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Introduction:
The traditional residential buildings in the western part of Fujian Province in south China- Hakka Earth Buildings are named by the UNESCO as the eighth world wonder.
Hakka Earth Buildings look as grandiose and imposing as the ancient Roman Coliseum. They are suspected to be the source of inspiration for the designs of many modern stadiums. Because of their unique design, magnificent structure and its anti-humidity and anti-earthquake nature, Hakka Earth Buildings have been branded as the legendary residential building on earth.
Hakka people used to live in central China . They were forced to move down to Fujian Guangdong and Guangxi several hundred years ago because of wars. Since the Hakka people moved to Fujian from somewhere else, they had different customs and culture from the local people, as the result there were frictions between them. To protect themselves, they built these circular earth buildings, which were able to house as many as a thousand families. However after centuries of vicissitudes, the original tensions between the early Hakka settlers and the local people in Fujian Guangdong and Guangxi are long gone. So the defense function was largely reduced.
A typical earth building had three to five floors. The first floor was used as kitchen the second floor for storage and the third and the fourth floors as living quarters.
It is already quite rare now to see many people living in the same earth building. Nowadays as people are getting richer and the living standards are getting better, many people have moved out of the earth buildings to live in their own houses. So the earth buildings are gradually becoming architecture of historical values something to see rather than to live in. Each family now enjoys much better privacy than before. |
