Amazing Art of Work, Tulou
A tulou or "earthen building", is a traditional communal Hakka people residence found in Fujian, in South China.
“The tulou reflects the emergence, innovation, and development of an outstanding art of earthen building of Chinese people.”
福建 土楼
福建土楼是15世纪至20世纪之间建造的46座建筑物的财产，位于福建省西南部120公里处，位于台湾海峡内陆。土楼坐落在水稻，茶和烟草田之间，是土屋。它们有几层高，沿着向内看的圆形或方形平面图建造，每个楼层最多可容纳800人。它们是为了防御目的而建造的，围绕着一个中央开放式庭院，只有一个入口和窗户，只能在一楼上方。这些房屋拥有整个氏族，作为村庄单位，被称为“家庭的小王国”或“繁华的小城市”。它们具有高大的强化泥墙，顶部是瓷砖屋顶，上面有宽阔的悬檐。最精致的结构可以追溯到17世纪和18世纪。这些建筑物在家庭之间垂直划分，每层每个家庭处理两到三个房间。与其朴素的外观形成鲜明对比的是，土楼的内部是为了舒适而建造的，并且通常装饰精美。它们被铭刻为建筑传统和功能的杰出典范，体现了特定类型的社区生活和防御组织，就其与环境的和谐关系而言，它们是人类住区的杰出典范。
Fujian Tulou
Fujian Tulou is a property of 46 buildings constructed between the 15th and 20th centuries over 120 km in south-west of Fujian province, inland from the Taiwan Strait. Set amongst rice, tea and tobacco fields the Tulou are earthen houses. Several stories high, they are built along an inward-looking, circular or square floor plan as housing for up to 800 people each. They were built in order to defend themselves around a central open courtyard with only one entrance and windows to the outside only above the first floor. Housing a whole clan, the houses functioned as village units and were known as “a little kingdom for the family” or “bustling small city.” They feature tall fortified mud walls capped by tiled roofs with wide over-hanging eaves. The most elaborate structures date back to the 17th and 18th centuries. The buildings were divided vertically between families with each disposing of two or three rooms on each floor. In contrast with their plain exterior, the inside of the tulou were built for comfort and were often highly decorated. They are inscribed as exceptional examples of a building tradition and function exemplifying a particular type of communal living and defensive organization, and, in terms of their harmonious relationship with their environment, an outstanding example of human settlement.
Outstanding Universal Value
The Fujian Tulou are the most representative and best preserved examples of the tulou of the mountainous regions of south-eastern China. The large, technically sophisticated and dramatic earthen defensive buildings, built between the 13th and 20th centuries, in their highly sensitive setting in fertile mountain valleys, are an extraordinary reflection of a communal response to settlement which has persisted over time. The tulou, and their extensive associated documentary archives, reflect the emergence, innovation, and development of an outstanding art of earthen building over seven centuries. The elaborate compartmentalised interiors, some with highly decorated surfaces, met both their communities’ physical and spiritual needs and reflect in an extraordinary way the development of a sophisticated society in a remote and potentially hostile environment. The relationship of the massive buildings to their landscape embodies both Feng Shui principles and ideas of landscape beauty and harmony.
Criterion (iii): The tulou bear an exceptional testimony to a long-standing cultural tradition of defensive buildings for communal living that reflect sophisticated building traditions and ideas of harmony and collaboration, well documented over time.
Criterion (iv): The tulou are exceptional in terms of size, building traditions and function, and reflect society’s response to various stages in economic and social history within the wider region.
Criterion (v): The tulou as a whole and the nominated Fujian tulou in particular, in terms of their form are a unique reflection of communal living and defensive needs, and in terms of their harmonious relationship with their environment, an outstanding example of human settlement.
The authenticity of the tulou is related to sustaining the tulou themselves and their building traditions as well as the structures and processes associated with their farmed and forested landscape setting. The integrity of the tulou is related to their intactness as buildings but also to the intactness of the surrounding farmed and forested landscape – into which they were so carefully sited in accordance with Feng Shui principles.
The legal protection of the nominated areas and their buffer zones are adequate. The overall management system for the property is adequate, involving both government administrative bodies and local communities, although plans for the sustainability of the landscape that respect local farming and forestry traditions need to be better developed.
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