Tujia Diaojiaolou Building Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
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 · Core Techniques & Process
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.
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 · Regional Records & Related Items
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.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Tujia Diaojiaolou Building Craftsmanship · Tujia Diaojiaolou Building Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
But, with the acceleration of the social process, the corner-tower house is gradually being replaced by modern buildings; the transmission areas and the inheritors have severely shrunk, and at present this traditional architecture is distributed only in a few townships of Yongshun County — Zejia, Shidi, Cheping, Kesha and Furong. The number of inheritors has declined and there is no one to follow, so that the transmission activity can hardly continue. Peng Shanyao (recorded in the official archives of the associated inheritor): Male, Tujia ethnicity, born in July 1940, a native of Yongshun County, Hunan Province. A representative inheritor of the Tujia corner-tower-house building craft, a project under the fourth national-level batch of the national intangible cultural heritage. A corner-tower-house building technician. At twenty he already took sole charge of the ink (master builder) and designed independently, and in practice drew widely on strengths and absorbed the essence of ancient architecture. The corner-tower houses he built are uniquely shaped, sturdy and durable, beautiful and generous, and varied in form. The Ninefold Heaven that he jointly designed and built is marvellously wrought; throughout the whole construction it used not a single nail or rivet, stacking up nine levels and twelve tiers, and may be called a miracle in the architectural history of the Tujia. In Zhangjiajie of Hunan, Longshan Nongche, Yongshun Laosicheng, Enshi of Hubei, Pengshui and Wulong scenic areas of Chongqing, and Songtao of Guizhou, he designed and built corner-tower-house clusters of greatly differing styles, embodying a unique aesthetic perception and a profound understanding of architectural art; the corner-tower house, as an ethnic symbol of the Tujia, has been widely disseminated.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wan Taoyuan 04-1933
- Peng Shanyao 04-1934
- Liu Chengbai 05-2888
- Wan Yuqi
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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