The Ancient Earthen Castles in Tulou, Fujian
Fujian Tulou is a property of 46 buildings
constructed between the 15th and 20th centuries over 120 km in south-west of
Fujian province, inland from the Taiwan Strait. Set amongst rice, tea and
tobacco fields the Tulou are earthen houses.
The
term Tu Lou refers to an architectural context, isolated or gathered in
villages, which can reach 3.4 storeys in height, able to gather the members of
an entire clan and their families, built most of the time on earth and equipped
with a fragile wooden skeleton.
Some
buildings, especially those of larger dimensions, were built with granite
stones and brickwork walls or with a composite material called sanhetu.
The
walls, built with a mix of earth and rice, are supported by a bamboo skeleton.
The
term Tu Lou refers to an architectural context, isolated or gathered in
villages, which can reach 3.4 storeys in height, able to gather the members of
an entire clan and their families, built most of the time on earth and equipped
with a fragile wooden skeleton.
Some
buildings, especially those of larger dimensions, were built with granite
stones and brickwork walls or with a composite material called sanhetu.
The walls,
built with a mix of earth and rice, are supported by a bamboo skeleton.
Several storeys high, they are built along an
inward-looking, circular or square floor plan as housing for up to 800 people
each. They were built for defence purposes around a central open courtyard with
only one entrance and windows to the outside only above the first floor.
Housing a whole clan, the houses functioned as
village units and were known as “a little kingdom for the family” or “bustling
small city.” They feature tall fortified mud walls capped by tiled roofs with
wide over-hanging eaves.
The most elaborate structures date back to the 17th
and 18th centuries.
The buildings were divided vertically between
families with each disposing of two or three rooms on each floor.
In contrast with their plain exterior, the inside of
the tulou were built for comfort and were often highly decorated. They are
inscribed as exceptional examples of a building tradition and function
exemplifying a particular type of communal living and defensive organization,
and, in terms of their harmonious relationship with their environment, an
outstanding example of human settlement.
The Fujian Tulou are the most representative and best
preserved examples of the tulou of the mountainous regions of south-eastern
China.
The large, technically sophisticated and dramatic
earthen defensive buildings, built between the 13th and 20th centuries, in
their highly sensitive setting in fertile mountain valleys, are an
extraordinary reflection of a communal response to settlement which has
persisted over time.
The tulou, and their extensive associated documentary
archives, reflect the emergence, innovation, and development of an outstanding
art of earthen building over seven centuries.
The elaborate compartmentalised interiors, some with
highly decorated surfaces, met both their communities’ physical and spiritual
needs and reflect in an extraordinary way the development of a sophisticated
society in a remote and potentially hostile environment.
The relationship of the massive buildings to their
landscape embodies both Feng Shui principles and ideas of landscape beauty and
harmony.
The tulou bear an exceptional testimony to a
long-standing cultural tradition of defensive buildings for communal living
that reflect sophisticated building traditions and ideas of harmony and
collaboration, well documented over time.
The tulou are exceptional in terms of size, building
traditions and function, and reflect society’s response to various stages in
economic and social history within the wider region.
The tulou as a whole and the nominated Fujian tulou
in particular, in terms of their form are a unique reflection of communal
living and defensive needs, and in terms of their harmonious relationship with their
environment, an outstanding example of human settlement.
The authenticity of the tulou is related to
sustaining the tulou themselves and their building traditions as well as the
structures and processes associated with their farmed and forested landscape
setting. The integrity of the tulou is related to their intactness as buildings
but also to the intactness of the surrounding farmed and forested landscape –
into which they were so carefully sited in accordance with Feng Shui
principles.
Hakka Walled Village – Beautiful Hakka Round houses
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