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Diaolou tower over landscape
August 21, 2011, Sunday
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KAIPING villages feature the diaolou, multi-story defensive village houses, which display a complex and flamboyant fusion of Chinese and Western structural and decorative forms.
They reflect the significant role of emigre Kaiping people in the development of several countries in South Asia, Australasia and North America, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
There are four groups of diaolou and 20 of the most symbolic ones are inscribed on the list. These buildings take three forms: communal towers built by several families and used as temporary refuge, residential towers built by individual rich families and used as fortified residences, and watch towers.
Built of stone, pise, brick or concrete, the buildings represent a complex fusion of Chinese and Western architectural styles.
Retaining a harmonious relationship with the surrounding landscape, the diaolou testify to the final flowering of local building traditions that started in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in response to local banditry.
The UNESCO World Heritage website says, "The diaolou and their surrounding villages demonstrate outstanding universal value for their complex and confident fusion between Chinese and Western architectural styles, for their completeness and unaltered state resulting from their short life span as fortified dwellings and their comparative abandonment and for harmonious relationship with their agricultural landscape."
It has been listed as UNESCO World Heritage in 2007.
(UNESCO website)
They reflect the significant role of emigre Kaiping people in the development of several countries in South Asia, Australasia and North America, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
There are four groups of diaolou and 20 of the most symbolic ones are inscribed on the list. These buildings take three forms: communal towers built by several families and used as temporary refuge, residential towers built by individual rich families and used as fortified residences, and watch towers.
Built of stone, pise, brick or concrete, the buildings represent a complex fusion of Chinese and Western architectural styles.
Retaining a harmonious relationship with the surrounding landscape, the diaolou testify to the final flowering of local building traditions that started in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in response to local banditry.
The UNESCO World Heritage website says, "The diaolou and their surrounding villages demonstrate outstanding universal value for their complex and confident fusion between Chinese and Western architectural styles, for their completeness and unaltered state resulting from their short life span as fortified dwellings and their comparative abandonment and for harmonious relationship with their agricultural landscape."
It has been listed as UNESCO World Heritage in 2007.
(UNESCO website)
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