Study On The Folk House Of Gelao Ethnic In North Of Guizhou

Gelao minority is one of the 56 ethnic groups in China, which has ancient and long history. Nowadays most of the Gelao People are distributed throughout Guizhou Province, mainly in Daozhen and Wuchuan counties, while a small number of them live in Yunnan, Guangxi Provinces, Vietnam and etc.Due to the distinctive historical and cultural background, Gelao People’s settlements appear to be scattered. And because of the complex landform and variable climates in Guizhou Province, Gelao People’s architectural forms change a lot from one place to another. Meanwhile, their traditional building types change gradually attributing to adjacent national amalgamation. As the birthplace of Gelao People in Guizhou Province, Gelao’s national settlements are disturbed very densely in Qianbei area. And the unique spatial features, structural forms and construction techniques of their traditional buildings are inherited completely.The conventional Geolao’s settlements, building on the tie of blood, which can be divided into country settlements with mountain farming economy and town settlements basing on market trading. Traditional mountain farming forms the country settlements style, which is back against mountains, facing the fields and surrounded by beautiful gardens. Town settlements rely on trading economy, thus the streets play a key part in their layout modes. No matter country settlements or town settlements in Gelao’s district, they are all built on the base of blood relationship and developed with the progress of economical production. Therefore, those settlements remarkably own Gelao’s traditional folk culture and locally regional culture.Gelao’s traditional buildings are the results of interaction of natural environment, production and life style. Like the traditional settlements, It’s geographical layout continuing to be back against mountains, facing fields and surrounded by gardens. Their courtyard’s forms mainly include linear type, ’L’-type, triple house courtyard type and so on. But there is also few quadrangles and multiple entrance combination types. In Qianbei area, Gelao’s courtyards are almost bricked by classical stone wall, which primely embodies Gelao’s nationality. As for architectural space constructions, Gelao’s traditional door---- ‘Chao Men’, central room----‘Tang Wu’, small double room----‘Xiao Er Jian’ and colonnade----‘Zhan Lang’ not only possesses the southwest folk residential similarity, but also filled with Gelao’s traditional ethnic flavor, hence those elements are seen as the evidence of national amalgamation.In Qianbei area, the Gelao’s traditional buildings basically employ ‘Through type timber frame’, which has the generality of southwest traditional ‘Through type timber frame’ feature and Gelao’s conventional architectural technical character in the aspect of space, structure and construction process. The wood ornament and stone carving in Gelao’s buildings is stunning, and the sculpture theme is closely related to Gelao people’s national culture, faith, myth and legend. Generally speaking, from overall appearance to detailed decoration, from structural techniques to house construction customs, Gelao’s traditional buildings definitely contains unique national charm.The national architectures are often seen as very significant carrier of regional culture, which also plays a key role of maintaining native characteristics and arousing local memories. Since the modernization is increasingly fast, Gelao’s traditional buildings are rapidly ageing and vanishing. There is no doubt that proper actions of protection and inheritance should be immediately taken. Therefore, by researching on the spot, visiting the local carpenters, and referring information and literature of the past, I created this paper from all to one, from the macroscopic view to microscopic point, and from general examples to special cases. It includes almost all sides of the Gelao’s traditional buildings, such as the spatial structure, chamber functions, construction process, architectural techniques and detailed decoration and so on. Hopefully, this paper will contribute to protecting and inheriting Gelao’s traditional architectural techniques.