A few days ago, the kick-off meeting of the three-year action plan for the protection of covered bridges sponsored by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage was held in Taishun.
As a distinctive subdivision of cultural relics, the covered bridge carries the public life, cultural traditions and nostalgia of the local society.
After preliminary screening, there are 1,355 covered bridges in the country, including 138 national key cultural relics protection units. There are 129 covered bridges in our province and 42 national key cultural protection units, of which 15 are located in Taishun.
For the future of a "bridge", scholars, experts and staff of relevant departments engaged in bridge-related research in more than 10 provinces across the country have fiercely collided with sparks of ideas.
What are the challenges of bridge protection?What kind of protection can make the bridge have a better future?
Hand in hand with the bridge to pass on.
In recent years, floods, fires and other factors have posed a threat to the orderly protection of covered bridges.
In May this year, the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage jointly issued the "Three-Year Action Plan for the Protection of Covered Bridges (2023-2025)", aiming to complete the special investigation of covered bridges during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.
The existing covered bridges are mainly built on remote mountain streams and streams, which makes it difficult to preserve. Huang Zi, chief expert of Zhejiang Ancient Architectural Design and Research Institute, told reporters that the protection of covered bridges should adhere to the combination of "prevention" and "elimination", promote various laws and regulations, support policies, and township rules and regulations to form a joint force, improve the awareness of the surrounding people, improve fire protection facilities, and carry out active and effective self-rescue actions in the first time when suffering from sudden accidents.
In fact, the moment the covered bridge stands on the stream, it is destined to fight against the wind and rain in the future, and behind the water damage, repair, and rebirth again and again, it is necessary to pass on the superb technology from generation to generation. At present, Taishun explores the protection, inheritance and utilization mode of the living cultural heritage of wooden arch bridges, and launches a series of inheritance mechanisms such as "mentoring apprentices" and "paid apprentices", providing financial subsidies to the newly built wooden arcade bridges built by the people in accordance with traditional skills, and the inheritors of the traditional construction skills of wooden arch bridges are expanding in echelons. It has successively repaired and repaired 15 ancient covered bridges, and built 46 new covered bridges with traditional skills. Innovate the digital supervision of corridor and bridge protection, realize the "one-click access" of meteorological forecasting in the 1-kilometer rain collection area, abnormal temperature and smoke alarm of the bridge body, emergency response to dangerous situations, etc., and also promote the introduction of the country's first special local regulations for the protection of corridor bridges, so as to realize that the protection and utilization of corridors and bridges have laws to follow, and promote the standardization and scientificization of corridor and bridge protection.
Huang Zi said that the protection of the covered bridge is not limited to the bridge itself, "It is necessary to conduct in-depth research together with the ancient roads and villages where the covered bridge is located, so that more people can understand the culture, value and significance of the protection of the covered bridge, so as to promote the continuous 'passing on' of the covered bridge." ”
The cohesive bridge comes alive.
Hand in hand with the bridge to "pass on", but also to focus on the bridge to "live".
Whether it is Zhejiang, Fujian or Guangxi, the forms of the covered bridges are varied, and the buildings themselves and decorations are very outstanding. Liu Jie, dean, professor and doctoral supervisor of the Department of Architecture of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, pointed out that the unique structure and beautiful shape of the covered bridge can not only arouse people's perception of beauty, but also be the empirical evidence of China's excellent traditional culture. As a kind of infrastructure of traditional society, the ancients built covered bridges not only for transportation purposes, but also for the integration of sacrifice, entertainment and leisure needs, reflecting the connotation of humanities and arts.
In recent years, many places have made efforts to excavate and spread the culture of covered bridges. For example, Taishun takes the "world's most beautiful covered bridges" Beijian Bridge and Xidong Bridge as the core to build a national 4A-level tourist attraction "Covered Bridge Cultural Park", which combines the culture and tourism of the covered bridge and attracts the majority of tourism enthusiasts to come to appreciate the covered bridge culture.
How to focus on promoting the bridge to better "live"?Huang Zi believes that the focus should be on telling the personalized story of the covered bridge, establishing "one bridge and one brand", and forming a joint development force with the surrounding characteristic resources and even the entire county resources, enhancing cultural self-confidence and cultural consciousness, and constantly nourishing the vitality of reality and activating lasting creativity by carrying out a variety of theme activities such as "sports + covered bridge", "intangible cultural heritage + covered bridge" and "art + covered bridge".
Push the covered bridge out of the way.
Let this "Chinese Bridge" cross mountain streams to cross national borders, and help the modern civilization of the Chinese nation and the world civilization to exchange and learn from each other, and it has also become the leading direction for experts, scholars and staff of relevant departments attending the meeting.
Since 2009, Taishun, as the leading county, has vigorously carried out joint application activities with six counties in Zhejiang and Fujian, including Pingnan, Zhenghe, Shouning, Zhouning, Jingning and Qingyuan, and the "Traditional Construction Skills of Chinese Wooden Arch Bridges" has been included in the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Protection, and the "Fujian and Zhejiang Wooden Arcade Bridges" have been officially included in the updated "Tentative List of China's World Cultural Heritage". As the only cultural heritage in China with the theme of bridges, the covered bridge fills the gap in China's world cultural heritage list in terms of geographical and cultural regions, types and themes.
In recent years, Taishun has successively carried out cultural exchanges with the United States, Japan, South Korea, etc., and held a series of activities such as the American Covered Bridge Academic Seminar, the China Covered Bridge Exhibition, the Covered Bridge Modeling Design Competition, and the Covered Bridge Lecture Hall.
Huang Zi pointed out that in addition to China, covered bridges are also distributed in Japan, Europe and other places, and relevant research should continue to be deepened, so as to better reveal the value of covered bridges to human beings and further be recognized by international experts. At the same time, it is necessary to carry out more diversified activation and utilization, so as to promote the better "going out" of the covered bridge.