Cuimei Building (left) and Jinshi Building (right) in Pushan Village, Nanjing County.
Fujian Tulou Activation and Utilization" theme special exhibition hall.
The old building of Zhaihe in Wuzhai Township, Pinghe County. The above ** are provided by Xu Tiantian.
Recently, a special exhibition on the theme of "Revitalization and Utilization of Tulou in Fujian" is being held at the Cité d'Architecture et de l'Architecture (Musée National d'Architecture de France) in Paris, showcasing to the public the practical experience of revitalizing and utilizing tulou in Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province, China over the past three years.
Tulou is one of the most beautiful buildings and structures I have ever seen. In Taxia Village, Nanjing County, Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province, I stood for the first time in front of a centuries-old tulou – a building built for survival where hundreds of people lived collectively to defend against foreign enemies. The building system is simple and average, each unit is vertical, the same space unit, the first floor is the kitchen, the second floor is the warehouse, and the third floor and above are bedrooms. Because the design of the tulou is minimalist and extremely functional, it is extremely beautiful.
With the passage of time, the life style of the Tulou represented by living together, working together, and defending against the enemy has gradually changed, and its cultural value has not diminished: especially the traditional architectural techniques such as mortise and tenon wooden structures and rammed earth walls, which are particularly inspiring in today's focus on sustainable development. At the same time, renewing traditional vernacular architecture and giving it a new value of the times is also one of the common issues faced by different countries.
The exhibition on the revitalization and utilization of tulou has received wide attention.
In 2008, at the 32nd World Heritage Conference held in Quebec City, Canada, Fujian Tulou was inscribed on the World Heritage List. In China, tulou is a well-known cultural treasure, but it is still not well known overseas, even if the architect community is unfamiliar with this type of architecture. In 2023, I won the Global Sustainable Architecture Award, and the French side proposed the idea for this exhibition. Therefore, on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Fujian Tulou being listed as a World Cultural Heritage Site, we held such an exhibition.
In the form of stage scenery, the exhibition presents the unique local architectural tradition and historical style, as well as the new image and functional transformation after the activation and utilization, showing how the tulou carries the collective memory in the process of comprehensive revitalization of China's rural areas and highlights the unique cultural identity of the local area. Not far from the window of the exhibition hall, the Eiffel Tower, which is also a world cultural heritage, and the model of the tulou are facing each other in the distance.
The exhibition has attracted tens of thousands of visitors, including UNESCO staff, Chinese culture enthusiasts, architects and artists from all over France. Many construction professionals want to visit Fujian tulou in China, and in their opinion, the revitalization of tulou embodies the innovation of sustainable development concept, which can bring positive impact and model effect to the preservation and renewal of traditional buildings in other countries and regions. "Through the Tulou project, we see that a sustainable future can be linked to the local historical narrative" and that "the revitalization of the tulou expands the boundaries of architecture and makes it work for local development".
Françoise Rand, curator of the Musée National d'Architecture of France, commented: "The revitalization of Fujian tulou fully takes into account the village environment in which the tulou is located, respects and continues the original architectural technology and spatial layout, skillfully retains historical traces and living memories, and allows local residents to make full use of these traditional buildings again through micro-interventions and public function renewal, injecting new social, economic and cultural vitality into them." ”
Activation and utilization stimulate the vitality of tulou.
Fujian tulou is scattered in the embrace of green waters and green mountains in southwest Fujian, integrating the landscape of mountainous areas and ** belts, and is a defensive building that can be collectively inhabited by hundreds of people. Tulou usually consists of an inward-facing circular or square floor plan, each of which is several storeys high, and was mostly built between the 15th and 20th centuries, which is a valuable historical treasure. Through field visits, we learned that in addition to the 46 tulou buildings inscribed on the World Heritage List, there are thousands of tulou in Fujian, most of which are idle and abandoned or even collapsed, and only a few are still inhabited.
The tulou building is built using natural methods such as rammed earth walls and traditional mortise and tenon wooden structures, which is extremely eco-friendly. The reuse of existing tulou can reduce the number of new buildings and reduce carbon emissions, while preserving local cultural identity and driving local economic development. After cooperating with Zhangzhou City and local residents and conducting joint research with Huang Hanmin, an expert in the protection of tulou buildings, we finally selected 7 dilapidated tulous of different types to start the exploration and practice of revitalization and utilization. These 7 tulou buildings are Shengping Building and Qifeng Building in Xinxu Town, Shajian Town, Hua'an County, Zhangzhou City, Cuimei Building, Jinshi Building, and Shide Building in Pushan Village, Nanjing County, as well as Binyang Building in Tulou Group in Banzi Town, Pinghe County, and Zhaihe Old Building in Wuzhai Township.
We adopt a micro-intervention approach, i.e. only partial repairs to the existing Tulou building, rather than complete restoration. At the same time, it provides rich spatial changes to the collapsed sections, such as retaining the trees that have grown in the ruins over the past few decades and integrating them into the new landscape. For inhabited tulou, such as Jinshi Building and Cui Mei Building, we have improved the living conditions through necessary repairs, transformed the vacant internal space into a place for activities and leisure, and opened the family kitchen to welcome visitors. This will not only allow tourists to deeply experience the traditional tulou life, but also increase the income of local residents.
For tulou buildings that have been vacant for many years but are still surrounded by dense villages, we have renovated and transformed them into new community centers to increase the comprehensive service function. For example, the Binyang Building, which is in a dilapidated state, has been converted into a community center to preserve the collective memory of the past dozens of generations living together. The part of the building that was damaged by plant growth was not rebuilt, but was converted into a courtyard garden to reserve space for trees to grow. Another example is that the Qifeng Building has been vacant for more than 30 years and has been rebuilt.
The first and second floors are displayed on the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities dominated by the She ethnic group, the top floor is changed to a homestay, and the collapsed wall at the entrance is reinforced.
At the same time, we pay attention to the architectural characteristics and historical context of each tulou, and revitalize it into a unique modern cultural facility. For example, the rammed earth walls of the old building in Zhaihe have many fragments of Clark porcelain, and there is a historical kiln site in Wuzhai Kiln, which is suitable for revitalization and utilization as a tourist reception center and a Clark porcelain research center. For example, the 400-year-old Sheng Ping Lou is the only southern Fujian tulou in the area with granite walls, and we have retained this feature by adding part of the original building form and using new technology to upgrade the internal timber structure of the traditional tulou for exhibitions or open-air performances, not only building a new space, but also adding new functions. In the future, Shengping Building will become the cultural center of southern Fujian opera.
The convergence and echo of Chinese and French architectural cultures.
The revitalization of tulou resonates strongly in France. Locals are no strangers to rammed earth walls, an architectural tradition and cultural heritage common to traditional French houses, which flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and buildings that could also reach several storeys high. In the area between Grenoble and Lyon, a large number of high-quality traditional rammed-earth buildings are common, but similar to the situation of Fujian tulou, with the changing needs of modern life, traditional French local houses and architectural heritage are also in an idle and abandoned state, and traditional skills need to be passed on.
The Musée National d'Architecture of France, where the exhibition is held, is also intrinsically compatible with Fujian Tulou. First of all, both are about "reuse". Built in the 18th century, the Musée National d'Architecture of France was closed for many years, but has been reused as a theatre, lecture hall and museum, and has been reopened again and again to serve the public. Fujian tulou also withered for a time, and after the successful application for the World Heritage Site, it once again entered the public eye and integrated into daily life. Secondly, they are both about architecture and beyond the architecture itself, and have gradually become the infrastructure of contemporary public culture. Today, the Musée National d'Architecture of France not only displays famous historical buildings and murals, but also hosts exhibitions of modern architecture and discusses topics such as urban development and the preservation of architectural heritage. With the help of the organic renewal of functions and the activation and utilization of space, Fujian tulou has gradually transformed from a residential house into a public cultural platform and a spiritual home of the community.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France. The exhibition "Activation and Utilization of Fujian Tulou" is a wave in the cultural exchanges between the two countries. Today, when sustainable development has increasingly become a global consensus, we look forward to more interdisciplinary exploration and cooperation with our French counterparts in the fields of architecture, vernacular and society, as well as more cross-cultural exchanges and mutual learning, so as to jointly create a better and harmonious future. (ENDS).
The author is an architect and a professor at the School of Architecture of Tsinghua University
Written by Xu Tiantian.