TULOU
– Temporal Images of Hakka Villages in Fujian
Joensuu Art Museum ONNI, Joensuu, Finland. 2012
The exhibition’s photographs, all taken in 2006, are part of a long time project: I photograph people in their vernacular everyday settings in different parts of the world. I gravitate towards places where age-old building traditions are still a natural part of the daily habitat, and people are at one with their surroundings.
Tulou is the term for the fortress-like clan dwellings that the Hakka people of China have built through centuries in the remote mountainous regions of Fujian province.The Hakka people are thought to originate from the Northern Plains of China, from where they migrated south during a long period of time, escaping the turmoil of consecutive wars and invasions.The Hakka arrivals couldn’t fully escape the unrest in their new habitat either, and tulou as a building type was clearly developed with defence in mind. Tulou is a multi- storey courtyard building for an entire clan, enclosed by a thick massive wall.This outer wall is in most cases constructed of rammed earth, whereas the interior structures, complete with courtyard-facing balconies, are wooden. Tulou come in a variety of sizes and shapes; most often they are square or circular.
The clan may have its hierarchy but the spatial organisation of tulou is flexible and suggests equality: each family occupies a row-house-like vertical section of the building, with a given number of rooms atop of each other.The entries to the upper floor rooms are directly from the shared balcony-like walkways.The cooking facilities of each family are on the ground floor, partly occupying the courtyard. Everyday life in the building is communal in nature.There’s a shared well in the middle of the courtyard and the public space culminates in an altar for worshiping the ancestors.
Tulou has proved to be a viable building type.The oldest still existing tulou is known to originate from the beginning of 14th century; the most recent ones were built as late as in the 1960’s. A group of several clusters of tulou in and around Hukeng township was inscribed as World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2008.
Today, when China is facing immense and accelerating environmental problems and the urbanisation process seems to be out of control (when not controlled by force), the self-sufficient Hakka villages and their harmonious way of life could serve as an alternative model for a more sustainable future. Or is it too late?
