Cave-dwelling Building Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
Yaodong (cave dwellings) are a form of vernacular dwelling unique to the Loess Plateau and a physical survival of the development and evolution of humanity's early cave-dwelling; they are widely distributed in Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, and other regions. In Pinglu County, Shanxi Province, yaodong are called diyin (sunken) courtyards, also known as dikeng courtyards, tianjing yaodong courtyards, or sunken-style yaodong courtyards; according to their different uses they can be divided into dwelling caves, storage caves, livestock caves, toilet caves, and gate-tunnel caves. The construction technique has a history of more than 4,000 years. According to the Qingyang Local Gazetteer, in the late 1940s the whole district had 86,491 yaodong with a floor area of 2.46 million square meters, accounting for 88 percent of the total floor area of rural dwellings; in the late 1960s, the whole district again had 86,491 yaodong, with a floor area of 5,041,120 square meters, accounting for 47 percent of the total floor area of dwellings in the district. After the 1990s, people's lives improved enormously and they built tile-roofed houses; coupled with the influence of the modern way of life and the accelerating urbanization of the countryside, the old yaodong were abandoned in large numbers and collapsed for lack of occupants.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Yaodong stretches generally run one to two hundred meters in length; the loess is extremely resistant to seepage and has strong vertical stability, providing good natural conditions for yaodong. At the same time, natural and geographical conditions such as dry weather with little rainfall, cold winters, and few trees have also provided an opportunity for the development and continuation of the economical, practical yaodong construction technique, which requires no timber. Under the influence of different natural environments, landform features, and local conditions, yaodong have developed a great variety of forms. There are many types of yaodong; classified by the layout and structural form of the building, the main ones are open-courtyard (mingzhuang) caves, earth-pit (tukeng) caves, freestanding yaodong, cliff-side (kaoya-style) yaodong, and sunken yaodong. The construction techniques for yaodong are rich and varied. Flat-roofed yaodong, for example, are built on level ground by laying adobe or brick and stone. Cliff-side (kaoya-style) yaodong are made by cutting into the vertical face after one side of a hillside has been shaved flat. Courtyard-well (tianjing) style yaodong are more elaborate: generally a pit about seven meters deep, square on all four sides, is first dug on level ground, and caves are then cut into the lower parts of the pit's four walls, forming a square courtyard dwelling of the courtyard-well type. "You see the trees but not the village; you see the village but not the houses; the yaodong are born of the earth; the courtyards are hidden underground." This folk rhyme vividly depicts the construction characteristics of the sunken courtyard. In Xifeng District, Qingyang City, Gansu Province, human activity existed as early as the Paleolithic era, with yaodong serving as the basic place of dwelling. During the Xia and Shang dynasties, the early inhabitants dug yaodong here, built villages, and tilled the land, pioneering the agrarian civilization of China. With historical development and continuous population growth, yaodong became ever more numerous. Some villages even tore down yaodong and filled in the pits to create farmland. Under these circumstances, the yaodong construction technique may become utterly extinct along with the disappearance of the yaodong themselves.
Choosing the site and cutting the slope
A site needs enough relief and firm soil, and the slope must be cut true before any chamber is dug.
Living, storage and livestock chambers
Chambers are allocated by use, each sized to its job rather than forcing one space to serve several purposes.
Digging the four chambers
The work reduces to planning, excavating, trimming the roof level and shoring as the excavation deepens.
Moving into the sunken courtyard
Connecting flues, building the kang and stove and fitting doors complete the process; only then is the courtyard finished.
Four millennia of yaodong
The technique dates back more than four millennia and once accounted for tens of thousands of dwellings across the loess plateau.
Zhang Hecheng and his apprentices
A fifth-batch national inheritor, Zhang Hecheng has led crews since 1980, trained more than ten apprentices and now guides visitors on site.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The yaodong of the Pinglu area are known as diyin (sunken courtyards); locally they are also called dikeng courtyards, tianjing yaodong courtyards, or sunken-style yaodong courtyards. Though the names are many, they all refer to the same kind of sunken living space. By use, within a single diyin courtyard the dwelling caves, storage caves, livestock caves, toilet caves, and gate caves each perform their own function; dwelling, storage, sanitation, and entry are separately arranged, turning the space around a single deep pit into a complete set of daily-life facilities. In construction the terrain is followed as it is found: after the slope face has been shaved flat, caves are cut into the vertical plane, and a single cliff stretch one to two hundred meters long can be opened up as a continuous run of caves; the advantages of saving timber and labor come precisely from this integrated excavation. Transmission relies mainly on the master-apprentice system. Zhang Hecheng was born in April 1954 in Pinglu County; from 1980 he led teams building diyin courtyards and, over more than a decade, trained more than ten apprentices; he is thoroughly familiar with the entire process from site selection and construction to moving in, and is especially strong in the details and techniques of building; today he also collects and collates the folk culture of the diyin courtyard.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Cave-dwelling Building Craftsmanship · Cave-dwelling Building Craftsmanship · Cave-dwelling Building Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Yaodong architecture is handsome and durable, warm in winter and cool in summer, comfortable and quiet; it saves land and protects vegetation, and is economical and labor-saving - a perfect architectural form adapted to local conditions. In the study of architectural history, social life history, and related folk culture in northwest China during the agrarian era, the yaodong construction technique has irreplaceable reference value. Selecting sites for the protection of existing yaodong and carrying out rescue protection of the yaodong construction technique have become urgent tasks. Zhang Hecheng (from the official archives of the associated inheritor): Male, of the Han ethnicity, born in April 1954, from Pinglu County, Shanxi Province. Representative inheritor of the yaodong construction technique, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item in the fifth national-level batch. Yaodong construction technician. From 1980 he began leading teams in the construction of diyin courtyards, training more than ten apprentices in all; he is thoroughly familiar with the entire process from site selection and construction to moving in, and is especially proficient in construction details and techniques; he has also engaged in the collection and collation of diyin courtyard folk culture, and is a well-known local expert in folk customs. As people's quality of life has improved, diyin courtyards have slowly begun to be backfilled, and the construction technique and related culture have also slowly begun to be forgotten. In recent years he has mainly cooperated with the cultural center in intangible cultural heritage promotion and has volunteered to explain knowledge of the diyin courtyard to visitors from home and abroad.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhang Hecheng 05-2873
- Wang Sihu 05-2874
- Li Maozheng 05-2875
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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