Absurd buildings built around the world. Have a super modern skyscrapers to tree houses, all these buildings have a common being suggestive and really bizarre
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| Biblioteca España, Santo Domingo |
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| Vortex House, Montrose, Houston |
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| Hang Nga Guesthouse, Dalat, Vietnam |
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| Architectures Brasilia Oscar Niemeyer was among the most influential designers of all time. When Brazil decided to build his new capital Brasilia in a spacious interior, has had the opportunity to build the famous landmarks Brazilian architect |
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| Twisted House, Indianapolis The Twisted House is located in Indianapolis Arts Center in India was created by John McNaughton, is made of cedar wood. |
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| Hotel Marqués de Riscal, Elciego, Alava, Spain Reach the Rioja in Spain, to admire this avant-garde architecture and to taste the excellent wine of the region. You stay at Hotel de Riscal Maques work dell'architteto Frank Owen Gehry |
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| Density Housing in Singapore The density of architectural Singapore, really deserves a space in this photo gallery. A bit like the pictures that we show in Hong Kong. |
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| Seattle Central Library |
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Cube house, Rotterdam, Netherlands
It is a unique architectural design, characterized by various buildings cube-shaped inverted, designed in the seventies by the Dutch architect Piet Blom. It is residential complexes that can be seen in the city of Rotterdam and Helmond. The works of Piet Blom can also be seen in Toronto.
magic mountain lodge , chile
This eco sky Hotel is located in the middle of a rain forest in the Reserve of Huilo Huilo in Chile. The hotel is in the shape of the mountain with a waterfall that flows from the top and the rooms lined with wood, as if you slept all 'interior of a tree
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How can it be the headquarters of a company that produces baskets? But in the shape of a basket, it is obvious. Now try to imagine the home of the president of the world's producers of toilet ... Yes, that's right: it's just like you think (and you will see in the next photo). And these are just some of the craziest houses in the world that we present in this curious photogallery.
Advertising is the soul of commerce. He must have also thought Dave Logaberger, founder of homonymy company, when in the mid-90s he decided to build the new headquarters of his company, the Longaberger Company. Which as you might guess ... produces baskets. The Basket Building is located in Newark, the state of Ohio (USA) and the numbers that describe it are impressive: seven floors, 9000 square meters of offices and 9,000 tons, of which only 150 for the handles, heated prevent snow and frost them drowsy and have them collapse.
Where can live the president of the World Toilet Association, the worldwide association of manufacturers of toilet? But it is obvious: in a house in the form of water. The home of mr. Sim Jae-duck is located in Suwon, about 40 km from Seoul, occupies an area of 420 square meters and the center is home to a toilet completely transparent. To protect the privacy of users, when needed the room is saturated with dense fog. It cost $ 1.6 million and can be rented the exorbitant sum of $ 50,000 per day.
Currently 40% of the world population has no access to a toilet.
By Lord of the Rings to the Tale of Two Cities, through the Charlotte's Web: these are some of the titles on display on the central library of Kansas City. It is not a misprint: we just wrote "on" Library: Opened in 2004, this building has a design that is absolutely unique. The 22 titles of the works that shape façade were chosen by the citizens of Kansas City with a referendum. The entire complex has cost more than $ 50 million, funded in part by public bodies and partly by private.
Dancing House, or house dancing, is the nickname of a very special building that is located in the center of Prague, in the Czech Republic. Designed by the Czech architect Vlado Milunic and dall'archistar Canadian Frank Gehry, was built between 1994 and 1996. the palace was originally called Fred & Ginger, in tribute to Fred Astaire and Ginger Roger, because of its resemblance to a pair of dancers. It was built with 99 panels of concrete, all of different shapes and sizes. Also called "House of drunkards", this original building is home to many multinationals, and a fine French restaurant.
The Crooked House, crumpled or house, is located in the commercial area of Sopot, Poland. It was designed by the Polish Szotynscy Zaleski and is inspired by the drawings of Jan Marcin Szancer, illustrator and writer of children's tales. In fact, the Crooked House straight out of a fairy tale: the roof tiles, green and uniquely shaped, recall for example the scales of a dragon and the soft shapes make the building appear similar to the construction in pose of a child. Built in 2003, houses inside a shopping center of 4000 square meters.
The Cubic House was born in 1984 from an idea by architect Piet Blom. It is built on top of a long pedestrian walkway in the center of the city. Each of the 32 cubes that compose it is an independent living module, divided into three levels: the living area on the first level, the sleeping area on the second, and an additional space on the third. In the vision of the Cubic House Blom is the representation of a forest, where each cube identifies a single tree.
Stuff to be come seasickness. In the Polish village of Szymbark, the businessman Daniel Czapiewski conceived and funded the "upside down house" (house upside down) seems to bring out the uncertainty and confusion of the modern era. Inside furniture and furnishings attached to the ceiling and the effect is that the lack of gravity. If not for the many tourists who flock to the rooms every day and who are firmly planted my feet on the ground.
The construction of this particular house, intended only to sightseeing, required a time five times higher than the normal time of construction of a house of the same size.
Looking at the world upside down is one thing, but making a whole house inside out, including furnishings, is truly unique. The idea came to two Polish architects Klaudiusz Golos and Sebastion Mikuciuk, who designed and built this house (which seems to fall from the sky) in Trassenheide on the Baltic Sea, Germany.
What prompted them to realize this oddity? No particular reason, they say, only the taste of something different.
Entering this strange house you have the feeling of walking on the ceiling on which there are beds, chairs, table, chairs, kitchen and even bathrooms. The building, which for obvious reasons is not inhabited, is a tourist attraction open to the public, in addition to being used as an exhibition space for exhibitions and events. Several visitors, however, admit that after a few minutes inside you feel a sense of disorientation ...!
Other houses upside down (yes: it is not the only) can be visited in Poland (l '"upside down house" in the village of Szymbark, also a house-museum), in Orlando Florida (one of the main tourist destinations the city, with inside fake hurricanes and earthquakes) and Mallorca in Spain (the "House of Katmandu" hosting oddities of all kinds, such as self-propelled robot and a rotating tunnel).
This curious building is located in the heart of Chinatown in Vancouver, Canada, and is known to be the narrowest commercial building in the world: it is in fact only 1.83 meters wide. Built to normal size in 1903, has been reduced to the actual size in 1912, when the city of Vancouver has decided to widen the road on which overlooked the palace and has expropriated 7.3 meters at the Sam Kee Company. It was then, for salvage, architects Brown and Gillan drew this strange building resting it on a sturdy steel skeleton. Originally used to turkish bath for the Chinese community in Vancouver, still hosts inside a secret tunnel that allowed guests to escape in the event of checks by the police.
As you go up in the house piano? But it is obvious: you take ... the violin. This original home-piano was built in 2007 in China, in the province of An Hui, not far from Shanghai. It was commissioned by the local government as a tourist attraction to attract the interest of the public and the media and revitalize the area. It hosts a permanent exhibition on the beauty of the surroundings.
Do you want to understand what it is like during an earthquake of 6 degrees on the Richter scale? Want to explore a world completely upside down like that of Alice in Wonderland? Do you want to die of fear in a house that seems about to crollarvi him? To experience these and many other sensory experiences you can tour Wonderworks, the house upside down in Orlando, Florida, one of the major attractions in the California town.
The Robot Building is located in Sathorn, the financial heart of Bangkok, Thailand. It hosts the headquarters of the United Overseas Bank and was designed by Sumset Jumsai. It was created in 1986 to celebrate the computerization of the bank. The unique shape has been obtained thanks to the superposition of concrete modules of different width. 20 stories tall, is home to 23,000 square meters of office and it cost about 10 million dollars.
Seen from above resembles a busy anthill. But approaching it turns out that these buildings conical village Kandovan, in northwestern Iran are real homes. The karan (which in the local dialect means "hives") are dug in volcanic rocks in the region. Originally used as a shelter to defend themselves from advancing hordes of Mongols, now have homes in several floors completely efficient in repairing the outside temperatures. Volcanic ash tablets that form the walls are in fact perfect natural insulation. The village has more than 700 years but continues to exert a fairytale charm for those who visit.
What makes us a house up there? Expects its inhabitants. It is actually a hotel, one of the strangest of the united kingdom.
It's called House in the clouds, in the Italian house in the clouds, and it was made from an old water cistern built in 1923 near diThorpeness in Suffolck, England. When it was converted into a house and later in a hotel. Today on 5 floors are 5 rooms to rent for weekend or weeks
houses the world's most extravagant
Perched on a rock in the river or perched in the branches of trees, transportable shoulders or rotating like a sunflower, with a roof that looks like a plane or crocodile-shaped: the houses most strange and curious around the world.
For lovers of solitude and the sound of water flowing (as in the house playing with the rain), this house perched on a rock in the middle of spunzone Drina is a real paradise.
The idea came in the sixties to a group of friends looking for a retreat away from it all for sunbathing and relaxing after a swim in the river. Having said that, with the help of canoes and kayaks have built this house surreal and lonely near the Serbian town of Bajina Basta, in the eastern part of the National Park of Tara, who for 45 years defies gravity, water, wind and the weather.
With the housing market through the roof, more and more Chinese people who ingeniously to find a solution to the housing problem, especially when the mind-boggling prices is added the problem of displacement. And while someone experiences the house tricycle on 3 wheels, Liu Lingchao has seen fit to build a home laptop made of bamboo, plastic sheets and blankets.
Wide 1.5 meters high and 2, with a weight of only 60 kg the house is literally carried on the shoulders by the owner, following him in his slow and steady daily commute, with an average of 20 kilometers a day. Yes, because five years ago Liu decided to walk back to his hometown Rongan, in the province of Guangxi, from Shenzhen, where he once worked as a seasonal worker. During his travels, Liu keeps collecting and selling recyclable bottles and, according to local media, when the photo was taken last May 21 was located about 32 miles from his hometown.
It's called Heliodrom this house that looks like a UFO resting on the side in the Alsatian countryside near Strasbourg, France. In reality it is a bioclimatic building solar energy, a huge three-dimensional solar disk fixed to the ground with a particular angle to the movement of the Sun that allows for shade in the summer keeping cool the internal temperature, while in the fall, winter and spring, with the 'lowering of the position of the sun, the sun's rays enter through the large windows by heating the indoor environment.
Monolithic Domes are called, but are also known as EcoShell: the domes are built by American foundation Domes for the World designed to withstand tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires and insect infestations.
Each dome consists of a block structure of concrete and steel, but it contains about half compared to traditional buildings. Its hemispherical shape makes it resistant to winds, even the strongest, while the block structure ensures that in case of earthquake the house is moving along the ground. Finally, the concrete walls make a building energy efficient and at the same time not significantly affected by fire, mold or insects. The cost? Just $ 1,500 each.
Dormireste reassured if the roof over your head was a large rock 40 feet in diameter? Maybe not, but Benito Hernandez and his family for 30 years living quietly in this strange house of sun-dried bricks topped by a huge boulder. The building is located near the town of San Jose de Las Piedras, a remote town located in the arid desert of Coahuila, Mexico.
Sunrise and sunset from the same window, or to wake up every day with a different view: this allows you to make the house swivel built in Wingham, 250 km from Sydney.
Designed by Luke Everingham, a sound engineer, the octagonal building is built on a turntable powered by an electric system, controlled by a computer, which allows a 360 ° rotation in just 30 minutes. The price? Australian $ 700,000, the equivalent of about 435,000 Euros.
Have you ever slept in the belly of a crocodile? At this African artist pictured happen every night, yet it is still alive! The ferocious reptile stone fact is his home, has, within all the amenities. The house, designed by a colleague who died recently, is in addition to other buildings craziest in the world. There's something for everyone: buildings in the shape of the boot, telescope or piano, theaters like giant eggs ... But the prize extravaganza it perhaps the house of wool - Knitted - exposed two years ago in a show of architecture in London.
Who as a child he never wanted a tree house, raise your hand. In southern France, in Le Pian Medoc, the dream can become a reality while staying in a bed and breakfast built in the branches of trees for an eco holiday.
Some people in the house has vaulted ceilings and who has a barrel house. Are seasonal dwellings of some Turkish workers arrived in Socuellamos, in the heart of Spain, for the harvest. Finished the day in the vineyards, they rest in twenty of these huge wooden vats overturned with which it was set up a camp near the farming town located in the hot and dusty region of Castilla-La Mancha.
It is located in Abuja, Nigeria, this particular house with the roof-shaped airplane
A luxurious tree house out of a fantasy book
The designers and builders of the "Blue Forest" show that the tree houses are not just a childhood fantasy, and that the construction of a house in the branches and the grain of nature is an amazing example of architectural mastery. This tree house, in particular, is called "Living the Highlife Tree House", and has been made in the English county of Hertfordshire. Perhaps the most amazing thing about this project is that it is a tree house, but rather two distinct havens on trees, each with their own unique characteristics: one for children and one for their parents, so that each family member has an area specially dedicated.
The house of the parents and the children are connected by a scenic walkway, reminiscent of the rope bridges of the Middle Ages, and overlook the park below is an added value of this incredible building.
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The tree house children straight out of a fairy tale. |
The tree house for children is particularly striking, with its three conical towers of different sizes, giving the complex a fairytale.
The children's home has a secret trap door leading to a games room. Inside, the room is fully equipped, complete with a console and plasma TV, a great place for kids and their friends ... and not bad for adults too!
The house has a beautiful adult conical thatched roof and its walls are covered with oak shingles and cedar planks. The aesthetic ends up being an interesting fusion of safari lodge, and a sort of idealized medieval fantasy.
One of the most interesting features of the house of the adults is that it was built around a tree, running through the center of one of the rooms.
The House of the adult is fully furnished, has a kitchen and a bathroom, and is a spectacular place to organize dinners with friends, with a large and comfortable lounge to entertain guests more or less arboreal.
Discovering the tulou, the fortress houses China
For centuries, these imposing circular structures have protected clan composed of hundreds of people from bandits and warlords. Today are largely abandoned, but the architects are a perfect example of a sustainable building
It all started as a game, count the tulou. How many of these strange structures in the fortress I could see from the window? They were huge, and loomed like spaceships in the countryside of the province of Fujian, in southeast China. Each village seemed to have at least one, two, more.
Then it became an obsession. I asked to be left near the villages perched on the hills and began to count them while I walked on foot.
A Hekeng, home to several hundred people, I counted 13 tulou. (You lou means "building land" in Chinese - a very simplistic description, how to define the Colosseum a stone circle). Seem medieval structures, with high mud walls, tiny windows on the upper floors and generally only one wooden door plated iron from being accessed.
From the beginning their main function was to ensure the safety of those who lived there, "says Huang Hanmin." Historical records reveal the constant threats from bandits, wild animals and warlords. "
To defend itself, the builders erected these walls of compressed clay, limestone and sand that became dry hard as concrete; even five feet thick, were able to withstand cannon fire, flaming arrows, rams and, occasionally, even some earthquake.
Thanks to the increase in population and the riots caused by the communist revolution in China - of which the Hakkas were among the most vocal supporters - the construction of tulou continued into the twentieth century. The 13 of Hekeng tulou were built between the mid-sixteenth century and the early nineteen seventies.
In the three floors of the Dongsheng Lou, completed in 1961, the only difference compared to the known structural tuolou oldest is that the rooms seem a bit 'bigger, although barely able to contain a double bed.
A meeting Hekeng a tea farmer named Zhang, son of the engineer who directed the work of Dongsheng Lou. Each floor, with its thick support beams and 22 rooms, required a year of work. And if it were built today? "Can not build a new one," Zhang replied, shaking his head. "It would cost five times as much made of steel and concrete, not to mention the work that would require.
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| Spaceships land |
It all started as a game, count the tulou. How many of these strange structures in the fortress I could see from the window? They were huge, and loomed like spaceships in the countryside of the province of Fujian, in southeast China. Each village seemed to have at least one, two, more.
Then it became an obsession. I asked to be left near the villages perched on the hills and began to count them while I walked on foot.
A Hekeng, home to several hundred people, I counted 13 tulou. (You lou means "building land" in Chinese - a very simplistic description, how to define the Colosseum a stone circle). Seem medieval structures, with high mud walls, tiny windows on the upper floors and generally only one wooden door plated iron from being accessed.
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| Exterior and interior |
The external appearance does not reveal what lies inside. If the remains of the outer walls reminiscent of a prison, the interior reminds riccheza of details of an opera house. Galleries of wooden beams stand majestically even for five floors around a courtyard full of light. Each floor is built of dark wood, with small rooms of the same size arranged side by side.
In the courtyard of cobblestones there is usually a well or two, plus a small niche decorated to venerate the ancestors. It is a space that forces you to look around in a circle, admiring the layout of the rooms and to look up to the sky and the mountains, struck by the boldness of an architecture designed to accommodate a community in a giant impregnable.
The oldest dates back to 1558 tulou, although some say that there are more ancient, explains architect Huang Hanmin. Its construction coincided with the era of confrontation between the Hakka ethnic group, organized in clans, migrated from the plains of northern China, and the groups that lived in the region.
In the picture, the Zhencheng Lou, built in 1912 by wealthy cigarette manufacturers
In the courtyard of cobblestones there is usually a well or two, plus a small niche decorated to venerate the ancestors. It is a space that forces you to look around in a circle, admiring the layout of the rooms and to look up to the sky and the mountains, struck by the boldness of an architecture designed to accommodate a community in a giant impregnable.
The oldest dates back to 1558 tulou, although some say that there are more ancient, explains architect Huang Hanmin. Its construction coincided with the era of confrontation between the Hakka ethnic group, organized in clans, migrated from the plains of northern China, and the groups that lived in the region.
In the picture, the Zhencheng Lou, built in 1912 by wealthy cigarette manufacturers
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| Conversation Piece |
From the beginning their main function was to ensure the safety of those who lived there, "says Huang Hanmin." Historical records reveal the constant threats from bandits, wild animals and warlords. "
To defend itself, the builders erected these walls of compressed clay, limestone and sand that became dry hard as concrete; even five feet thick, were able to withstand cannon fire, flaming arrows, rams and, occasionally, even some earthquake.
Thanks to the increase in population and the riots caused by the communist revolution in China - of which the Hakkas were among the most vocal supporters - the construction of tulou continued into the twentieth century. The 13 of Hekeng tulou were built between the mid-sixteenth century and the early nineteen seventies.
In the three floors of the Dongsheng Lou, completed in 1961, the only difference compared to the known structural tuolou oldest is that the rooms seem a bit 'bigger, although barely able to contain a double bed.
A meeting Hekeng a tea farmer named Zhang, son of the engineer who directed the work of Dongsheng Lou. Each floor, with its thick support beams and 22 rooms, required a year of work. And if it were built today? "Can not build a new one," Zhang replied, shaking his head. "It would cost five times as much made of steel and concrete, not to mention the work that would require.
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| Life of clan |
Almost everyone I meet to Hekeng called Zhang. The villages in the highlands of Fujian settlements are based on clan, with a single surname predominant. Hekeng is a village Zhang. There are villages Su, villages and villages Li Jian, among others.
To meet the needs of these communities so closely linked, the tulou have evolved into structures in which whole branches of a clan, who often came to count hundreds of members, could live inside a single building. It is something never seen elsewhere. The castles of Europe opened the doors to villagers during sieges or wars; the tulou protected them and housed them all the time.
The spaces in the tulou are organized vertically, a necessity forced into a mountainous region with little flat land available. Every family, according to the size. occupying one or more rooms. The first floor, overlooking the courtyard, served as a kitchen and dining room; the second floor of the warehouse; from the third floor up there were the bedrooms.
Corridors and stairs were in common. The rules of conduct (dispose of waste, respect the elderly, contribute to parties municipalities) were posted at the entrance. To increase the sense of community, every room was the same as another, whether they belonged to the head of the clan or the breeder pigs common. (In the photo, a funeral in a tulou).
There are many tulou on top of the mountains, such as the castles of feudal Europe. They are almost all in the valleys, with mountains behind and the water front. This is because their position is chosen according to the principles of feng shui ("wind and water"), the traditional Chinese art of divination environment.
Part common sense, part mysticism, the feng shui is considered a way to align the man with the positive energies that surround it. A good location guarantees wealth, power, and many children. The top of a mountain, exposed to the wind, has not positively for peace and tranquility.
The feng shui of the highlands of Fujian it must be good, because today in the region flock to many tourism revenue.
It all started in 2008 when 46 tulou Fujian (including 13 of Hekeng) were included in the list of World Heritage Site. On the weekends, these country roads are occupied by cars and pedestrians, with the same tulou overflowing with visitors, the structures surrounded by banquets of vendors selling everything from medicinal mushrooms to posters of Mao, to the ashtray shaped of Tolou. (In the photo, the Yuchang Lou, one of the largest ptulou during May 1).
Some tulou were abandoned, as the Liben Lou (pictured), which was destroyed in 1931 during the civil war in China.
Until the fifties of the twentieth century the outside world - including Chinese cities - did not even know of the existence of the tulou. Those in southern Fujian then came to light only after thirty years.
The isolation of the region, the lack of connections and the emptying of villages (the Hakkas have migrated in large numbers to Taiwan, Singapore and other Asian countries) have meant that these architectures remain hidden to most. Huang Hanmin, one of the first to study the region, going from village to village by bicycle.
According to his calculations, today there would be exactly 2,812 tulou, about a thousand less than previously thought. "The list of UNESCO should includerne much more than 46," says Huang.
"Where is everybody?" is the question that springs to mind every time I visit a tulou. In places built to accommodate hundreds of people today there are often five or six at the most. They are often elderly, weak and alone. Weeds sprouting between the stones of the courtyard, and there is standing water in the wells. Sometimes shadows glimpsed a child, often left in the care of a relative elder parents went to work in a distant city. (In the photo, the children of the village of Chuxi gocano outside the school).
In the last quarter century, since China's economy began to run, people left in droves tulou. Nobody wants to live in cramped conditions and no running water. "Only the poor now live in the tulou", is the phrase I've heard often.
"The heart of the people has changed," says Lin Yi Mou showing Eryi Lou, to its heyday a magnificently decorated building that housed 400 people, and is now a museum with a large part of its rooms closed to the public.
"One time," she says, "when the Tolou belonged to a large clan, each family gave its contribution for maintenance. Today no longer want to spend money on something that belonged to their ancestors. They want to spend all if."
But some returns: after years of working in factories, Li Chen has returned to live in the tulou of his wife, where he raises mailai and teaches daughter to pick honeysuckle (pictured).
Only during the holidays the tulou returns to animate. Families return to their places of origin to visit relatives, attend weddings and sleep in the rooms where they lived once, maybe regretting the days when they played in those courts. But when the party is over, everyone returned to his modern house.
The tulou will not disappear any time soon. Their walls are built to defy the centuries. Their construction system could even come back in vogue. Engineers and architects who study this type of architecture seen in the tulou a prototype of "green" building: efficient from an energy point of view, well harmonized in the landscape, and built with natural materials and taken on site.
In the photo, a dragon parade in the parade during the festival of Mazu, the sea goddess and protector of Hakka.
According to the Canadian architect Joerg Ostrowski, the famous four rings Chengqi Lou, built in the early eighteenth century, would have no problem obtaining a LEED certification (an important certification system for sustainable building industry). In neighboring Guangdong province, just outside the megacities of Guangzhou (which is home to about 14 million inhabitants), the architects Urbanus designed a modern version of the tulou to house 278 low-income families (pictured).
Even old tulou can renew itself.
In the tourist town of Taxia, close to many World Heritage buildings, the entrepreneur Zhang Min Xue detected a tulou abandoned eight years and has turned into a guest house called Qingde Lou.
"The hardest part was to install a modern plumbing," says Zhang.
Been there. It was noisy, full of people. The laundry was hanging out. The chickens scratching around on the cobbles. The candles were burning before the image of a local deity. And at night, you sprangava the door. Just like in a tulou.
Kindergartners take a small bus to go to school in the village of Hekeng village. The number of schools in small villages has decreased due to the abandonment of the villages, and often to school you must travel long distances.
To meet the needs of these communities so closely linked, the tulou have evolved into structures in which whole branches of a clan, who often came to count hundreds of members, could live inside a single building. It is something never seen elsewhere. The castles of Europe opened the doors to villagers during sieges or wars; the tulou protected them and housed them all the time.
The spaces in the tulou are organized vertically, a necessity forced into a mountainous region with little flat land available. Every family, according to the size. occupying one or more rooms. The first floor, overlooking the courtyard, served as a kitchen and dining room; the second floor of the warehouse; from the third floor up there were the bedrooms.
Corridors and stairs were in common. The rules of conduct (dispose of waste, respect the elderly, contribute to parties municipalities) were posted at the entrance. To increase the sense of community, every room was the same as another, whether they belonged to the head of the clan or the breeder pigs common. (In the photo, a funeral in a tulou).
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| tourist Attraction |
There are many tulou on top of the mountains, such as the castles of feudal Europe. They are almost all in the valleys, with mountains behind and the water front. This is because their position is chosen according to the principles of feng shui ("wind and water"), the traditional Chinese art of divination environment.
Part common sense, part mysticism, the feng shui is considered a way to align the man with the positive energies that surround it. A good location guarantees wealth, power, and many children. The top of a mountain, exposed to the wind, has not positively for peace and tranquility.
The feng shui of the highlands of Fujian it must be good, because today in the region flock to many tourism revenue.
It all started in 2008 when 46 tulou Fujian (including 13 of Hekeng) were included in the list of World Heritage Site. On the weekends, these country roads are occupied by cars and pedestrians, with the same tulou overflowing with visitors, the structures surrounded by banquets of vendors selling everything from medicinal mushrooms to posters of Mao, to the ashtray shaped of Tolou. (In the photo, the Yuchang Lou, one of the largest ptulou during May 1).
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| hidden Treasures |
Some tulou were abandoned, as the Liben Lou (pictured), which was destroyed in 1931 during the civil war in China.
Until the fifties of the twentieth century the outside world - including Chinese cities - did not even know of the existence of the tulou. Those in southern Fujian then came to light only after thirty years.
The isolation of the region, the lack of connections and the emptying of villages (the Hakkas have migrated in large numbers to Taiwan, Singapore and other Asian countries) have meant that these architectures remain hidden to most. Huang Hanmin, one of the first to study the region, going from village to village by bicycle.
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| Seniors and children |
According to his calculations, today there would be exactly 2,812 tulou, about a thousand less than previously thought. "The list of UNESCO should includerne much more than 46," says Huang.
"Where is everybody?" is the question that springs to mind every time I visit a tulou. In places built to accommodate hundreds of people today there are often five or six at the most. They are often elderly, weak and alone. Weeds sprouting between the stones of the courtyard, and there is standing water in the wells. Sometimes shadows glimpsed a child, often left in the care of a relative elder parents went to work in a distant city. (In the photo, the children of the village of Chuxi gocano outside the school).
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| Sometimes they come back |
In the last quarter century, since China's economy began to run, people left in droves tulou. Nobody wants to live in cramped conditions and no running water. "Only the poor now live in the tulou", is the phrase I've heard often.
"The heart of the people has changed," says Lin Yi Mou showing Eryi Lou, to its heyday a magnificently decorated building that housed 400 people, and is now a museum with a large part of its rooms closed to the public.
"One time," she says, "when the Tolou belonged to a large clan, each family gave its contribution for maintenance. Today no longer want to spend money on something that belonged to their ancestors. They want to spend all if."
But some returns: after years of working in factories, Li Chen has returned to live in the tulou of his wife, where he raises mailai and teaches daughter to pick honeysuckle (pictured).
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| Holidays |
Only during the holidays the tulou returns to animate. Families return to their places of origin to visit relatives, attend weddings and sleep in the rooms where they lived once, maybe regretting the days when they played in those courts. But when the party is over, everyone returned to his modern house.
The tulou will not disappear any time soon. Their walls are built to defy the centuries. Their construction system could even come back in vogue. Engineers and architects who study this type of architecture seen in the tulou a prototype of "green" building: efficient from an energy point of view, well harmonized in the landscape, and built with natural materials and taken on site.
In the photo, a dragon parade in the parade during the festival of Mazu, the sea goddess and protector of Hakka.
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| Tulou modern |
According to the Canadian architect Joerg Ostrowski, the famous four rings Chengqi Lou, built in the early eighteenth century, would have no problem obtaining a LEED certification (an important certification system for sustainable building industry). In neighboring Guangdong province, just outside the megacities of Guangzhou (which is home to about 14 million inhabitants), the architects Urbanus designed a modern version of the tulou to house 278 low-income families (pictured).
Even old tulou can renew itself.
In the tourist town of Taxia, close to many World Heritage buildings, the entrepreneur Zhang Min Xue detected a tulou abandoned eight years and has turned into a guest house called Qingde Lou.
"The hardest part was to install a modern plumbing," says Zhang.
Been there. It was noisy, full of people. The laundry was hanging out. The chickens scratching around on the cobbles. The candles were burning before the image of a local deity. And at night, you sprangava the door. Just like in a tulou.
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| kindergarten |
Kindergartners take a small bus to go to school in the village of Hekeng village. The number of schools in small villages has decreased due to the abandonment of the villages, and often to school you must travel long distances.
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