Huipaichuantong Residential Building Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
By the Song dynasty, the column-and-tie (chuandou) and post-and-lintel (tailiang) structural systems had merged into one, and the building craft was greatly improved. In the Ming dynasty, Huizhou dwellings adopted the plan layout with an inner courtyard (tianjing) and the three-bay, five-purlin building form, and a basically fixed pattern took shape.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The traditional craft of building Huizhou dwellings has a long history, traceable as far back as the Qin and Han periods, when the column-and-tie (chuandou) structural method was mainly adopted in construction. The craft of building Huizhou dwellings thereby tended toward stability, transmitted generation to generation between masters and apprentices through oral instruction and personal demonstration. Huizhou building craftsmen, with the aid of various tools such as saws, chisels, rulers, knives, boards, hammers, and shovels, each displayed their skill and collaborated with one another in the process of building traditional dwellings. Craftsmen of each trade had clear divisions of labor: for instance, the iron and kiln trades supplied building materials for house construction, while the brick, wood, and stone trades cooperated with one another and were specifically responsible for the actual building work. Huizhou woodcarving, brick carving, and stone carving are the finest parts of Huizhou's ancient architecture, and the art of painted decoration (caihua) was also well applied in buildings, adding boundless luster to traditional Huizhou dwellings.
The iron and kiln trades supplying material
Before building starts the iron and kiln trades deliver metal fittings, nails, hoops, bricks and tiles; nothing can be laid until the material is in.
The brick, wood and stone trades at work
The brick, wood and stone trades set foundations, raise walls and place beams, each following its own rules and reconciling the junctions on site.
Marking out with the staff and plank
A staff-and-plank baseline method gives complex mortise and tenon joints a repeatable procedure, especially valuable for intricate members.
Pre-assembling the frame on the ground
Timber is assembled whole on the ground and then hoisted into place, keeping most joint adjustments away from height.
Making and restoring Tang-style brackets
Bracket sets must build, fit and come apart correctly; Hu Gongmin restored the nine-storey Tang-style bracket work at Chi Lin Nunnery in Hong Kong.
Combined post-and-beam and chuan-dou framing
From the Song the two framing systems were merged, and by the Ming the three-bay, five-bay plan with an inner courtyard became a fixed formula.
Stone, wood and brick carving with painted work
Carving and painted decoration are designed together with the timber frame, so the motifs match the members they sit on.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The craft of building Huizhou-style dwellings has been transmitted for generations around Huizhou in Anhui, and although the method is the same, the division of labor is exceedingly strict: the iron and kiln trades exclusively supply building materials, the brick, wood, and stone trades cooperate to handle construction, and a separate painted-decoration trade finishes the work. The division into the "five trades" is no jargon game—it breaks a house, from material preparation to tile-laying, into several independent yet mutually constraining crafts; lacking any one trade, the house cannot be raised to its beams. Within the trade it is passed down orally from master to apprentice; an apprentice begins by learning to recognize wood and draw lines, and studies until able to independently command a trade, so one generation's path is longer than in other trades. The inheritors of this area took the skill beyond Huizhou: Hu Gongmin was born in December 1957 in Shexian County; he began learning carpentry in 1978 and in 1982 apprenticed to Cheng Qidong to inherit the Huizhou building craft; later, the restoration project of the Shexian Huizhou Prefectural Office that he headed won the Luban Prize awarded by the China Construction Industry Association in 2014, and his dougong restoration work reached as far as the Chi Lin Nunnery in Hong Kong.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Huizhou dwellings are a principal type of Chinese traditional architectural art, and their traditional building craft possesses important historical and cultural value. The traditional craft of building Huizhou dwellings is a typical expression of Huizhou culture; transmitted for generations in the Huizhou region of Anhui Province, it displays strong local character while also having high academic and artistic value. Hu Gongmin (from the official records of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in December 1957, a native of Shexian County, Anhui Province. Representative inheritor of the fourth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage for the Huizhou-style traditional dwelling-building craft. A master carpenter of garden and ancient-architecture technique. He began studying carpentry in 1978. In 1982 he apprenticed to Cheng Qidong, inheriting the Huizhou-style traditional dwelling-building craft. His mortise-and-tenon assembly skill is superb: he first assembles wooden components into a whole on the ground, then hoists them to connect with the rest of the structure. With the traditional "measuring-board line-marking method" (zhangban huaxian fa), he effortlessly solves the line-marking difficulties of complex, variable mortise-and-tenon and other processing parts subject to rather strict dimensional requirements; for structurally complex wooden components, its advantage is especially pronounced. His skill in making dougong (bracket sets) is superb; he once successfully restored the ultra-tall, super-large Tang-style dougong of the Chi Lin Nunnery in Hong Kong, reaching nine stories and including both outer and inner corner turns. In 2014, the restoration project of the Shexian Huizhou Prefectural Office that he headed won the Luban Prize awarded by the China Construction Industry Association.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Hu Gongmin 04-1914
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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