Flat-pack Philosophy

The scene is China in the Northern Song Dynasty; the year is 1097. With central-government spending soaring, senior mandarins are united in the view that the people are worried more about the deficit than about floods or famine or invasions by northern barbarians. Emperor Zhezhong is determined to rein in expenditure and balance the budget. In of his reforms, Li Jie from the Directorate of Construction is instructed to codify state architecture.

This would have made a good Kai Lung story but it's hard to write in the Kai Lung style for extended periods. I will settle for it becoming the subject of the next sweeping wuxia film from the Chinese cinema industry, preferably casting Jet Li to mix sword-play with bureaucracy in the role of Li Jie.

Li Jie defined a modular system of eight categories of official buildings, and standardised units for the construction elements that could thus be stockpiled and production could be matched to demand. He budgeted costs and wages for each category to prevent local officials from rorting the system and padding the budget to feather their nests (or even vice versa).

This of course led immediately to the great Building Code Revolt, when rogue architect Shan Tien raised the banner of rebellion (aided by the depraved Ming-Shu), proclaiming that Zhezhong had forfeited the Mandate of Heaven. Peasants died in their myriads in the ensuing civil strife, and the northern barbarians invaded again, though no-one particularly cared by then. It did not help that Zhezhong had also cut the army budget by 50% and introduced a policy of paying wages to government employees.
Assembling the flat-pack temple looked so simple in the instructions, but these bracket-arm sets (supporting an eave board and a cushioned purlin) are trickier than they look. I farfed around for a while until the pieces slid accidentally into the Lament Configuration and the air temperature dropped by 10º while the Cœnobites arrived.* They would have torn my body into small fragments and my soul into even smaller ones, but fortunately they became side-tracked exploring the self-mutilatory potential of a 4-mm Allen key.

Then someone re-opened the old argument whether IKEA should have stuck to Futura for all their branding instead of the switch to Verdana, and it all ended in angry silences and slammed doors. It has been a wearisome day but there is Bornholm Akvavit in the fridge.

* Pronounced with a hard 'c', thankyou.