Kaiping Watchtowers in Kaiping City, Guangdong Province, is a special type of vernacular architecture is a set of defense, residential and Western architectural art in one of the multi-tower architecture.
According to existing evidence, Kaiping Watchtowers at the latest during the Ming period (16th century) have produced, to the late 19th and early 20th century developed into the performance of overseas Chinese history, social forms and cultural traditions of a unique group of architectural image. This type of large-scale buildings, many kinds of unique shape, distribution of villages in Kaiping City.
Its characteristicsIs East meets West at the house, the ancient Greek, Roman and Islamic style of a variety of such.
Since the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644), the Kaiping result in Xinhui, Taishan, Enping, emerging between the four counties, for the "four no matter" of the land, rampant banditry and social disorder; with the river more, every time a typhoon storm, flood disasters, the local population was forced to build towers in the village in order to protect themselves.
June 25, 2001, Kaiping Watchtowers as an important historical sites and representative of modern buildings, the State Council approved the inclusion of the fifth national cultural heritage list. by using the function, Kaiping Watchtowers can be divided into public buildings, home building, more building three types:
Public House, built in the village by village houses, or co-financing the construction of a number of households, each household in a housing allocation for the temporary use to avoid bandits, or floods. Its shape is closed, simple, less external decoration, defense, and strong. In the three towers, the public building first appeared, the existing 473, accounting for 26% of Kaiping Watchtowers.
Home building has many built in the village, owned by the rich people built it a good combination of the two towers of defense work and residenceEnergy, the House of tall, relatively open space, a relatively complete living facilities, personal convenience. Home building style more varied, beautiful, strong external decoration, to meet the defense function, based on the pursuit of formal beauty of the building, often a sign of the village. The largest number of home building, the existing 1149, in Kaiping Watchtowers in about 62%.
Lau main entrance to the village or outside the village built in the hills, river banks, stand tall, broad vision, and more equipped with searchlights and alarms, easy to find Feiqing early, early warning to the village, is a product of the surrounding villages defense needs. There is more floor time at the latest, the existing 221, about Kaiping12% of the towers.