bamboo house

 starting a tour in guangzhou, you should first visit the following scenic sites: baiyun mountain, yuexiu mountain, pearl river and those high buildings and large mansions, but few people know the abound existence of the neoteric architectures in guangzhou, one of them is bamboo house, which is the traditional residence with lingnan architecture style, now, let’s go to know more about it.

bamboo house, just as its name implies, is with small and narrow gate, long and narrow depth, just like the shape of bamboo, and there is also a nickname “store houses” for it. guangzhou bamboo house appeared at 19th century, at that time, the industry and commerce was at the period of rapid growth, urban population increased at a high rate, and the land area for development became less and less, so the land price went up high as well, under such situation, bamboo house appeared and became one of traditional residence ways in guangzhou, no matter the ordinary people or the rich. at the beginning of 20 century, with the development of industry and commerce, bamboo house or store house also grows at a rapid speed, and a great deal of such houses was concentrated in guangzhou’s commercial center, as well as at xiafei lane, yanyunxi st, general east st and west st.

bamboo house only has a single room, which is narrow in width and deep in length, and ratio is 1 to 4 or 1 to 8, only 4 to 5 meters wide, but 7 to over 20 meters long, just like a rectangle, line on the two sides of the narrow street.

bamboo house is divided into three parts, the frontside, the middle part and the rear end. the frontside consists of the entrance door, the porch hall; the middle part is the main hall with only one floor, in which the god worshiping ceremony is carried out, behind the main hall are rooms; in the rear end are rooms, kitchen and washroom. these three parts are kept apart by dooryards and connected by porches. on the doorway, its design is the same as xiguan residence’s, three gates, the first one is a low suspending gate, the second is called tanglong, and the third is an entrance door made by hardwood, which have the functions of lighting, ventilation and guidance. there are few windows in the design of bamboo house, and it is almost a kind of close design. on the side of the house near the street, an inner balcony is built by wood or fenced with colorful porcelain in lune shape for the use of lighting, ventilation, drying clothings, taking a rest and enjoying the street sights, and this inner balcony is the only place to get out of the house when its door closes, just like an air castle. at the top of the foor, you will also observe various patters in traditional design of lingnan style.

in the end of 19th century, the bamboo house in guangzhou still preserved the characters of lingnan traditional design, that is to say, narrow in width, deep in length, and usually the length reached over 12 meters; dooryard and lanes take the responsibilities of ventilation, lighting, drainage and transportation, so the building of dooryards gets increase as the house length gets deeper; look from the outside, it seems there is only one floor inside, as the house is 4 to 5 meters high, people often built interlayer and set up more stairs; the house’s basement is made by granite, and the wall is built by blue brick, wood truss, tile roof and the weight bearing depends on the fastigium, but at that time, the design of bamboo house already took some changes, in its front part, one sigle floor kept still, while in the middle and the rear end part, two floors appeared.

after minguo period, with the introduction of the western construction technologies, changes happened in guangzhou’s bamboo house. more floors appeared, two floors, three floors, even four floors of buildings emerged. people began to use cement; this new type construction material, and concrete also replaced brick and wood. inner balcony was abandoned, a small outer balcony was welcome, as well as the western style of part decoration, the roof was also changed to be flat, and people call this kind of new bamboo house “foreign modern building”.

as guangzhou bamboo house is featured with low floor, high consistency, it well adapts to the south climate. besides in guangzhou, pearl river delta, xijiang river, shantou, zhanjiang, haikou, hanoi (capital of vietnam) and some cities in the southeast asia, you will also find bamboo houses in the places listed above. in 1980’s, with the economic and social progress, modern commercial buildings have replaced many bamboo houses. at present, you will find some conserved bamboo houses in xiguan area of liwan district.