The most famous of the traditional houses in Fujian is the Tulou,
followed by Sanfang Qixiang in Fuzhou. In the
"Chinese Folk Residences" series of stamps, the
"Fujian Folk Residences" pattern is a round earth building.
Aerial photography of the Hongkeng Tulou Group in Yongding, Fujian.
Photography: Liu Yanhui
Looking further south and east,
came to the hilly plains in southeast Fujian
and saw a large area of red coming towards us.
Between the blue sea and blue sky, there are red bricks, red tiles, red houses and red buildings everywhere
The author and photographer of this article will take you to explore:
Why are the houses in southern Fujian so red?
Looking at Quanzhou from the air, red occupies the "C position" in the city. The twin towers of Kaiyuan Temple built in the Song Dynasty are surrounded by red houses.
Photography: Fang Thomas
Fujian is known as the "Southeast Mountain Country". More than 90% of the land is covered by mountains and hills , and several small plains are arranged along the coast from north to south. Among them, southern Fujian occupies two places, namely Quanzhou Plain and Zhangzhou Plain . Together with Xiamen Island , they form the richest and densest urban area in Fujian.
If one color were used to represent southern Fujian, it would undoubtedly be red. The main body depicting this color is called Red Brick House, a traditional dwelling in southern Fujian. In layman's terms, it is a red brick house.
The red brick mansion and Haiyue Gong Ancestral Hall in Wudi City, Jinjiang City, Quanzhou City.
Photography: Yi Yanqiu
The footprint of this kind of red house covers Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, Xiamen. Affected by it, the neighboring Puxian, Chaoshan, and Taiwan were all built With its large red brick buildings, some people call this area the red brick cultural area.
Written by: Guo Youjing
Editor: Huo Si
※The author of this article Xiao Chunlei, who used the pen names Guo Youjing and Sikong Xiaoyue, is a famous writer in Fujian. He has published many articles on " Chinese Geography " and National Geographic Chinese website Collaborative Human Geography Topics.
Red brick houses, the most magnificent Fujian folk houses
Among the folk houses in Fujian, the most peculiar ones are the earth buildings in southwestern Fujian, and the most beautiful ones are the red brick houses in southern Fujian.
The structure of the of Minnan folk houses is generally three rooms in width, starting from three rooms. The central axis is the foyer, the patio, and the main hall. There is a room on the left and right of the front and back halls, and there are corridors on the left and right of the patio.
I looked at Wudian City North-facing House and Three Buildings in Wulin Village in Jinjiang, Quanzhou, Nan'an at Zhongxiandi, Zhangzhou at Cai Zhuchan's former residence, and Xiamen at Qiu Dewei House. The structures are basically the same.
A large red brick building in Wudi City, with the high-rise buildings that later emerged in the background.
Photography: Yi Yanqiu
Residential buildings across China are all made of blue bricks and blue tiles. Only the folk houses in southern Fujian use red bricks and red tiles, which they call "red materials". This is a very strange phenomenon.
matches this bright color with unique shapes and decorations.
is the roof first.
The main ridge of the roof of the folk houses in southern Fujian is called the swallow's tail ridge. The two ends stick out high and pointed, as if like a flying swallow's tail. In other parts of China, dovetail eaves are rarely used in residential buildings.
The shape of Jinjiang Cao'an Temple is the same as that of a red brick mansion, only it is taller.
Photography: Yi Yanqiu
Next is the decoration.
The detailed decoration of the house is extremely particular. The mirrored wall, the archway, the roof ridge, the end of the house, etc. are places where stone carvings, brick carvings, wood carvings, gray sculptures , and painted techniques are displayed to the fullest. In order to make the colors more brilliant, unique techniques such as Cochin pottery and cut-and-stick have been developed to make the decorations colorful.
So, from the outside, traditional folk houses in southern Fujian have beautiful shapes and bright colors. Judging from the color, the bottom is white stone base, and the top is red bricks and red tiles. The contrast between red and white is bright and moving.
Compared with residential buildings, temple buildings are even more gorgeous.The first three pictures show the roof decoration of Lingyuan Temple in Jinjiang, and the fourth picture shows the main hall of Lingyuan Temple in Jinjiang.
Photography: Yi Yanqiu
Among all the residential buildings in China, this is really a wonderful flower with exquisite carvings and colorful colors.
Southern Fujian is located near the Tropic of Cancer and is a southern subtropical region. On the blue seaside, the green shade of longan trees and lychee forests contrast with the bright red brick houses, which is always eye-catching.
So, why do the houses here use a lot of red bricks and red tiles? Why is it in southern Fujian? When did it start?
Various materials, including houses, are inseparable from the owner's lifestyle and spiritual temperament. So, to discover the secrets of the house, I decided to start with the people here.
Quanzhou Tianhou Temple , one of the earliest and largest Mazu temples built in China. Believers wrote their prayers on the new tiles and "contributed more" to the Tianhou Temple building through donations.
Photography: Fang Thomas
People from the Central Plains came to Fujian, from the plains to the mountains and seas
Fujian people can be roughly divided into two types: people in the mountains and people on the seaside. The people in the mountains are mainly the Hakka , while the people in northwestern Fujian are a group deeply influenced by the culture of Zhejiang and Jiangxi; the people on the seaside are divided into eastern Fujian and southern Fujian. No matter which region they are in, the majority are immigrants from the Central Plains of China of the Han nationality in the past dynasties.
Hokkien is no exception to . Immigrants from the Central Plains were familiar with farming, but due to population pressure, they were forced to develop towards the ocean. The Hokkien people in history created two glorious maritime eras: the first was the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and the second was the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.
out of bricks into stone , gargoyles, flower windows, stone carvings.
Photography: Yi Yanqiu
The second prelude started from Zhangzhou Yuegang .
html July port is different from other ports. China's ports, whether Guangzhou Port, Ningbo Ningbo Port, or the former Quanzhou Port, are passive seaports, mainly waiting for foreign merchant ships to come to trade. htmlFebruary Port is an active seaport, allowing Chinese ships to go to overseas trade.
A statue of Zheng Chenggong in a temple in Tainan City.
Photography: Wang Shedun
html The most profound impact of February's Hong Kong trade on China was the earliest introduction of American crops such as potatoes, corn, tobacco, peanuts, tomatoes, and peppers into the country, which changed the food structure of our nation . Another important result is that the sailing capabilities of the people in southern Fujian have been greatly improved. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the maritime armed forces of Zheng Zhilong and Zheng Chenggong and his son had controlled the southeastern coast.
The age of exploration of the southern Hokkien people has long ended. What is left for us to savor today are not only the foods originating from the Americas on the table, but also the red brick houses whose origins have been lost.
In the ancient city of Zhangzhou , the red arcades and Ming Dynasty stone archways on both sides form a sharp contrast. Photo courtesy of
: Chen Huaxian
The red house, is it endogenous or external?
So, why did southern Fujian develop unique red brick buildings?
Folk saying is this: Huang Huigu, the queen of the King of Fujian Wang Shenzhi, was from Quanzhou. Whenever there was continuous rainy weather, she would often cry in sadness. The King of Fujian asked her why. The Queen said that she remembered that her parents' house was leaky and could not stop the wind and rain. The King of Fujian immediately said: "I will give you a palace to build." When the imperial edict reached Quanzhou, the people mistakenly thought that Quanzhou could build a palace-style building in one palace, so they started to build a lot of construction projects. The legend of
is not very credible. What's more, during the Song and Yuan Dynasties, red brick buildings were not popular in southern Fujian.
Some people say that people in southern Fujian use red bricks because of the local red clay raw material. In fact, the raw materials used for green bricks and red bricks are ordinary clay, but the firing process is different.
The Chinese have been able to bake red bricks for a long time, but their use in residential buildings is not widespread. There are two reasons: etiquette prohibits the use of red bricks in the folk, and can only be used in palaces and temples; blue bricks are stronger and of better quality .
Kaiyuan Temple Palace Beltas, "Red brick white stone Shuangpo song, brick into the stone downtown ridge, carved beam painting houses", these are typical features of red brick buildings in southern Fujian.
Photography: Fang Tomas
Song Dynasty Quanzhou is a highly developed region of humanities. It is extremely rich, but there is no literature record. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Jiangsu people Wang Shizhen came to Fujian as an official and left a published "Fujian Shu" , which was engraved in 1585. It mentioned that Quanzhang people burned yellow tiles on the grounds of typhoons. tile tile , the residential house is like the palace, the roof ridges are weird, and the official office and the gentry's house are difficult to distinguish. is the earliest literature on the red brick brick. In my opinion,
also has a source of convincing: Minnan people use red brick and red tiles. Around the 1970s, the Yuekang sea merchants occupied the Spanish from , , , Essence The Spaniards invaded the Philippines in 1543 and often smuggled trade with Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. In 1568,
became a legal foreign trade port, and many commercial ships in southern Fujian went to the Philippines. The Spanish people have left red brick buildings in the Philippines and Taiwan, and some still exist, such as Taipei Red Maocheng. They used a large number of stone and red bricks and red tile buildings based on the traditional built by their own traditional construction, leaving a deep impression on the southern Fujian businessmen. After making a fortune, they were built in their hometown.
" Fanzi Building " on the campus.
Photo Conferring: Son Xiaobai
to Wang Shizhen came to Minnan, the red brick residence was already windy. Based on this, the time when the red bricks appeared in southern Fujian, not as early as 1543, and no later than 1585.
later exposed to Dutch and the British, which had more contact with the southern Fujian sea merchants, and also preferd red brick and red tiles, but they came later. Dutch 1624 occupied Taiwan Island and built castles and houses with red bricks. After 's children led by Zheng Chenggong's southern Fujian, after recovering Taiwan, they accepted it and expanded the impact of red brick buildings.
7 The 117th century, the Jetland Castle built in southern Taiwan, the red roof is very clear. was in ancient China, and the building was the same as clothing. It was a highly polite thing and had strict identity levels. There are laws and regulations in the dynasty to control the scale and shape of private architecture. Because red has always been used for the palace and high -level temples, it is strictly forbidden to lay colored roofs in officials and people. However, 's residential houses in Quanzhou not only red brick and red tiles, but also use red tube tiles to seriously violate regulations.
is a large -scale violation of the building level system. Only Fujian region will appear. Only Minnan talents will adventure for such a vanity. 's personality, focusing on the concept of township, contempt for regulations and mainstream ideology. The was banned in the Ming Dynasty. Quanzhanghai Merchants was forced to smuggle trade and was a pirate hunted by the government. Once
allowed Haitong, pirates werehed their hands in golden pots, and they turned into legal sea merchants. For hundreds of years, the maritime private trade is available, and the identity of the southern Fujian sea merchants has also been converted between businessmen and pirates. 's experience of also stealing and stealing has formed their temperament of adventure.
9th Century British painter's Taiwan freshwater, the red building residential house on the shore is exactly the same as the southern Fujian Fanzi Tower. Figure: Xu Zongyu
's personality of southern Fujian also has the side of the punch. has been engaged in overseas trade for a long time, and the people of southern Fujian have accumulated huge wealth, forming a popular atmosphere. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Quanzhanghai merchants that were in the end of the Ming Dynasty were full of wealth, no culture, and did not care about the government's camp law. They just wanted to win strange victory and show off the countryside. They learned a lot of stone and red brick and red tiles in the Spaniards, and they felt both reliable and festive.
, the blue brick gray tiles built earlier built by the landlord old wealth, suddenly lost color. The red brick dumplings are so fascinating, so the followers are like clouds and become popular. Hundreds of years later, they evolved into the mainstream residential style of southern Fujian, completely localized.
The red brick dumplings in Wulin Village, the Jinjiang Anhai Huang family temple.
Photography: Yi Yanqiu
is similar, and it has appeared once in modern times.At the beginning of the 20th century, the overseas Chinese in southern Fujian who immigrated to overseas in the late Qing Dynasty earned some money, and they built luxury homes in their hometown, Guangzong Yaozu. This time, they brought the style of the Nanyang colonies back to their ancestral homeland.
reviews the past 500 years, 's southeast coast and surrounding areas are turbulent, Western European , Nanyang, Central Plains, Fujian and other different cultures collide, absorb and fusion, red brick bricks, red Fanzilou Tower Tower Wait, it is one of the results.
looks at the north and south of the river. The ancient houses have a blue brick and gray tile, but the beauty is beautiful, but it is less colorful. Fortunately, the red bricks created by the southern Fujian people fill this gap.
has come to the night of the ancient lanes of Quanzhou West Street, and it still cannot hide the bright red roof.
Photography: Fang Tomas
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