Abstract
Western style timber roof trusses used as typical roof structures of buildings during a modern period have been developed with the interactions with their facade and functionality. The shapes of trusses and member sizes have been diversely changed by the purposes of architects, historical circumstances, and structural characteristics. For this reason, the change in the shapes of western style timber trusses along the times is one of important technology assets demonstrating the development of their structures during the modern period. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to find out their structural characteristics throughout parametric analysis of which parameters were determined from the collected and classified documents on western style timber roof structure built in the modern period carefully obtained from public institutions. Results of the parametric analysis are as follows. The number of king-post trusses and modified king-post trusses built between 1920 and 1937 reaches almost half of the total number of truss types investigated. The mean values of their spans, distances, tributary areas, and height are respectively, 10.5m, 2.4m, $24.37m^2$and 3.24m. The cross-section areas of trusses tend to reduce since the city construction law was enacted in 1920. Also, this study found that western architects usually used larger structural members than eastern architects and usages and finishing materials of roof trusses are not always considered as one of the important design parameters.
