Fujian Tulou
Fujian Tulou-----"the most extraordinary type of Chinese rural dwellings" of the Hakka and others in the mountainous areas in southeastern Fujian, China. They were mostly built between the 12th and the 20th centuries.
The famous Fujian Tulou, designated as UNESCO World Heritage site in 2008, is a small and specialized subgroup of tulou, and are known for their unique shape, large scale, and ingenious structure.
worshippingA total of 46 Fujian Tulou sites, including Chuxi tulou cluster, Tianluokeng tulou cluster, Hekeng tulou cluster, Gaobei tulou cluster, Dadi tulou cluster, Hongkeng tulou cluster, Yangxian lou, Huiyuan lou, Zhengfu lou and Hegui lou, have been inscribed in 2008 by UNESCO as World Heritage Site, as "exceptional examples of a building tradition and function exemplifying a particular type of communal living and defensive organization in a harmonious relationship with their environment".
The civilians of Tulou building is closely linked with the history of Hakka.From the 12th century to 19th century, armed bandits plagued southern China. Hakka people originally came from the middle or north of China, to avoid the annoyance and danger of wars and famine, they were forced to move to the southern China.They live in the mountains to avoid the wars, but in mountains they so suffered from the annoyance and threat from local disputes and bustups, therefore, they established the huge tulou building to safeguard their family and farmland. Wherever they arrive, they were always living together, and then they built strongholds on top of mountains as a defense. These early strongholds later evolved into Fujian Tulou.
The Fujian tulou was first built in the Song and Yuan dynasties, and gradually became established in the late Ming Dynasty, Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China period after the early and medium development in the Ming Dynasty and was handed down from generation to generation.Over twenty thousand of these houses still stand today, ten of which are over 600 years old. The oldest one, “Fu Xing Lou” in Hu Le town, was constructed over 1,200 years ago and is regarded as a “living fossil” of the construction styl
e of central China.
The layout of Fujian tulou followed the Chinese dwelling tradition of "closed outside, open inside" concept: an enclosure wall with living quarters around the peripheral and a common courtyard at the center. A small building at the center with open front served as an ancestral hall for ancestry worshipping, festivals, meetings, weddings, funerals and other ceremonial functions. Ground floor plan includes circle, semicircle, oval, square, rectangle, and irregular pentagon.
The foundation of tulou building was built with paved stones on top of compacted earth ground, in two to three tiers. There is a circular drain around the top tier foundation to prevent rainwater from damaging the tulou wall.
The walls were built inclined toward the center, such that the natural force of gravity pushes the wall together. This inward inclination method was also used in the construction of Pagoda of Fogong Temple. The fortified outer structures are formed by compacting earth, mixed with stone, bamboo, wood and other readily-available materials, to form walls up to
6 feet (1.8 m) thick. Branches, strips of wood and bamboo chips are often laid in the wall as additional reinforcement. The end result is a well-lit, well-ventilated, windproof and earthquake-proof building that is warm in winter and cool in summer. The thickness of the Tulou wall decreases with height as specified in Yingzao Fashi.
Tulou is rectangular or circular in configuration, with very thick load-bearing rammed earth walls between three and five stories high and housing up to 80 families.
Tulous usually have only one main gate, guarded by 4–5-inch-thick (100–130 mm) wooden doors reinforced with an outer shell of iron plate. The top level of these earth buildings has gun holes for defensive purposes.
The bottom two storeys of tulou are solid with no window nor gun hole, windows are open only from the third to fifth storeys, because rooms at the bottom storey served as family storage rooms and the upper storeys were living quarters.
The rooftops were covered with baked clay tiles, arranged radially;λ insertion technique wa
s used at regular intervals to compensate for larger circumference at the outside. This technique allowed the tiles to be laid radially without visible gaps, and without the use of small tiles at top, larger tiles at bottom.
The eaves usually extend about two meters, protecting the earth wall from damage by rainwater pouring from the eaves.
Circular corridors from 2nd to uppermost level were made of wood boards laid on horizontal wooden beams with one end inserted into the earth wall. The corridors are protected with a circle of wooden railing.
Stairwells are distributed evenly around the corridors, four sets of stairwells being the usual number. Each stairwell leads from ground floor to the highest floor.        Public water wells in groups of two or three are usually located at the center court; more luxurious tulou has in-house water well for each household in ground floor kitchen.
Unlike other housing types around the world with architecture reflecting social hierarchy, Fu
jian Tulou exhibits its unique characteristic as a model of community housing for equals. All rooms were built the same size with the same grade of material, same exterior decoration, same style of windows and doors, and there was no "penthouse" for "higher echelons"; a small family owned a vertical set from ground floor to "penthouse" floor, while a larger family would own two or three vertical sets.