Kejiatulou Building Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The formation of the Tulou earthen buildings in Nanjing County is directly tied to the migration route of the Hakka people as they entered Fujian. Batch after batch, the scholar-official clans of the Central Plains moved south into the mountainous region of southern Fujian. The dual demands of clan co-residence and defensive security brought the long-inherited rammed-earth construction methods of the Central Plains to these red-soil slopes, where they merged with the local fir timber and mountain stone and evolved into the established practice of rammed-earth wall construction. Tulou walls are built with the ancient tools of rammed-earth wall construction, chiefly formwork boards, ramming pestles, shovels, and large and small patting boards as auxiliary tools. Rammed-earth wall construction follows strict rules at every stage—from soil selection, proportional mixing, soil pile treatment, and mastery of moisture content, through the ramming procedure to wall repair—and each step directly affects whether the wall will later crack: poorly chosen soil, uneven mixing, or improper moisture will inevitably produce fissures once the wall is built. Within Nanjing County there are more than 15,000 Tulou of various kinds, of which over 1,300 are large square or round forms, earning it the name "Kingdom of Tulou." Thousands upon thousands of earthen buildings dot the land of Nanjing, forming a superb scenic line that has been praised as "a unique, myth-like model of mountain-village architecture found nowhere else in the world." This assessment holds not merely in appearance: the construction method using raw earth, timber, and mountain stone is extremely economical, exceptionally solid, strongly defensive, and richly beautiful, genuinely uniting utility and aesthetics in a single place.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Nanjing County in Fujian is home to more than 15,000 Tulou of various kinds, of which over 1,300 are large square or round forms, rightly called the "Kingdom of Tulou." It gathers the tallest, largest, smallest, most unusual, oldest, and most spectacular earthen buildings, among which the Tianluokeng Tulou cluster, the Hekeng Tulou cluster, the Huaiyuan Building, and the Hegui Building stand as exemplary models of Tulou architecture. Thousands upon thousands of earthen buildings, like "flying saucers dropped from the sky" or "mushrooms growing from the earth," dot the beautiful land of Nanjing and form a superb scenic line, acclaimed as "a unique, myth-like model of mountain-village architecture found nowhere else in the world." The siting and construction of the Hua'an Tulou follow the principles of family prosperity and security, laid out according to traditional Chinese feng shui concepts. Their architectural design and floor plan pay great attention to scientific rigor, rationality, practicality, and systematic order, embodying a modern sense of domestic living. Tulou walls are built with the ancient tools of rammed-earth wall construction, chiefly formwork boards, ramming pestles, shovels, and large and small patting boards as auxiliary tools. Rammed-earth wall construction follows strict rules at every stage—from soil selection, proportional mixing, soil pile treatment, and mastery of moisture content, through the ramming procedure to wall repair. Carpenters design and process the beam frames. Especially in round buildings, rooms are divided roughly evenly along the circumference (taking a dustpan-like shape), and carpenters adapt the beam frames to this form, which requires considerable skill. The ancient rammed-earth wall technique is the crystallized result of millennia of accumulated refinement of the Central Plains' rammed-earth construction technology; it is the physical embodiment of the highest achievement of rammed-earth civilization and may truly be called a singular wonder of architecture.
Selecting earth and blending proportions
Rammed walls begin with choosing suitable earth and blending it to a ratio that is adhesive yet breathable; a wrong mix guarantees cracking later.
Beating between boards with a pestle
Earth is laid between boards and beaten with pestles and paddles layer by layer; a wall rammed all at once stratifies and fails under load.
Judging moisture and repairing cracks
Moisture is judged by touch: too wet and the wall slumps as it dries, too dry and it will not bond; cracks are re-rammed, making tulou building a long contest with rain.
Dividing a round house like a dustpan
Rooms in a round tulou divide the circumference like a dustpan, and the carpenter frames beams to follow the curve — the most demanding work in the craft.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Tulou construction craft ingeniously makes use of the terrain of the mountainous area and local building materials such as raw earth, timber, and mountain stone; it is extremely economical, exceptionally solid, strongly defensive, and richly beautiful.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Kejiatulou Building Craftsmanship · Kejiatulou Building Craftsmanship · Kejia Residential Building Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Among them, the Eryi Building in Dadi Village, Xiandu Town, is the most outstanding representative; it was the earliest Fujian Tulou listed as a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level, and is a treasure of vernacular dwellings of world stature. While inheriting and innovating upon traditional raw-earth construction craft, the Fujian Tulou also carry forward the essence of traditional Chinese culture and stand as testimony to the cultural tradition of clan-based co-residence. Yet, with social development, modern building models and the substitution of modern materials have brought the ancient Tulou construction craft to the verge of being lost. This ancient skill, which holds significant historical meaning and modern research value, urgently awaits inheritance and protection.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Xu Songsheng 01-0148
- Zhong Yanpeng 05-2741
- Zhang Xianyao
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。