NIKOLAI Gogol once said, "When all the songs and stories are silent, architecture speaks."

The Russian writer would have looked askance at what some of China's neglected old buildings have to say.

Some of China's most treasured architectural heritage is being allowed to crumble into oblivion because no one seems to care about protecting and preserving old buildings.

No one, that is, but businessman Li Jianzhong.

Over the past 10 years, Li has traveled more than 60,000 kilometers to more than 100 sometimes remote towns in nine provinces to "collect" ancient architecture. The wealthy entrepreneur now has acquired more than 200 buildings, selected from thousands of structures.

"It is a crime to let ancient buildings decay and dilapidate without taking protective measures," Li said with a sigh.

Finding these buildings is just part of Li's ambitious plans. He said he wants to restore them to their former glory. To that end, he has cooperated with municipal property authorities to embark on a mega project on a bank of the Huangpu River to create a "theme park" of sorts, featuring ancient Chinese structures.

He has acquired a parcel of land up to 70,000 square meters in area below the Xupu Bridge as a site to accommodate the reconstruction of about 80 old buildings now in storage.

All the structures in Li's park will be reconstructions of old buildings. After six years of preparatory work, the park is expected to open within a year.

Li's vision doesn't stop here. He is currently negotiating with Minhang District officials on another project - a cultural and ecological park that will use some of his old buildings as museums, pavilions and performance centers.

Li is as interesting as some of the old buildings he is out to preserve.

On bustling Hongzhong Road, a mottled brick path winds its way into the deeply secluded Feiyinglou club, housed in an exquisite Hui-style timber building from the reign of Emperor Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Inside the building, Li sits on a Western-style sofa, sipping a cup of tea.

Li, 54, was born in Shanghai. When he was six years old, his parents moved to the city of Guiyang in Guizhou Province, where they went to help people in an impoverished outlying area. He was educated there and then served in the military. In 1988, he returned to Shanghai, where he worked in tourism briefly before embarking on the career that was to bring him wealth.

He started out designing interiors for hotels and shopping malls in the early 1990s. In 2001, he expanded his interests, acquiring a chain of popular Guizhou cuisine restaurants in Shanghai. Some of the restaurants are inside old houses collected by Li.

Li turned Feiyinglou into a tranquil but fashionable private club. Its delicately carved patterns and wood beams were retained, but an innovative touch was been added with old Shanghai and Western furnishings and stained glass. A quaint antique-looking birdcage dangles from the ceiling, hiding a movie projector. Eschewing the dark, "heavy atmosphere" of traditional buildings, Li installed a large clear glass window in one of the walls, overlooking bamboo groves outside. Skylights open up the ceiling, and multi-colored lighting has been installed throughout.

There is a Western-style dining table, but only Chinese cuisine is offered. Traditional Chinese operas are sometimes staged here.

"I believe there is no better way to protect and showcase ancient architecture than by reconstructing it with links with modern daily life, including some amenities," he said.

"Just imagine how much fun it is to enjoy music, a spa, a performance or just a cup of coffee in the setting of one of these old buildings!" Li said. He even thought of building a heated swimming pool in one of his collection, but nothing has come of that "daydream" yet, he said.

Buildings not listed as cultural heritage sites under government protection are simply left to the ravages of time and neglect.

Like other buildings in Li's "collection," Feiyinglou doesn't belong to the city. Li purchased it in Huizhou, Anhui Province, disassembled it, transported it to Shanghai and reconstructed it here.

His love of old buildings runs deep into his soul. "It was the buildings that I failed to purchase that left scars in my heart," he said.

One heartbreaker was an ancestral shrine that he came across in Jinghua, Zhejiang Province. Built in the early Qing Dynasty, it covered about 800 square meters and had an ancient stage in it. About a third of the building had collapsed by the time Li discovered it.

"When I stepped into it, I was struck by how exquisite the building must have been in its heyday," Li said. He immediately wanted to acquire it.

Nobody lived there, but the building was used as a village gathering spot. It was a public property. To purchase it, Li had to gain the approval of up to 80 households in the village. As part of the deal, he offered to build a new activity center for villagers. Some balked.

The standstill lasted for years. Every year, Li visited the place, trying to persuade villagers to accept his offer. Again and again, he failed. As time went on, the building decayed further. Finally, it fell into a state beyond redemption.

"No one cares," he said. "They just let it stand there and rot. It is such a big regret."

Every time he gets a tip-off about some promising derelict building, Li checks photos first and then rushes to the scene if it looks promising. He has negotiated prices with local residents for many old buildings, some of which are located in the poorest of villages.

Dismantle and reconstruct

Ancient architecture typically involves complex structures and an enormous number of components. Therefore, one mistake in the process of dismantling can lead to the collapse of the whole structure.

The dismantling process first involves the removal of decorative components, which can number in the thousands of pieces of wood, bricks and stone. They are carefully packed in dozens of containers.

It takes from 15 days to a month to dismantle each part of a building and transport it to Shanghai. The cost can involve up to 300,000 yuan (US$48,387). Li declined to reveal the total amount of money involved in purchasing, dismantling and transporting a building.

"For me, they are all priceless," he said.

Once in Shanghai, a building's components must be thoroughly cleaned and then coated to prevent mold, mildew, insect infestation and weathering. It sometimes takes more than a year to reconstruct a building.

Li's team includes preservation experts who have worked on high-profile projects such as Beijing's Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. Craftsmen who do the repair work come from families with generations of experience in engraving and carving.

There is an ancient building in the Pudong New Area devoted to professionals to do research on the construction, structure, soundproofing, heat preservation, fire prevention, pipe networks and disaster prevention for old buildings.

Advanced skills and techniques such as 3D modeling are used to ensure that reconstruction is sound, and styles and interiors are true to history.

Buildings acquired by Li date back to the late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), with examples from places as diverse as Shaanxi, Shanxi, Anhui, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces. Most of them are now stored and catalogued in a Pudong warehouse, waiting to be reassembled.

His work has given Li deep insights into ancient architecture and the eras that produced it.

Nanmu and Chinese yew were considered the best timbers for building construction, and ancestral shrines are the best and most precious examples of old buildings, he said.

Buildings of the Ming Dynasty feature simpler designs, while those of the Qing Dynasty were more elaborate in their carvings, said Li.

His collecting obsession began with acquisitions of historical paintings, calligraphy, porcelain and furniture.

From there, it was a logical jump to the buildings that often housed artifacts. The first building he acquired was a Ming Dynasty structure in a remote village in Anhui Province. He paid for the relocation of several families living in the building and then had the structure moved to Shanghai.

"I am fascinated by the beauty of ancient architecture," he said, repeating a recurring theme in his conversation.

Because of fire, war, weather, mice and insects, many old buildings have already vanished. Structures built earlier than the Ming Dynasty cannot be found, Li said.

Shaanxi, Shanxi and Anhui provinces have yielded his greatest number of old buildings. Those regions were home to rich merchants during the Ming and Qing dynasties, who built large houses, Li said.

"Ancient architecture is one representation of traditional Chinese culture because it reflects our ancestors' living conditions, their expectations of life, their beliefs and their artistic taste," he said. "Protecting old houses means preserving a slice of splendid history and culture."

Even something as small as a carving pattern tells a story. Li points to carvings that retell tales such as "Yuemu Cizi" and "Taoyuan Jieyi." The former is the story of Yue Fei's mother tattooing the four Chinese characters "jing zhong bao guo" - meaning "serve the country with utmost loyalty" - on his back. Yue was a patriotic general of the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279).

"Taoyuan Jieyi" is the story about the "oath of the peach garden" - a fictional event in Luo Guanzhong's historical novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms." In it, Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei take an oath of fraternity in a ceremony amid peach trees in blossom and became blood brothers for life.

Tan Dun, the celebrated contemporary classical composer, once said of architecture, "Here, I feel not only the vicissitudes of time, but harmony and vibration in the solidified music."

What would Gogol have thought about that?