Kaiping Diaolou

Kaiping Diaolou is a special type of Chinese vernacular architecture. It is a multi-storey tower building integrating defense, residence and Chinese and Western architectural art. It is characterized by a combination of Chinese and Western dwellings, with the styles of ancient Greece, ancient Rome and Islam. The movies let bullets fly and a generation of masters were shot here.

Kaiping watchtowers include Liyuan, Zili village watchtowers, Chikan film and television city and jinjiangli watchtowers, which are worth visiting one by one.

Kaiping Diaolou

Kaiping Diaolou, located in Kaiping City under the jurisdiction of Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province, is a special type of Chinese vernacular architecture. It is a multi-storey tower building integrating defense, residence and Chinese and Western architectural art. It is characterized by a combination of Chinese and Western dwellings, with a variety of styles such as ancient Greek, ancient Roman and Islamic.

On June 25, 2001, it was approved by the State Council to be listed in the fifth batch of national key cultural relics protection units.

On June 28, 2007, "Kaiping Diaolou and ancient village" applied for world cultural heritage project, which was approved at the 31st World Heritage conference of New Zealand and officially included in the world heritage list, becoming the 35th World Heritage in China. Thus, the first world heritage project of overseas Chinese culture was born in China.

In December 2017, it was selected as the second batch of Chinese 20th century architectural heritage.

Evolution of construction

Since the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) < / I, Kaiping, located between Xinhui, Taishan, Enping and Xinxing counties, has been a "four no matter" place, where bandits are rampant, social security is chaotic, and there are many rivers. Every time there are typhoons, rainstorms and floods, local people are forced to build blockhouses in the village to protect themselves.

In the 17th year of Chongzhen in the late Ming Dynasty (1644 AD), the society was in turmoil, and bandits often harassed the people. In order to protect the safety of the villagers, Guan Zirui, the fourth son of Lu'an Gong, built a Ruiyun building in jingtouli village. This building is very strong and has two functions of flood control and anti-theft. When there is a flood or disturbance by bandits, the villagers of jingtouli village and the adjacent sanmenli village go to ruiyunlou to take shelter.

In 1884, the Tanjiang River was flooded and many houses were flooded nearby. All the villagers in sanmenli, Chikan, Kaiping survived because they boarded the watchtower in time.

In 1912, situ built the South Building for burglars. The building is 7 floors and 19 meters high, covering an area of 29 square meters. It is of reinforced concrete structure. Each floor is equipped with rectangular gun holes. The sixth floor is equipped with machine guns and searchlights for the watchtower. During the Anti Japanese War, the self defense forces of situ's four townships were located here. In the same year, Mr. Xie Yongheng, the father of Comrade Xie Chuang, built the "Zhongshan building" and named it in memory of Sun Yat Sen.

In the 14 years from the first year of the Republic of China (1912) to the 15th year of the Republic of China (1926), the school was robbed eight times and more than 100 teachers and students were abducted. Among them, in December of 1922, when the bandits robbed Kaiping middle school in Chikan area, they were hit by the searchlight of the watchtower in Yingcun village. Four rural groups intercepted them in time, and 17 principals and students were intercepted. The incident caused a sensation in the whole county, and the overseas Chinese were also very surprised when they heard about it. They felt that Diaolou had played a role in preventing banditry. Therefore, they spared no expense outside. They invited people to design the blueprint of Diaolou in their country of residence, took it back to their hometown to build it, and collected funds to build it back home. Later, in order to protect their families and protect their property, some overseas Chinese built various Diaolou style buildings one after another when they returned home to build new houses. At most, there were more than 3000 Diaolou style buildings, of which 1833 are now < I (as of 2007) < / I

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Cultural relics

By building materials

According to different building materials, it can be divided into reinforced concrete building, green brick building, mud building, stone building, etc.

Reinforced concrete building

Most of the reinforced concrete buildings were built in the 1920s and 1930s. They were designed and built by overseas Chinese who absorbed the different characteristics of buildings from all over the world. The whole Diaolou is made of cement, sand, stone and steel. After completion, it is very strong and durable. However, because the building materials at that time were imported from abroad, the cost was high. In order to save materials, some inner floors were made of wooden pavilions.

Blue brick building

There are three kinds of green brick watchtowers: inside mud and outside green brick, inside cement and outside green brick and green brick masonry. Mud inside and green brick outside. This kind of Diaolou is actually the mud brick building mentioned above. However, it is inlaid with a layer of green bricks on the surface of the mud wall. In this way, it is not only beautiful, but also can prolong the service life of the Diaolou. Cement inside and green brick outside. The wall of this watchtower looks like a blue brick building on the surface. In fact, it is covered with blue bricks inside and outside. A small amount of steel and cement is used in the middle to make the building stronger. However, it is cheaper than using all steel and cement, and keeps its beautiful features. Blue brick building. All of them are made of green bricks, which are more economical, beautiful and durable, and adapt to the characteristics of more rain in the south.

Mud building

Mud building includes mud brick building and yellow mud ramming building. Mud brick building is to make mud bricks one by one and use them as building materials after drying. In order to prolong the service life of mud brick, craftsmen often put a layer of lime sand or cement on the outside of mud brick wall when building mud building, so as to protect and reinforce it. The Diaolou rammed with yellow mud is made of yellow mud, lime, sand and brown sugar mixed in proportion as raw materials, and then rammed with two large wooden boards to form a wall. This rammed yellow mud wall is generally more than one foot thick, and its firmness can be compared with that of reinforced concrete wall.

Stone building

Stone towers are made of mountain stones or cobblestones. They are rough and short in shape, but they are strong and durable. There are few such towers, mainly distributed in Dasha and other mountainous areas

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By function

According to different functions, it can be divided into Zhonglou, julou and Gengling Lou, among which julou is the most.

Zhonglou

After being built in the village, the buildings are jointly built by the whole village or several families, with one room for each family to temporarily shelter from bandits or floods. Its shape is closed and simple, with less external decoration and strong defense. Among the three types of Diaolou, Zhonglou is the earliest. There are 473 existing Diaolou, accounting for 26% of Kaiping Diaolou.

Residential building

Most of the residential buildings are built in the back of the village, which are wholly owned by wealthy families. It combines the defense and living functions of the watchtower. The building is tall, with open space, perfect living facilities and convenient living. The shape of the residential building is more diverse, beautiful and elegant, and the external decoration is strong. On the basis of meeting the defense function, the pursuit of the formal beauty of the building often becomes the symbol of the village. There are 1149 existing residential buildings, accounting for 62% of the Diaolou in Kaiping.

Watchtower

Watchtowers are mainly built at the entrance of the village or on the hills and riverbanks outside the village. They stand tall and have a wide field of vision. Most of them are equipped with searchlights and alarms, which are convenient for early detection of banditry and early warning to villages. They are the products of the joint defense of surrounding villages. There are 221 watchtowers, accounting for 12% of Kaiping watchtowers.

Typical buildings

Cultural relic value

historical value

Kaiping Diaolou is an important historical and cultural landscape that actively accepts foreign culture in the period of social transformation in China. The era of large-scale construction of Kaiping Diaolou is just the stage of transition from traditional Chinese society to modern society. The impact of foreign culture on traditional culture is different. Western style architecture in some coastal cities is mainly passively accepted from abroad, while Diaolou group in Kaiping is the product of Chinese rural people's active acceptance of western architectural art and integration with local architectural art. Different places of residence, different aesthetic values, created a variety of Kaiping Diaolou

. The historical function of Kaiping Diaolou is mainly to avoid bandits, which has played a significant role in protecting the lives and property of overseas Chinese and villagers. In the later period of the Anti Japanese War, in order to prevent the Japanese aggressors, a short cut was opened up from Siyi to Liangyang, which was from Xinhui and Jiangmen to Guangzhou, and connected to form a traffic line from South Road to Guangzhou

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artistic value

Kaiping Diaolou integrates the unique architectural art of Chinese traditional rural architectural culture and Western architectural culture, and becomes a monument of Chinese overseas Chinese culture, reflecting the process of Chinese overseas Chinese and the people's active acceptance of western culture. In Kaiping architecture, there are different styles of architectural art in different periods in foreign countries, such as the colonnade of ancient Greece, the column, arch and dome of ancient Rome, the Gothic pointed arch and Islamic style arch of European Middle Ages, the European castle components, the arcade of Portuguese architecture, the Renaissance period and the European Baroque style architecture of 17th century.

Cultural value

Kaiping Diaolou is the most typical representative of the characteristics of Chinese overseas Chinese culture. Overseas Chinese are the disseminators of culture. The integration and collision of Chinese and foreign cultures is the inevitable product of its development. The cultural conflicts it brings are bound to touch all aspects of Chinese traditional society and all walks of life, which is also the common law of the world's immigrant culture. This kind of cultural conflict and blend is very externalized in Kaiping. It still maintains its own tradition. The vernacular architecture of the integration of Chinese and Western architectural culture is rare in the countryside, mainly in the counties and towns.

Kaiping Diaolou embodies the traditional environmental awareness and Fengshui concept of the people living in the hometown of overseas Chinese. It is a beautiful combination of planning, architecture, natural environment and humanistic concept. This single building, Diaolou, is mainly distributed in the back of the village, and forms a harmonious environment with deep roots, luxuriant leaves, safe accumulation of wealth and cultural prosperity with the surrounding bamboo forest, pond in front of the village and banyan trees at the entrance of the village. The point style watchtower is combined with a piece of folk houses

Chinese PinYin : Kai Ping Diao Lou