Source: CCTV.com
10-29-2008 08:46
Just like the Wenchuan Earthquake that struck southwestern China, earthquakes above a magnitude of 8 have brought destruction, pain and suffering to people in many parts of the world. Wherever they strike, they bring mass casualties and enormous loss of property.
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The tragic scenes reflect the almighty and intimidating power of nature. Nature, like a powerful monster can, with a slight wave of an arm, cause high-rise buildings made of reinforced concrete to collapse like toy bricks.
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So a humble village that has stood up to this monster could be considered an architectural miracle. Such a village exists. It’s called Taoping ancient Qiang Village, and it is found in Li County, Sichuan Province.
Records reveal that the ancient Qiang village has faced three major earthquakes since the beginning of the 20th century; the magnitude 7.5 Diexi earthquake in 1933, the magnitude 7.2 Songpan-Pingwu earthquake in 1976, and the magnitude 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake on May the 12th, 2008. In the Wenchuan earthquake, while Taoping survived, all the other villages in the area were reduced to rubble.
Taoping ancient Qiang Village lies just 20 kilometres away from the epicenter of the Wenchuan earthquake. Yu Xingmei, a member of the Qiang ethnic group, still remembers the scene clearly.
Yet the only damage suffered by the village was to the “parapet wall” on top of the ancient watch tower. Its collapse was due to the architectonic phenomenon known as the “whipping effect”, in which the part nearest to the top of a building is most likely to be destroyed during an earthquake. However, the main body of the village, and even the 2-meter-wide lanes and the underground water network, survived intact. Not one of the Qiang houses and watch towers collapsed.
The first sight visitors get of Taoping Village is of three ancient Qiang watch towers standing abreast. Against the light, the three towers look like three pillars rising up to the sky. They, like the ancient and delicate Qiang houses that surround them, withstood the onslaught of the earthquake.
So, how exactly did the ancient village survive the great earthquake? And can the architects of today learn anything from the secrets of the ancient Qiang builders?
China is a country of many nationalities. In the great Chinese family, the Qiang people are one of the most ancient nationalities. Oracle bone inscriptions from 3,000 years ago record that the Qiang people were living mainly in Northwest China and the Central Plains. Later, a branch of the nationality was incorporated into the Tibetan ethnic group, and another into the Han Nationality. The Qiang people today are the descendants of the ancient Qiang Nationality. Theirs was a turbulent history, before they finally settled in the area of the Minjiang River and Minshan Mountain.
The earliest Taoping Qiang Village was built over 2,000 years ago, in 111 B.C.
Taoping is a typical Qiang village, in that it was built with mountains to the north and facing water to the south. The buildings are laid out according to a rigid design. Built of stone, they embody a structural hierarchy. The houses are called Zhuang Houses, or “Wo Zhe” in the Qiang language.
The ancient Qiang village has eight gates radiating from the watch tower. The eight gates are linked to 13 alleys, which form a comprehensive communications network. The village also has a network of groundwater, which uses covered wells. People can remove the slate covers to draw water from the wells. The alleys, groundwater network and roofs combine to form a comprehensive defence system.
After surviving the wind, rain and earthquakes for the past 2,000 years, Taoping ancient Qiang Village still stands proud. It is known as a wonder in the history of architecture. It’s also known as the “Mysterious Fortress of the East” and the most intact “Living Fossil” of ancient Qiang architecture.
In surviving the earthquake, Taoping Village is indebted to its unique landform and topography.
If seismic waves move along a mountain range, which part of the mountain, the top, the valley or the mountainside, can best withstand the force?
Interestingly, in the Qiang village, some of the buildings are situated on the mountain top and some on the mountainside. But none are built in the valley. So, why did the Qiang people ignore the broad and even valley with its abundant arable land?
The first reason was, the difficulty in defending the valley. However, they gradually discovered there were other advantages associated with their choice, and the tradition developed among the ancient Qiang people of living in stone houses located beside mountains. Traditional Qiang villages were often built on a steep mountainside or at the mountain’s top, instead of on the flood plains beside a river. Because of this, the Qiang Nationality were popularly known as the “people above the clouds”.
Taoping ancient Qiang Village is located on a mountainside. The Zagunao River, the main tributary of the Minjiang, runs eastward across the village. Thanks to its location, the village is protected from the northerly wind in the winter and receives adequate sunshine. More importantly, the broad and gentle terraces mitigate the effects of the major earthquakes that strike the area once every few decades.
When seismic waves move forward along the mountain range, the valley and the mountain top receive the impact first. The valley, with its broad expanse of soft and flat land, absorbs the force of the earthquake and deadens its power, which significantly reduces the impact on the mountainside.
Even buildings made of reinforced concrete collapsed during the earthquake. So, was there something miraculous about the construction materials used in the Taoping ancient Qiang Village?
The Qiang people, like other ancient nationalities, knew how to take advantage of nature to satisfy their need to survive. The two mountains beside the village are a source of common but nevertheless priceless, construction materials.
One mountain has abundant rubble, of a kind – grey, broad and thin – that is highly durable. Used in construction, it is capable of altering its shape in accordance with changes in the forces it is subjected to, which serves to make the building more stable.
The other mountain is abundant in loess. The miraculous village was built of rubble mixed with loess and mud.
