Chengdu Travel Guide: Exploring One Of The Most Impressive Architectures In Chengdu, China!

What's the function of architecture? To live, to work, to defend or to inherit? As an architectural designer and urban planner in China, I've always wanted to see many different styles of architecture. Not only just capture them, but most importantly to find out what's behind them. There's four famous ancient towns in China. Lijiang in the south, Qingyou in the north, Zouzhuang in the east and Lodai in the west. When the drizzle knocks on the gates of Longchuan mountain, the beautiful images of Lodai ancient town are gradually open. Over the past 300 years, this ancient town with the largest number of guild halls in China has gathered sadness, joy, separation and the reunion with visitors from Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi and northern Sichuan. Wow! When I walked deeply into the town and greeted by buildings with traditional Chinese Chuan style, Hui style, Jin style, Hai style and Lin style. Why? Why are there so many guild halls and architecture styles in this small town? All clues point to one answer, the Hakka, the ancestors of Chengdu people. This circular building is what they call Tulou. In ancient times, this building housed the Hakka people. This is where the families would create their own community. Tulou represents the ground, the earth, lo is the building, so it's literally an earth building. You can understand the Hakka people had a very deep understanding of how to connect man with nature. The first two-story of Tulou is solid with no windows for the purpose of defense. Windows are only open from the third to the fifth stories with varying sizes. In the olden times, if it was cold, these buildings would be really warm spaces. These very thick walls would retain the heat and I guess in the summer they were in very cool spaces with the central courtyard. I guess as designers, as very advanced in their knowledge and thinking, definitely a learning experience. How can we use these principles on an urban level? This courtyard is seen the big fish begonia, daughter Chuan. She's leaving kind of the celestial space from the heaven and going down to earth. So as you can see, there are a series of doorways and these are leading to previously what would have been known as the small residential units. Now these are being preserved and converted into this large museum. This is recording a scene. This is kind of very deeply enriched culture where the youth and they leave their parents to go and travel and emigrate to Sichuan. The scene taking place also reminds me when I left the UK and I was like my friend here. I was also having that same role of saying goodbye to my family and also becoming a Chengdu drifter. For the Hakka, they started in the central plains of China and due to war times they began this migration. The first wave moving south to Jiangxi province and then heading further south through the second and third wave was going from the south. We're going across to west China to Sichuan province to Chongqing and also Chengdu. This is where we are today in Lodi. Something that I've seen across a lot of parts of southeast Asia, the Hakka migrated in the fifth migration pattern from south to southeast Asia. They took cross with them the water element which is connected with the ground, the land. They're wishing good fortune and blessings to the god to bring rain for the new harvest. Over thousands of years of emigration, the Hakka people have maintained one very specific tradition. That is the Gomei costume. We're going to go out and experience their char. A great part of coming to Lodi is to be able to experience and see what's going on with the Hakka costume. Whilst on the road along the difficult migration routes, Hakka people took what they could find as ingredients for Lai Char to kill hunger. This Gomei will definitely overturn your understanding of tea around the world. We're designing in the city of Chengdu. We're designing for the people but also we try to understand where the people have come from, what made them, who they are, their culture and how can we retain this and bring it to the modern uses. Future generation. Lodi town is full of the charm of ancient culture showcased in the enticing Hakka museums, century-old Hakka dwellings and beautiful old alleys and streets.