the reconstruction conducted in the 9th year of Showa era of Japanese colonization (1934), the Temple was rebuilt as the layout of five gates and one hall, but maintained the specification of single entry (Straight Ahead), some of the components of the interior of the Temple were moved and the roof of the Main Hall was reconstructed as the style of “San-Chuan”, transforming the Guanyin Temple from a small-scale simple and unadorned temple into a middle size one with nine open rooms with five gates.

B.Worship Pavilion:

The architecture with layout of “Straight Ahead” of Lianzuo Mountain Guanyin Temple and the Worship Pavilion in front of the Main Hall form the rare layout and specification of “single entry temple with “San-Chuan” style and pavilion in front of the hall”. The East Asian style of double hip-and-gable roof (which means placing another roof on top of the original one that is at the slopes of four corners to represent the noble and elegant character), which the general worshippers often call it “Guanyin Pavilion” to express their respect. The Pavilion was initially built in the 37th year of Meiji era of Japanese colonization (1904), and the original tetragon pavilion was replaced by the octagon double hip-and-gable roof during the reconstruction conducted in the 9th year of Showa era of Japanese colonization (1934). There is one stone lions at both front sides of the Pavilion which are painted beautifully and pretty suitable for decoration, the ancient fairy hanging baskets were also the works during the reconstruction in Japanese colonization era.

C.tructure of Octagon Caisson:

There is a rare “Octagon Caisson” at the top of the Worship Pavilion, it was initially built by putting octagon wooden materials at the square beams. 24 sets of Dougong (wooden brackets) were extended upward from the interior, after three rounds, the 16 sets of Dongong would be placed to the center with another 3 rounds, then complete the rounding at the center of the Bagua symbol, making the Dougong equally distributed at the beams and support the extended eaves. It shall be noted that the 8 corners at the second round adopted Chi Tiger Bracket thaqt circled back, which was the common construction approsaach adopted by carpenters from Zhangzou during Guangxu Emperor era of Qing Dynasty.