The magnificent round clay building group.

The inner hall of Zhencheng Building, a perfect combi-nation of Chiuese and Westem architectural styles.

    Generally speaking, the clay buildings are two to six-storied dwellings with a military defensive hue. On the walls of the first floor there is no window at all, while on the walls of the second floor installed a little number of small windows. So far as the arrangements of architectural function, kitchen and dining room were generally placed on the first floor: the storage rooms were on the second floor: while the bedrooms were placed on the third or higher floors. The base of wall is 3 m thick; the wall of the first floor is 1.5m thick, the thickness of the wall will reduce upward. Inside of the exterior walls, the space was partitioned into several rooms with planks. The rooms were connected to the corridors. In the central part was ancestral hall, private school or stage. Though the clay building was a very closed system, it was a place of unique attraction: all rooms were opened inwardly through connecting the corridors, which had formed into a "central yard" abound in human kindness. When strolling in a clay building you can find the couplets, calligraphies or paintings. Therefore it is worthy of the description that the clay building is gentle inside and looks ruthless from outside.

    The Minxi clay buildings are in various shapes and postures. But those of great numbers or wide spread are square, round and five-phoenix buildings.

    The "square building" widely distributed over Yonudinu county is a simple structure while its plane surface is in forms of square, rectangle or the Chinese character "1" shape. The most popular square building is the Yijing dwelling in Guopo Town, Yongding County. Built in the first year of the reign of Xianfeng, the Qing Dynasty ( 1851 ) the Yijing dwelling had a construction area totaling 4000, which was completed within more than 70 years by people of three generations and was called "Da Lou Sha" locally. The exterior wall is 136 m long in eastern and western directions, while 76 m in the southern and northern directions with a portal and two side entrances. The whole building is composed of four parts: a five-storied building in the back, three four-storied buildings in the left, right and front respectively. The four parts form the shape of the Chinese character ,while there were buildings also in the shape of the Chinese character inside. Then the general arrangement of the buildings was in a form of Chinese character . The center of the building was a central hall while the left and right wings of the front building were class rooms of a school.

    The "round building" is the most famous Minxi clay building, it made the clay buildings hidden in the mountains for several centuries famous to the outside world. The shapes of the round building can be divided into the flat arrangement of monocycle, multi-ring and even the circular linked with square. Multi-ring-structured building could be easily found, while their plane is the concentric circle. The exterior structure is usually high while its internal structure is low. The hall locates in the center of the whole building. It was the public place for weddings, funerals and other celebrations. According to the incomplete statistics, there are more than 360 round buildings in the Yongding County, among them including the oldest "Chengqi Building" with the most numerous circles; the "Shenyuan Building" with the longest diameter and "Rusheng Building" with the shortest diameter, etc.

    Located at the Gaotou Township, Yongding County, Chengqi Building's scale is astonishing with its diameter about 73m long and circumference nearly 229.34 m. The whole building has 400 rooms where more than 400 people of 60 households live. In 1981 this building was listed in the Dictionar3, of China's Scenic Spots and was known as "king of clay building". The plane arrangement of the "Chengqi Building" is "a center with three circular structures": the external circular structure has four storeys, 72 rooms each; the second circular structure has two storeys, 40 rooms each; while the third circular structure only has one storey with 32 rooms; in the middle of the building is the ancestral hall.

    The "Wufeng (five phoenixes ) Building" is a special kind of clay building. Among the clay buildings, Wufeng Building is a kind of building most similar to the courtyard dwelling of Northern and Central China. Mainly situated at the core area of Hakkas culture, the Wufeng building is a derivative of the quadrangle folk house of the central plains in the special circumstance of Fujian Province and has reflected the influence of the feudal ethical code of the central plains.

    The typical structure of Wufeng Building is characterized by three halls accompanied with two horizontal buildings with distinct axis, and the front part being low and the back part being high, while facing the Sun and with its back to the river. The three halls are the lower hall, the central hall and the main building, the two horizontal buildings are the rectangular architectures located at both sides of three halls. Such a courtyard arrangement is similar to that of the central plains. The mountain slope being high in the north and low in the south was chosen as the building site. Thus the whole architectural group ascends from the south to the north. Viewing from the front the roofs present many levels full of grandeur. In the areas where the Wufeng dwellings were built the feudal ethics were widely spread among the people. who longed to get scholarly honor and official rank through reading books or obtain glory for the whole community. The Wufeng Building sometimes is called "Dafuti-styled clay building" because a horizontal board inscribed with three Chinese characters Da Fu Di was hanged on the gate of the building. Aside from the role of parading the distinguished status, this kind of Chinese characters was a metaphor for building owner's ambition to long for high position and wealth through imperial examinations.

    The Fuyu building at Hongkeng Village of Hukeng Town in Yongding County is a typical Wufeng Dwelling. The construction began in 1880 by three brothers of Lin clan, this building occupied an area of 7000 . The central axis of the Fuvu Dwelling is low in front and high in back; two horizontal buildings were arranged on both wings of the principal building; in front of the building there are three gates. Judging from its appearance, the principal building and the horizontal houses are well combined. The gate level ground and walls were paved or built with cobblestones.

    The buildings were ingeniously constructed and integrated with the surroundings. The exterior shape of the building is just like three mountains, which means that the three brothers who owned the building were like the three magnificent mountains.

    As for the clay buildings of other shapes, the plane arrangements are also colorful. for instance, the ellipse shape, the half-moon shape and the polygon shape, etc. The bagua (The Eight Diagrams - eight groups of whole or broken lines used in divination.) building is worth mention. It is not a simple eight diagrams, but contains the in-depth cultural symbol of the Chinese tradition. In the western part of Fujian Province, site selection and location of the clay building could not be separated from the Eight Diagrams: while some clay buildings copied the images of the Eight Diagrams. This is the origin of the bagua dwelling. Some planes of the bagua building took the shape of the standardized octagons, for instance, the "Daoying Building". But there were circular-shaped bagua building while only its arrangement reflected the ideas of the Eight Diagrams. The "Zhencheng Building" at the Hongkeng Village of Hukeng Town in Yongding County is the typical mode of this kind of clay building.

    Newly established in 1912 by the brothers of the Lin clan, Zhencheng Building occupied an area of 5000 m2 while its flat surface can be divided into the internal circle and external circle. The outer ring building is a four-storied structure of the Eight Diagrams (eight combinations with 6 rooms each, on each floor totaling 48 rooms) in circular shape: Each gua (combination) of six rooms is an independent unit with a staircase. The guas are separated by the fire-sealing gables and connect by arch doors, which would be closed if one gua caught fire. Then. the whole building could escape the fire. The inner ring building is a bi-level structure in which Western architectural styles were applied. The introduction of Western culture could not be separated from the owners of the buildings, the Lin clan enriched themselves in Western countries and were deeply influenced by the Western culture. The building is composed of one hall. two wells (svmbolizine the Yin and Yang holes in the Eight Diagrams), three gates (symbolizing the Heaven. Earth and human beings in the Eight Diagrams) and 8 units (Eight Diagrams). Viewing from the above-mentioned we can find that the builders adopted an original approach. Because Chinese and Western styles combined and they supplemented and enriched each other, the building mode of Zhencheng Dwelling was sent to the World Architectural Fair, Los Angles of the United States, and was acclaimed as "'oriental architectural pearl".