Earthen buildings in rural Fujian. Architectural challenges for local development

Against the backdrop of the recent array of policies targeted to boost processes of revitalization in rural China, the small settlements are the object of a growing interest by scholars and institutions. Considering the controversial issues related to the countryside restructuring, among which the cultural losses determined by the phenomenon of rural urbanisation, the international debate arena is shifting its attention from development per se to sustainable development. From one side, it has already been acknowledged that being sustainable requires something more beyond being ecologically friendly. On the other side, we found there is a huge space for investigation in regard to the elaboration of practices of rural revitalization. In particular, we argue that context-related strategies of revitalization have to be defined considering what exists as a possible resource. With this perspective, we focus on fifteen earthen vernacular buildings of an ordinary rural settlement in Fujian Province, the last tangible witnesses of local traditional past. At present, most of these constructions are used only during rituals and in rare cases for living purposes, resulting in neglection and dilapidation. However, they still play a pivotal role in the rural fabric, in the way they establish spatial relations with the built form and the open space as well. These ancestral halls still influence local construction activities, by suggesting a non-written system of rules. Such a system can be read in the morphological pattern of the settlement whose backbone is still clearly recognizable. Despite it is not possible to label them as architectural heritage, they are something more than vernacular architecture. Recalling the concept of cultural heritage, they embody a complex system of values rooted in the traditional local society, combining housing, farming and rituals. This paper explores the architecture of these ancestral buildings, their current condition and their contextual relations. We found they represent a cultural asset crossing different ages, for both the rediscovery of past and the reorientation of future developments.