Henry407 ( HL )'s photostream

the Fujian Tu Lou or Earth Building is already in the World Heritage List

The Earth Buildings in Fujian are already in the World Heritage List. Basically, the buildings are made of mud. They may come in different sizes and different shapes - circular, rectangular, Pa Kua or some odd shapes. Some of the walls can be as thick as 1.5 meters and the wooden door is usually matel-cladded to prevent the then invaders such as robbers or kidnappers to break in. On top of the door always fixed with a water-tank. Reason being, some invaders like to set fire onto the door so that they could get in after the door give way. So the water stored in the water tank would be used to extinguish the fire.
This circular building shown in the picture is "Zhencheng Lou", also known as the "Prince of the Earth Building" because of its enormous size. Circular building like this was normally owned by the very rich people during the Qing Dynasty. It occupies as much as 5000 sq meters of land and can house up to 80 families in total. Amazingly this building could still stand firmly on land after hundreds of years.

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Uploaded on Dec 23, 2008

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