Lei Fada

Also known as Yang Shi Lei Shi Zu · Jianchang Leishi

Lei Fada, courtesy name Mingsuo, came from Jianchang county in Nankang prefecture, Jiangxi; his family moved to Jinling (Nanjing) at the end of the Ming, and he learned carpentry as a boy. In 1683 he and his cousin Lei Faxuan answered a call for craftsmen and went to Beijing to work on palace construction. A popular story says he climbed up to fit the ridge beam of the Hall of Supreme Harmony and was given office on the spot, but the hall was rebuilt only from 1695, after his death, and scholars generally treat the tale as a later embellishment. He retired to the south in old age and was buried in the Lei family cemetery outside Ande Gate in Jiangning. From his son Lei Jinyu onward, generations of the family ran the imperial Design Office, earning the name Lei of the Designs, and their archive of drawings joined UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2007.