Why are Hakka earth buildings round?

Hakka earth building, also known as Fujian Round Building, is a pearl of Chinese civilization, a unique mythical mountain village residential building in the world, and a wonderful flower of ancient architecture in China. With its long history, unique style, huge scale and exquisite structure, it is independent of the world residential architecture art forest. The caste social characteristics and architectural characteristics of Tulou folk houses are closely related to the history of Hakka people. Wherever Hakkas go, their surnames always live together. Besides, most Hakkas live in remote mountainous areas or dense mountainous areas. At that time, not only building materials were scarce, wolves, tigers and leopards were noisy, but also they were afraid of local people's harassment, so Hakka people created "defensive" castle-style building houses. In this way, the unique architectural form of Hakka dwellings-tulou was formed. Tulou is mainly distributed in Longyan, Zhangzhou and other areas in Fujian Province.

Historical background

The climax of this type of architecture, represented by Hakka tulou, was when China was in turmoil and Hakka people migrated from the Central Plains to the south. These periods include the Huang Chao Rebellion in the late Tang Dynasty, the southward migration in the Southern Song Dynasty and the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties. /kloc-After the 7th century, not only the Hakkas finally settled in the southeast coast of China, but also the earth buildings were mainly distributed in Fujian and Guangdong in China. This special building is designed to resist wild animals and robbers in the mountains, and embodies the ideal of a big family living together under Confucianism.

The origin of Tulou can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty, when Chen Yuanguang was stationed in Zhangzhou, and the surname of 58 settled in southern Fujian. Many domes in southern Fujian still retain the remains of ancient military camps. Round hills are naturally not suitable for building square huts, so the remains of huts are mostly round. These round farmhouses are the prototype of round earth buildings. At first, the circular barracks had only one floor, and later it gradually evolved into a residential building. In order to save arable land, it develops to high-rise buildings and becomes a multi-storey round earth building. Hakka people moved from the Central Plains to southern Fujian, bringing the quadrangle form of the Central Plains, and built thick earth walls for defense, which is the original source of Wufeng Building and Fangtu Building. Because it is a round earth building, the largest public courtyard can be surrounded by external walls of the same length, and the view from the high-rise observation point is wide, for example, so it is also adopted by Hakkas.

1986 A survey team of more than 0 people led by Professor Yoshiro Maomu of Tokyo University of the Arts in Japan visited Fujian, and published a monograph [5] and held an exhibition after returning to China. He reported: "In the valley covered with terraced fields, buildings with round earth walls are scattered among the mountains. Like a black flying saucer falling from the sky, the circular roof floats and ripples in the smoke. " [6]。 The mysterious Fujian tulou is known to the outside world.

1986 China Post issued the "Fujian Folk Houses" special stamp with the design of tulou.

From 65438 to 0999, Neville agnew, director of the American Getty Conservation Institute, visited Fujian Tulou in Nanjing. He said: "This is the most harmonious residential building I have ever seen with the surrounding environment" [7].

On June 365438+1October 3 1 day, 2002, the Cultural Heritage Committee of the State Council, China declared to UNESCO and included it in the United Nations World Cultural Heritage Protection List # 1689 "Fujian Tulou".

On July 6th, 2008, at the 32nd World Heritage Conference held in Quebec City, China Fujian Tulou was officially listed in the World Heritage List.

Classification of earth buildings

According to the internal structure of the building

Inner Corridor Earth Building (Hakka Earth Building): Residents in the Earth Building have units from bottom to top, each unit starts from the second floor or above, there is a circular corridor in front of each room, and there are four or five public stairs on each floor. Neilang Tulou is mainly distributed in Yongding County, Fujian Province, where Hakka people live in compact communities, also known as Hakka Tulou, represented by the tower of Hukeng Town, Yongding County.

Modular earth building (Minnan earth building). There is no corridor connecting all households on each floor of modular earth building; The earth building is divided into several groups of vertical units, and each unit has an independent portal, an independent courtyard and an independent staircase [8]. Modular earth buildings are mainly distributed in the areas where Fulao people live in southwest Fujian, also known as Minnan earth buildings, represented by Eryi Building in Hua 'an County.

Classification by building shape

Fuyu Building in Hukeng Town is a typical Wufeng Building. Earth buildings can be divided into circular buildings, square buildings and Wufeng buildings according to their shapes. There are also deformed concave fonts, semicircles and gossip. Among them, circular buildings and square buildings are the most common, and they often coexist. Thousands of square meters long, gregarious round buildings and square buildings are built between mountains and valleys with simple geometric buildings, and man-made buildings are in sharp contrast with the surrounding green natural landscape. /kloc-After China's economic opening in the 1980s, the landscape of earth buildings in southern Fujian and Guangdong, which are mainly round and square, attracted the attention of the world tourism industry. Among them, if you look down from above, you can better show the sense of strength of the architectural pattern.

The round building is a round earth building, which is called the round stockade earth building in southern Fujian. Its use is more important than prevention, so its name is embedded in the name of "Zhai". Although this shape of earth buildings is not the most, the area is usually the largest. The largest area can even reach more than 72 bays.

Usually, the bottom floor of a circular building is the dining room and kitchen, the second floor is the warehouse, and the place above the third floor is the bedroom at home. Each small family or individual's room is independent, and the rooms are connected by a circle of public corridors. These designs usually focus on defense functions.

Square buildings are the most popular among earth buildings. The characteristic of this type of building is that a square or nearly square high fence is rammed first, and then other buildings in the building expand along this fence. The standard specifications for expansion are usually open patios and cloisters around patios. These floors with the same architectural style are piled together, and the highest can even reach six floors. Finally, the use of wooden floors and beams, together with tile roofs, has become the most common square building in earth buildings.

Wufeng Pagoda is also called Doctor Pagoda, Wufeng Pagoda, Mansion-style, Palace-style or Pen-rack-style architecture. Although their names are the same, there are some differences. From the outside, this kind of tulou, which consists of two wings and a gatehouse, has the characteristics of three concavities and two convexities, just like the penholder in ancient China. Wufenglou is mainly distributed in counties of western Fujian and Zhangzhou. Among them, Zhangzhou Hakkas who immigrated to Taiwan Province Province also brought the architectural style of Wufeng Pagoda to Taiwan Province Province.

In addition to the round building, there are also square buildings and Wufeng buildings. There are other types of earth buildings classified according to their shapes, such as concave, semi-circular and bagua. The concave earth buildings are mainly distributed in Nanjing and Zhaoan in southern Fujian. Pinghe and Yongding are semi-circular, and there are occasional gossip-shaped earth buildings in Yongding, Zhangpu, Hua 'an, Zhao 'an, Nanjing and eastern Guangdong. Among them, Daoyun Building is the largest gossip earth building in China.

appear

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Tulou is a collective building built with soil as the wall, which is round, semi-circular, square, quadrilateral, pentagonal, chair-shaped and dustpan-shaped. , and has its own characteristics. Tulou was square at first, with palace style, mansion style and different postures. It is not only strange, but also full of mystery, solid and firm. Accumulate food and raise livestock in the building; If there is a well and you need to guard against the enemy, you just need to close the gate and keep a few young people guarding it. Tulou is like a solid fortress, and women, children, old and young can sit back and relax. Because the square earth building is directional, the corner is dark, and the ventilation and lighting are different, Hakka people have designed a round earth building with good ventilation and lighting, which has no beginning and no end. Among the existing earth buildings, the round one is the most striking, and the locals call it round building or round village.

function

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Tulou is a collective building, and its biggest feature lies in its large shape. No matter from a distance or in front of us, the earth building is shocking with its huge single building, and its volume is the largest among the residential buildings. The most common round building in the earth building we visited is about 50 meters in diameter and three or four stories high. There are more than 100 houses, which can accommodate 30 to 40 families and 200 to 300 people. The Dayuan Building can reach 70-80 meters in diameter, with five or six floors and four or five hundred houses, which can accommodate seven or eight hundred people. Earth buildings and residential buildings reflect the folk customs of Hakka people living in compact communities.

From the research of history and architecture, the architectural style of tulou is a self-defense living style for national security. At that time, under the situation of Japanese invasion and civil war every year, Hakkas who moved their families traveled thousands of miles to other places and chose an architectural way conducive to family reunion and defense against war. Descendants of the same ancestor form an independent society in a tulou, with honor and disgrace. Therefore, restraint from the outside and cohesion from the inside are probably the most appropriate induction of tulou.

wood tissue

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The wall of tulou is thicker under the wall and thinner on the top, and some of them are as high as 1.5 meters. When tamping, first dig a deep and large wall ditch at the foundation of the wall, tamp it, bury it with stones as the foundation, and then build it with stones and mortar. Then tamp the wall with sandwich panels. The raw material of the earth wall is mainly local clay red soil, mixed with appropriate amount of pebbles and lime, repeatedly pounded and stirred evenly to make the so-called "cooked soil". Some key parts should be mixed with appropriate amount of glutinous rice and brown sugar to increase their viscosity. When tamping, Chinese fir branches or bamboo pieces should be buried in the middle of the earth wall as "wall bones" to increase its tension. In this way, after repeated ramming, a steel-concrete earth wall was built, and a layer of lime was coated outside to prevent wind and rain erosion, so it was strong and abnormal, with good wind and earthquake resistance. According to Yongding County Records, a major earthquake occurred in 19 18, which jingled during the day and lasted for 20 minutes, and continued to vibrate at night, but the earth building was intact.

general layout

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The circular building is the most distinctive building in the local earth building. Generally speaking, it starts from a center and spreads out layer by layer according to different radii, just like water waves in a lake, which is very spectacular. Its center is family ancestral temple, followed by ancestral halls, verandahs and people living in the outermost ring. The whole earth building is the same size, with an area of about 10 square meter. The same staircase, no family has secrets.

There are many types of earth buildings, one of which is the system of upper, middle and lower halls arranged in depth along the central axis. This kind of earth building, the lower hall is generally the entrance and exit, placed in the front; The nave is in the center, which is a place for family gatherings and welcoming guests. Shangtang is the innermost place where ancestral tablets are enshrined.

In addition to the unique structure, the window sill, porch and cornice inside the earth building are also extremely gorgeous and exquisite, which is really a wonderful work in China residential buildings.