On the evening of August 6, the Wan’an Bridge in Pingnan County, Ningde City, Fujian Province caught fire. The fire was extinguished at 10 o’clock in the evening, but the bridge body had been burned and collapsed, and only the remaining part was left. As of now, the cause of the fire has not been identified.
The Burning Wan’an Bridge丨The Paper
Wan’an Bridge was built in the Northern Song Dynasty and has a history of more than 900 years. It has also been rebuilt many times. Before last night, it was the longest surviving through-wood arched house bridge in China, and was listed as one of the sixth batch of national key cultural relics protection units.
“National Security” was destroyed, we may be able to draw some experience and lessons from it besides sighing.
Wan’an Bridge “Through Wooden Arch”
Architectural skills from the Northern Song Dynasty
At first glance at the photos of Wan’an Bridge, you may think: Isn’t this just an ordinary wooden bridge? There is no color painting, and there is no bucket arch, it looks rustic.
Wan’an Bridge丨Graphic Creatures
However, this kind of “rusty” through-wood arch bridge (also known as braided wood arch bridge) is recognized by the academic circles as the most technical form of traditional wooden bridges . The related “traditional construction techniques of wooden arch bridges” were also included in the national intangible cultural heritage representative project list in 2008 and the UNESCO “Intangible Cultural Heritage List in Urgent Need of Protection” in 2009.
What kind of black technology is “Through Wooden Arch”?
In 1953, the famous Northern Song Dynasty painting “Across the River During Qingming Festival” was exhibited to the public for the first time. When the young bridge scientist Tang Huancheng first saw the focus of the picture—the beautiful rainbow-like wooden arch bridge over the Bian River, he was immediately deeply attracted by it.
The “Hongqiao” in “Along the River During Qingming Festival”
He deduced the size of the Hongqiao through research and calculation, and named it “Guangmu Arch Bridge”, praising ” the only one in China in the history of bridges in the world “. The so-called through-wood arch refers to an arch formed by using a plurality of straight woods staggered and intersecting, and at the same time, the beams are inserted horizontally.
Tang Huancheng’s structural system of the Bianshui Hongqiao indicated by a matchstick丨Tang Huancheng “Chinese Wooden Arch Bridge”
I believe that people who have not studied civil engineering can immediately see that this is a very simple, very beautiful, and very practical structure. According to the records of “Mian Shui Yan Tan Lu”, during the Mingdao period of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Guanmu Arch appeared in Qingzhou.
Ancient Rome used masonry and concrete to build arches, while China’s Hongqiao was made of wood. The woods are intertwined under the action of their own weight, supporting and balancing each other.
However, the Guanmu Gong seems to have been lost after the Song Dynasty, so that all paintings on the Ming and Qing editions of “Along the River During Qingming Festival” are all stone arch bridges . Until the late 1970s, cultural relic workers found the same type of wooden arch bridges again in southern Zhejiang and northeastern Fujian. Bridge experts such as Tang Huancheng were ecstatic: this technology is still alive!
The stone arch bridge in Qiu Ying’s “Across the River at Qingming Festival” in the Ming Dynasty
In the small villages in the mountainous areas of Fujian and Zhejiang, the through-wood arch structure gives full play to its advantages: the Longfeng Bridge in Longan Village, Zhangdun, Jianyang, Fujian, has a clear span of 10.8 meters, only 11 diagonal ribs with a length of 5 meters and a bridge with a length of 6.8 meters. With 11 flat ribs, the bridge is built without using more than 11 meters of wood; another example is the Luanfeng Bridge in Xiadang Township, Shouning, Fujian, with a wooden arch span of 37.6 meters, which is the largest single-hole wooden arch bridge in the country. , If it is changed to a flat beam bridge, it is not necessary to build piers in the river.
The three-folded Luanfeng Bridge丨Ningde People’s Broadcasting Station, photo by Pan Yuerong
However, the span of a wooden arch bridge is limited after all. Therefore, in the construction of the Wan’an Bridge, which is nearly 100 meters long, the craftsmen skillfully adopted the structural form of multiple piers and multiple spans, with upper wood and lower stone, which solved the restriction that the through-wood arch bridge cannot be used on a wider river bed, making Wan’an The bridge has become the longest existing wooden arch bridge in China . Therefore, Wan’an Bridge and several other covered bridges in Fujian were selected as the “Northeast Fujian Covered Bridge” as the sixth batch of national key cultural relics protection units .
There are also relics of through-wood arches in southern Zhejiang, such as Zhejiang Qingyuan Mengsil Bridge丨Tuchu Creative
Fire, the eternal enemy of ancient buildings
Just like the Wan’an Bridge we have seen, ancient Chinese buildings, whether it is the Forbidden City or Yingxian Wooden Pagoda, are dominated by wooden frame. In this way, it is convenient to obtain materials, has strong adaptability, and is fast in construction, but it also has an Achilles’ heel:
Flammable.
The wood surface of many ancient buildings is cracked, the wood is loose, the water content is close to 0, and the fire resistance level is extremely low. Its interior furnishings, such as furniture, drapery, calligraphy and paintings, are almost all flammable. It is estimated that the fire load of ancient buildings is about 30 times that of modern buildings.
Just looking through the history books, there are countless famous buildings that were burnt down in ancient times : the tower of Yongning Temple in the Northern Wei Dynasty was recorded as high as 100 zhang, but it was struck by lightning and caused a fire in the 18th year of its completion. In the Tang Dynasty, Xue Huaiyi set fire to heaven because he fell out of favor with Wu Zetian (that is, the prototype of the building in “Di Renjie’s Tongtian Empire”), which caused the Mingtang to be set ablaze.
The ancients also took some fire prevention measures , such as the “Taiping Tank” for water storage in the Forbidden City, the horse head wall in the folk, and the original fire gun called “Pump”. But to be honest, none of these hardware is particularly “hard” . The Palace of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City was destroyed four times due to lightning strikes and fires in the imperial dining room. This is the case for the royal family, not to mention the folks.
The “Taiping Cylinder” in the Forbidden City丨Tuchu Creative
In recent decades, my country’s fire protection industry has made great progress, and the protection of cultural relics has attracted more and more attention. However, many cultural protection units still have problems in the form of management personnel, fire equipment, emergency plans and other software and hardware. The reason is nothing more than local financial constraints or poor implementation of policies, especially in small cities or counties and towns – but the city and county-level cultural protection units are precisely the largest in number.
Although ancient buildings like Wan’an Bridge are already “national security”, because they are far away from the urban area and the surrounding environment is complex, it is difficult to arrange fire hydrants and difficult to approach when fighting fires, making them more vulnerable to fire threats.
Can we see Wan’an Bridge again?
Great probability – yes.
Wan’an Bridge is a “national security” and a leader among similar covered bridges, so the local government will most likely put reconstruction work on the agenda. An example for reference is the “national security” in my hometown – the main palace of Tong Incheon. Chuanzhu Palace was once contracted to privately run chess and card rooms and teahouses as the first pilot unit for the utilization of cultural relics in Guizhou Province. The whole procedure is roughly as follows:
①The Tongren Regional Administration shall report to the provincial government for approval of reconstruction;
②The Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics shall report to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage for approval of reconstruction according to the handling opinions of the General Office of the Provincial Government;
③ The State Administration of Cultural Heritage replied to the Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics, requesting to conduct on-site demonstration on the necessity and basis for the restoration of the original site of Chuanzhu Palace;
④The ancient architecture expert group of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage conducts a site survey on the remains of the Chuanzhu Palace and organizes a demonstration meeting, and agrees to rebuild in principle;
⑤ Tongren Regional Administration and Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau began to allocate funds for reconstruction.
In 1999, the Guizhou Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics organized a survey of the current situation of the Chuanzhu Palace and a technical design for its repairs, and obtained a large number of first-hand materials such as actual survey maps and hundreds of detailed photos. Later, these materials became an important basis for the reconstruction of the Chuanzhu Palace.
At present, my country has completed the census registration of 767,000 immovable cultural relics, which naturally includes “national security” such as Wan’an Bridge. These drawings may usually lie quietly in the file box, but once they encounter an extreme situation like yesterday, they will become precious “resurrection pills” .
Moreover, the technology of the Guanmu Arch Covered Bridge is a living inheritance in Fujian . In 1952, the Wan’an Bridge was washed away by the flood and destroyed two arches and 12 bays. In 1954, it was rebuilt with the funds of the county government. Their family is a bridge-building family. Huang Xiangyan’s son Huang Chuncai inherited his father’s business and is also the inheritor of the traditional wooden arch bridge construction skills mentioned above. Therefore, as long as it is approved by the government and verified by experts, there is no technical difficulty in rebuilding the Wan’an Bridge.
Huang Chuncai and Wan’an Bridge Drawings丨Pingnan Tourism Official WeChat
Fortunately, a bridge was burned this time, and cultural relics are not stored like temples and palaces. The bridge was built in 1932, relatively recently, and basically without decoration, so there is little historical information about the destruction of the fire.
Of course, this is by no means to say that the old bridge is not important. Even from the overhaul in 1954, it has accompanied a three-year-old child through the ancient times. In Fujian and Zhejiang, you can easily see old people talking and laughing on similar covered bridges: the roof above can protect from wind and rain, and the long and open bridge is an excellent social public space. A “cuo bridge”, carrying the nostalgia of a wanderer .
Wan’an Bridge has been rebuilt many times since the Song Dynasty. We have to admit that even if it is rebuilt this time, Wan’an Bridge will still be destroyed and rebuilt in the long years. After the ship of Theseus has replaced all the wood, it may no longer be it; but the Wan’an Bridge is still the Wan’an Bridge no matter how many times it is overhauled. Just like the visible Yueyang Tower by the Dongting Lake, and the invisible Yueyang Tower written by Fan Zhongyan; the visible Wan’an Bridge was burnt down this time, but the invisible Wan’an Bridge is still on the callus of Master Huang Chuncai and in the local accent of Pingnan people. Those feelings that belong to the Chinese have remained unchanged for thousands of years.
references
[1] Tang Huancheng. Chinese Wooden Arch Bridge [M]. China Construction Industry Press, 2010.
[2] Wang Zhenyong. Hongqiao quiz [J]. Fujian Wenbo, 2012 (2): 30-38.
[3] Wang Mingzhen. Cases of ancient building fires in the fifty years since the founding of New China [J]. Zhejiang Fire Protection, 2002 (12): 16-18.
[4] Dai Chao. A Preliminary Probe into the Fire Protection Technology Protection System of Ancient Wooden Buildings in China [D]. Master’s Thesis in Architecture, Tongji University, 2007.
[5] Xiao Dong, Cheng Fei. Architectural characteristics and lifting and repairing methods of Wan’an Bridge in Pingnan, Fujian [J]. Ancient Architecture and Garden Technology, 2018 (4): 21-26.
Author: Wu Erbang
Editor: Luna
Source of cover image: The Paper
an AI
Fire protection of ancient buildings is a worldwide problem. No matter where you are, you must abide by the regulations when visiting in the future. Don’t burn incense if you don’t allow it to burn incense.
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