Peng Shanyao

01 · Lineage & Regional School

From childhood he followed his master in learning the Tujia stilted house building craft. Within the regional tradition and school record of Tujia Diaojiaolou Building Craftsmanship in Yongshun, Hunan: The Tujia corner-tower-house building craft in Yongshun County follows the mountains and the terrain; the townships of Zejia, Shidi, Cheping, Kesha and Furong each keep a line of craftsmen, and the forms divide into the single-hanging, double-hanging and four-sided-water types. Peng Shanyao took sole charge of the ink (master builder) at twenty, and the Ninefold Heaven he built used not a single nail or rivet. After the craftsmen left the mountains, the corner-tower-house clusters of Zhangjiajie, Longshan, Enshi and Pengshui mostly started from the Yongshun method of assembling frames and raising the beam. The building of the corner-tower house (zhuanjiaolou) originated in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period, flourished in the Tang and Song dynasties, and after the Peng clan regime ruled western Hunan the corner-tower house began to develop comprehensively.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Peng Shanyao was born in July 1940 in Yongshun County, Hunan Province; he is of Tujia ethnicity. He is a national representative bearer of the Tujia Stilted House (Diaojiaolou) Building Craftsmanship, a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He is a technician in the construction of stilted houses. By the age of twenty he was already setting out ink lines and designing on his own, and in practice he has drawn widely on the strengths of others and absorbed the essence of ancient architecture. The stilted houses he has built are distinctive in form, sturdy and durable, handsome and varied in type. The Jiuchongtian (Nine Heavens) building, which he designed and built in collaboration with others, is a work of superlative skill: no nail or rivet was used throughout its construction, and its nine tiers rise to twelve storeys, making it a marvel in the architectural history of the Tujia people. He has designed and built groups of stilted houses in markedly different styles at Zhangjiajie and at Nongche in Longshan and the old Tusi site of Yongshun in Hunan, at Enshi in Hubei, in the Pengshui and Wulong scenic areas of Chongqing, and at Songtao in Guizhou, giving expression to a distinctive aesthetic sensibility and a profound understanding of architectural art; the stilted house has thus been widely disseminated as an ethnic symbol of the Tujia people. Within the documented technical tradition of Tujia Diaojiaolou Building Craftsmanship in Yongshun, Hunan: The building craft of the Tujia corner-tower house (also called the "zhuanjiaolou") in Yongshun County, Hunan Province, is a traditional hand craft with ethnic character created by the Tujia people in their long social life, and is called by experts and scholars a "living fossil" of ancient architecture. In the Yongzheng reign of the Qing, the prohibitions on beams-and-columns and on tiling were lifted, and the corner-tower house spread widely again. After the founding of New China, people's living conditions developed considerably, and the building craft of the corner-tower house reached its peak. The building craft of the corner-tower house has many process steps, chiefly: preparing materials, working them, assembling the frames (paishan), and raising the main beam. Most Tujia corner-tower houses are of wooden structure, stilted (ganlan) buildings, with flying eaves and upturned corners, corridors on all four sides, and the overhanging wooden balustrades carved with patterns such as the myriad-character lattice, the sub-character lattice, and the square lattice, symbolising auspiciousness. The suspended columns are octagonal, hexagonal, or square, with bottoms carved with patterns such as embroidered balls and golden gourds; the window lattice is carved with twin phoenixes facing the sun, magpies on a branch, a lion rolling a brocade ball, as well as peonies, chrysanthemums and various flowers and grasses — archaic, elegant and graceful, beautiful and practical, with a distinct individuality and the character of hand craft. The forms of the corner-tower house are varied, chiefly the single-hanging type, the double-hanging type, and the four-sided-water type, with such architectural features as "no step-stone, no tower; no gourd, no charm; no turning, no tower." With unique structure and lively form, it is a precious crystallization of folk art integrating architecture, painting and carving, and an outstanding representative in the history of Chinese architectural art. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Documented process record": The building craft of the corner-tower house has many process steps, chiefly: preparing materials, working them, assembling the frames (paishan), and raising the main beam.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

In 2012, Peng Shanyao was announced in the fourth batch of national representative bearers for Tujia Diaojiaolou Building Craftsmanship, with Yongshun, Hunan as the declared area. Within the documented safeguarding record of Tujia Diaojiaolou Building Craftsmanship in Yongshun, Hunan: The project was inscribed in the national inventory in 2011 (batch 3), with Yongshun, Hunan as its declared area, and Yongshun County Intangible Cultural Heritage Safeguarding Center as its safeguarding unit. Since the project was inscribed in the national inventory, its declared area and safeguarding unit have carried out documentation, transmission and presentation within the national safeguarding framework. Together, the inventory record and the project archive form the public documentary basis for the bearer’s transmission practice.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Peng Shanyao · National Representative Bearer Archive