Minnan Chuantong Residential Building Craftsmanship

01 · Historical Records

The traditional craft of building southern-Fujian (Minnan) dwellings originated in the late Tang, matured by the Song and Yuan, reached its peak in the Ming and Qing, and rose to fame in the late Qing with successive fine works, flourishing for a time.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The traditional craft of building southern-Fujian (Minnan) dwellings is a traditional architectural technique formed by the fusion of Central Plains culture, indigenous Minnan culture, and maritime culture; it is mainly transmitted in the Minnan-inhabited areas of Xiamen, Quanzhou, and Zhangzhou in Fujian Province, as well as in Taiwan Province and among the residences of Minnan-origin overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. The Chen family's hereditary dwelling-building craft of Neicuo in Xiangan, Xiamen, is an important branch of the Minnan traditional building craft. The Minnan traditional dwellings of Xiamen are typified by the "imperial-palace style" (huanggong qi) palatial large-mansion (da cuo) residential type—grand in scale, elegant and graceful in form, ornate in decoration, bright in color, and exquisite and ingenious in detail; they are symmetrical about a central axis, relatively low and open in spatial layout, and adopt a column-and-tie (chuandou) frame structurally. The Minnan traditional building craft is rather exacting: before building a dwelling, a geomancer (dilishi) is invited to survey the site and, using a luopan compass, determine the orientation according to the Eight Trigrams. The depth and width of the house must accord with the "Earth Mother" cunbai measurement, and the height with the "Heavenly Father" cunbai measurement. Afterwards, the master carpenter designs the general plan and engraves on the gaoche (measuring rod) the secret marks for the beam-through, drip-eaves, dougong, and ridge height, and construction proceeds according to the gaoche measurements. Finally, masons, carpenters, and others complete the work cooperatively, placing an "apotropaic object" (yansheng wu) at the center of the ridge top—typically the Wind-Lion Lord, the Tile General, a censer, a phoenix, or a chicken. The plan layouts of the Minnan traditional building craft include the one-dragon form, the three-sided courtyard, the four-sided courtyard, the three-bay, the five-bay, the multi-protecting-dragon form, and the "towel alley" (shoujin liao) form; the roof framing uses a double-curved roof surface, with swallowtail ridges and flat ridges; it adopts a combined post-and-lintel and column-and-tie structural method; and the exterior walls take varied forms such as stone houses, red-brick houses, oyster-shell houses, and brick-stone combined houses. Through this traditional craft, we can perceive the high wisdom the ancients displayed in coordinating and mastering geographical environment, economic interests, and cultural tradition. The surviving Minnan traditional dwellings may be said to be witness to the blood-bonded connection between Fujian and Taiwan, and are moreover one of the spiritual bonds of homesick longing for Taiwanese compatriots and overseas Chinese returning to their ancestral roots.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

It is divided into major carpentry (damuzuo), minor carpentry (xiaomuzuo), masonry (niwazuo), painted decoration (caihua), and clay-modeling-and-cutting (duijianzuo) as the principal trades, with the major carpenter as the core. Minnan dwellings belong to a school of Chinese traditional dwellings; while completely expressing the ideas, group layouts, and structural forms of Chinese traditional architecture in both content and form, they also developed their own distinctive architectural rules, embodying rich historical and cultural meaning.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Minnan Chuantong Residential Building Craftsmanship · Minnan Chuantong Residential Building Craftsmanship · Minnan Chuantong Residential Building Craftsmanship.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Although its transmission once declined, it revived after the Reform and Opening-up and became a symbol of traditional culture in the Minnan region. This traditional technique relies on the "gaoche-rod-mastering" (zhang gaoche) craftsmen who, drawing on experience, pass it on orally from master to apprentice; the learning period is long, and through the apprenticeship system it has been rather well inherited and carried forward to this day. Chen Heyong (from the official records of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in April 1961, a native of Xiamen City, Fujian Province. Representative inheritor of the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage for the Minnan traditional dwelling-building craft. Artisan of Minnan traditional dwelling construction. He later went to Shanxi, Anhui, Taiwan, and other regions as well as Singapore to study and observe, forming his own distinctive mode of expression for the Minnan traditional dwelling-building craft. He emphasizes the integration of theory and practice, actively conducts exchange activities for the Minnan traditional dwelling-building craft, and furthermore established the Huli District, Xiamen City, Minnan Traditional Architectural Building-Craft Training Center to cultivate successor talent.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• Wang Shimeng 03-1436
• Jiang Qinquan 05-2871
• Chen Heyong 05-2872
• Liu Dashan
• Ye Benying

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Minnan Chuantong Residential Building Craftsmanship (Xiamenshihuli, Fujian) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Chen Heyong · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗