Carved building

Carved building

Carved building is an architectural building with wood and brick carving as its characteristics. There are only three ancient carved buildings in Jiangsu, one in Jinting town (Xishan), one in Dongshan Town and one in Gaogang District of Taizhou city. Suzhou Xishan carving building is located in the ancient village of Xishan Tangli in Taihu Lake, Suzhou. The original name of Xishan carving building is "Ren Ben Tang", which comes from the meaning of "Ren Ben Tang, Li Jiao Ben". Gaogang Diaohua building is located in Xiangyang Branch Road of Gaogang District, sitting in the West and East. It is composed of two main buildings with five rooms in front and five in back and three in left and three in right. It is a square building. Suzhou Wuxian Diaohua building is a cultural relic protection unit of Jiangsu Province. It is a folk house with southern style. It reflects the wisdom and talent of Xiangshan craftsmen in wood carving, brick carving, stone carving, architectural conception and gardening art, with high artistic value.

Gaogang Diaohua building

Diaohua building, Gaogang District, Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province

Architectural appearance

When the river goes to the East, countless heroes are washed out, leaving behind thousands of great achievements. From the surging waves, a port town emerged. From the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, businessmen who made a lot of money by operating passenger and freight transportation by virtue of the rolling river built a beautiful carved building in the town.

The carved floor is set to the East in a square shape. It is composed of two main buildings with five rooms in front and back and three rooms in the left and right. The patio is in the middle and surrounded by buildings. In the past, few people came in and out, and most people in the town didn't know its "true features", so they used to call it "sifanglou".

The appearance of the carved building is simple and ordinary. The walls made of green bricks and the roofs covered with gray tiles do not look very different from ordinary ancient buildings. Even if you come to the front of the building for a close observation, you will feel that it is very ordinary. At most, the external walls are slightly higher and the building volume is slightly larger.

Architectural decoration

When you enter the building, stand behind the screen door of the front building and look around the patio. From top to bottom, from front to back, from left to right, where you can reach, there are all kinds of carved flowers. Under the light above the patio, the eye-catching carved components are dazzling and amazing!

On the roof at the top of the building, there are grey plastic patterns at the center and both ends of each ridge. The skillful bricklayer mixed the glutinous rice juice, hydrated lime and plant ash into a bluish white paste, and piled the patterns of three stars of fortune and longevity, Qilin Songzi, Phoenix peony and dark eight immortals. In addition to the tile head and dripping water with embossed pattern, the cornice sealing board with carved twig pattern is also added on the inside of the cornice where the roof goes down along the tile row.

For the carved building, the decoration on the roof is only the prelude of the whole building, and the wood carving in the patio is the most important part of the carving in the building.

First of all, in the corridor close to the eaves of the patio building, the woodcarvers carved the head of the single step beam between the eaves column and the step column into a round head with long beard, open mouth and exposed teeth, and an elephant head with big nose and thin eyes, fat ears and raised teeth, just like a dragon head and elephant head protruding from the corridor under the eaves to the outside of the patio. In addition, the round beams were made into flat ones, and a wooden brace was superimposed on the top of each beam to increase the area on both sides of the beam. On the top of the beams, the patterns composed of Phoenix, flying swallow, pomegranate, peony, lotus, Taiping flower, pine, bamboo, plum and chrysanthemum were carved. Then, on the outside of the corridor, square cantilevered eaves columns are installed, and stick railings are erected between the columns. On the top and middle of the railing, there are a bunch of nodal columns, and at the bottom are 52 hollowed out and carved flower boards. On the balustrade heads on both sides of the eaves column, there are carved out a little lion with crooked head, laughing and squatting. Probably because the carving is so popular, it is unknowingly picked up by those who know the treasure, so that there are fewer and fewer cubs. Fortunately, there is only one left, which becomes a kind of lion to be carved when repairing the building.

It is located in the lower part of the carved board of the railings on the upper floor, and at the connection between the upper floor and the outer side of the eaves on the lower floor (the part called Chengban in Huizhou architecture), which is the most wonderful and beautiful place of the carved building. There are dozens of carving patterns with rich contents and exquisite craftsmanship, which are spread out continuously around the East, South, West and north sides of the patio, so as to decorate the building magnificently and richly.

The east facing facade of the courtyard facing the gate is the first part to be seen. There are three groups of carved boards of the same width as the three buildings in the back. Kirin, Malus, Wutong leaves and other shapes are carved on the left and right two flower panels respectively. One after another, the petals of lotus flowers are surrounded by flower frames. Inside, they are carved into Kirin, bat, crane, Phoenix, bergamot, walnut and other patterns with high relief and low relief. Two dragons are carved to protect a city tower. Two generals dressed as military officers on the city tower sit at their desks and talk about important military affairs in high spirits. There are square seals on the desks, carved curtains in front of the desks, drum stools between the desks, and Deputy generals beside each other. A wooden plaque is hung on the back wall and the three characters "Yellow Crane Tower" are engraved on it. There are Phoenix sword, lion plate Hydrangea, elephant and bird patterns on both sides. The Yellow Crane Tower is a famous scenic spot. It is said that it was built for military purposes. It is also said that someone once opened a hotel here, full of guests and prosperous business. The owner of the carving tower carves a pattern named "Yellow Crane Tower" here, which compares Si tower with the Yellow Crane Tower, one of the four famous buildings in the south of the Yangtze River? Is it to show the brilliance of his life? Or something else? It's hard to solve the mystery.

The engraving boards on the South and north sides of Tianjing are connected with the east facing ones. The patterns are directly carved on the boards without borders. A double eaves gate tower is carved in the middle of the south facade. A bat with a string of copper coins flies under the gate, and four bats fly to the gate tower from nearby, forming the auspicious atmosphere of "five blessings facing the gate". A phoenix with a sword is carved at the top left of the gate, and a unicorn is carved at the bottom right. Like all the patterns in the middle, there are two vanilla dragons on both sides of this group of "five blessings facing the door", which are seen opposite each other as the side ornaments of the pattern. On the outside of the dragon, there are bats carrying Ruyi, melons on vines, Ganoderma lucidum in the mountains, fish swimming in the water, crabs, persimmon trees, etc.; on the left side of a long flower board, there are 10 sika deer in a pine forest, either running, jumping, or concentrating, or looking back, or the young deer nestling in the arms of the female deer, or a pair of male and female are speechless, and a young deer only shows the first half of its body and opens out at the entrance of the tree Look. Ten deer means "food salary", to be outstanding, to eat the national salary. There is also a mountain forest carved on the long flower board on the right. On the undulating mountain, under the branches and leaves of pines, cypresses and willows, six goats are leisurely, and their heads are all facing the word "sun" in the sky. Goat and the sun symbolize "Three Yang Kaitai", but generally there are only three goats. Here are six goats, which may mean "Three Yang Kaitai" and "Liuliu Dashun".

The carved patterns on the North facade echo the south facade. Among them, there are also two dragon fences forming a group of patterns. In a double eaves hexagonal pavilion, there is a Luan bird. On one side of the pavilion, there is a horse tied to the pillar, and on the other side, there is a lion dribbling the ball. All around are pine trees, Ganoderma lucidum, and the Luan bird with Ganoderma lucidum flying from the sky. On one side of the design, there is a peach garden. The trees are full of mature peaches. Five monkeys climb trees, pick peaches, hold peaches and eat peaches. Peach shows longevity, monkey is called Marquis, with peach monkey, intended to promote longevity. On one side of the vineyard, five squirrels with small head, sharp mouth and big tail shuttle through the vineyard. On the left side of the long flower board, there are four oxen looking up at the moon, which is probably the homonym of "rhinoceros looking at the moon"; on the right side, there are eight steeds with different looks and fat bodies.

The layout and expression of the carved patterns on the West facade of the patio are the same as those on the East, but the designs are different from each other. The flower wall in the middle is carved with an arc gate with 4 columns and 3 doors. A basin of evergreen is carved on the top of the side column of the middle gate, and two dragons and pearls are carved on the arc-shaped door frame. A gourd is carved on the top of the side gate column. In traditional Chinese architecture, it is rare to have three connected arc doors. After careful observation, a layer of flower board was carved on the top of the two side doors. In the fan-shaped figure carved on the flower board, the word "foreign gate" is engraved in the shade, indicating that it is an absorbing foreign culture. On the top of the foreign gate is carved the ancient Chinese round coin with square holes, which is a combination of Chinese and western. It forms an artistic image of one China and one west with the carved pattern of the Yellow Crane Tower on the opposite side. Inside the crabapple shaped and maple leaf shaped frames on both sides of the Yangmen gate, there are carvings of the golden pheasant, the magpie, the two deer accompanying each other, the lion with the globe, and the winged flying horse. They are not only common patterns of Chinese people, but also exotic customs challenging the tradition. The lion's long hair is combed back, and the globe at the foot is engraved with longitude and latitude. There are lots of sculptures on the earth of China, and the lion dribbling here is probably the only one in ancient Chinese architecture. On the flower boards on both sides, there are carved Phoenix under the tree, golden pheasant standing on the branch, simple and honest elephant and smiling leopard, all of which are vivid and lifelike. In addition, there are pictures of chess, piano, calligraphy and painting, which add a lot of Literati Spirit.

The carved boards around the patio are mostly cypress wood with good quality, which adopts high relief technique. Next to the eaves of these carved boards, there are a large area of hollowed out carvings. The top and bottom two rows of curved wooden strips, which are shaped like ruyi heads, are decorated with decorative patterns, which just enlarge the carving effect and make the upper and lower patterns contrast with each other.

In the hanging room outside the eaves column, clever sculptors used hollow carving techniques to carve out large flower baskets and hang them under the wooden Fang. The flower basket is engraved with hexagonal and swastika patterns on the outside, and the inside

Chinese PinYin : Diao Hua Lou