Ancient chinese architecture
gesang
March 28, 2009, 08:17 PM posted in General DiscussionHi urbandweller, it is in your introduction text...but I missed it in the discussions :-)
Thought I start with a first entry about:
Tulou (土楼; 土樓; tǔlóu), or "earthen building", is a traditional communal residence in the Fujian province of Southern China.
They are mostly built between the 12th to the 20th centuries.Tulou is usually a large enclosed building, rectangular or circular in configuration, with a very thick weight supporting earth wall (up to 6 feet thick) and wooden skeletons, from three to five storeys high, housing up to 80 families. These earth buildings usually have only one main gate, guarded by 4-5 inch thick wooden doors reinforced with an outer shell of iron plate. The top level of these earth building have gun holes for defense against bandits.
Although most tulou were of earthen construction, the definition "tulou", is a broadly descriptive label for a building type and does not indicate construction type. Some were constructed of cut granite or had substantial walls of fired brick. Most large-scale tulou seen today were built of a composite of earth, sand, and lime known as sanhetu rather than just earth.
The famous Fujian Tulou, designated as UNESCO World Heritage site in 2008, is a small and specialized subgroup of tulou, and are known for their unique shape, large scale, and ingenious structure. There are more than 20,000 tulou in southern Fujian. Approximately 3,000 of them are Fujian Tulou, that is 15% of tulou belongs to Fujian Tulou category. (copied this information from wikipedia)
(not wiki... 我爸爸的照片 :-))
urbandweller
March 29, 2009, 07:11 AM这是很有意思！Thanks for the nice contribution Gesang! i was just reading about this the other day in my DK travel guide and thought about posting something too! you beat me to it!
Apparently, these are typically used by the Hakka people. The next paragraph taken directly from my book:
The Hakka were driven south from the yellow river plains by war in the late Song and early Tang dynasties. It is perhaps due to their past experiences of persecution, and to their presence in the new land (their official minority name is Kejia, which means "guest people") that they adopted these fortress style of rammed earth buildings. These structures are capable of housing several hundred people. Hukeng is one of the more accessible towns in the Yongding areas with several Hakka dwellings.
raymondc
March 29, 2009, 05:24 PMThanks gesang and urbanweller for posting this, my parents are both Hakka. They visited some family in Shenzhen but never saw any Tulou. The earthen construction is also ecological.
During the cold wars, the US army mistook the tulou for nuclear silos
Any visit to West Fujian must include the Hakka (“Guest People”) earthen castles, which fascinate foreign and Chinese tourists, international architects, and even the Pentagon (Reagan and the CIA thought their spy satellites had revealed hundreds of missile silos).http://www.amoymagic.com/fjadv/roundhouses.htm
changye
March 29, 2009, 11:54 PMHi gesang
Thanks for the intriguing photo. Here are some more pictures of 土楼群 (a group of 土楼) in 南靖(福建省). They are really unique.
http://www.51766.com/www/detail/service_detail.jsp?info_id=1101356859&cust_id=xmzjjd
gesang
April 02, 2009, 07:00 PM啊哟。。。all my yesterdays posts were deleted :-( ...including the one I...:
...thanked you, changye, for the nice links...i love the photos in the 2nd link!
...also thanked you, raymondc for the CIA story
...and told, you urbandweller, that I was very confused that there is any information about Hakka housing in your Denmark travel guide ;-)... (until I found out DK is a publisher...don't know for the US...but in Europe DK is (also ;))short for Denmark), and asked you if DK travel guides are good books (also good architecture informations?)?
o.k. ..and if the old posts will appear again...its just: thanks again;)
xtaaxtw
January 03, 2010, 07:49 AMthe introduction about Chinese Tulou:
http://baike.baidu.com/view/10139.htm?fr=ala0_1_1
http://world-culture-research.org/c.asp?d=15869
gesang
March 28, 2009, 08:43 PMAnd this was the first place I visited in China..
...follow this link to get information about an "Architectural Restoration Project" in Shanxi, Jianchuan county, Yunnan.
http://www.nsl.ethz.ch:16080/irl/shaxi/frameset/frameMarket.htm