The country's longest ancient wooden arch bridge, The Wan'an Bridge, was not burned before the aerial view. Photo by Mu Mu
Fuzhou, August 7 (China News Network) -- At about 21:00 on August 6, the Wan'an Bridge, the longest existing ancient wooden arch bridge in China, was destroyed by fire. The fire notice issued by the Propaganda Department of the Pingnan County Party Committee in Fujian Province at 23:00 on August 6 said, "At present, the open fire at the scene has been completely extinguished, and there are no casualties." The cause of the fire is under investigation. ”
Wan'an Bridge in 2019. Old Forest Photo
Why did the Wan'an Bridge burn down?
Wan'an Bridge is located in Changqiao Village, Changqiao Town, Pingnan County, Fujian Province, and is a five-pier and six-hole wooden arcade roof bridge. The bridge is 98.2 meters long and 4.7 meters wide, with boat-shaped piers, unequal span, the shortest arch span is 10.6 meters, and the longest arch span is 15.2 meters. The bridge house has 38 bays, 156 columns, a bucket-type wooden frame, a double slope roof, and wooden benches on both sides.
According to the "Yutian Zhiluo", the bridge was built in the Song Dynasty. It has a history of 917 years. It was burned in the 47th year of the Qing Kangxi Dynasty, rebuilt in the 7th year of Qianlong (1742), and repaired in later generations. On May 25, 2006, as one of the "Northeast Fujian Corridor Bridges", it was announced as the sixth batch of national key cultural relics protection units.
Wooden arcade bridges are the highest technical category of traditional wooden architecture bridges in mainland China. Tang Huancheng, a famous bridge expert, said in the "History of Chinese Science and Technology And Bridge Volume" that the bridge "only China has in the history of bridges in the world". In 2008, the "traditional construction technique of wooden arch bridge" was included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list, and a year later, this construction technique was included in UNESCO's List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.
According to the "Pingnan County Chronicle", there are more than 50 wooden arcade bridges in Pingnan. After the destruction of the Wan'an Bridge, there are 12 existing wooden arcade bridges built in the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, which is one of the counties with a large number of wooden arcade bridges in China.
According to the image of many photography enthusiasts who have long been concerned about the bridge, there is no incense shrine on the Wan'an Bridge, and there are few tourists at night, so where does the fire start?
Wan'an Bridge. Small flying knife photo
Second, is the cultural heritage of the ancient covered bridge effectively protected?
Pingnan has taken a variety of measures to protect the ancient covered bridge. It is worth mentioning that on July 27, 2021, the Pingnan County People's Court, the Pingnan County People's Procuratorate, the Pingnan County Culture and Tourism Bureau, the PICC Property Insurance Pingnan Branch Company, the Changqiao Town People's Government, the Tangkou Town People's Government, the Shoushan Township People's Government and other departments signed a contract for the judicial cooperation on the protection of the cultural heritage of the Covered Bridge, and signed a contract for the Pingnan County Covered Bridge Cultural Heritage Insurance.
The first batch of judicial cooperation cultural heritage protection insured objects are the county's most historical and cultural value of Baixiang Bridge, Qiancheng Bridge, Wan'an Bridge, which is also the first case of "judicial + insurance" protection of ancient corridor bridge model in Fujian Province.
According to the Pingnan County Ancient Corridor Bridge Cultural Relics Insurance Protection Agreement issued by the official public account of the "Pingnan Court", during the insurance period, due to fire, explosion, lightning strike, rainstorm, flood and other reasons caused by the damage to the bridge, the resulting repair costs or the cost of rebuilding the original site shall be compensated by the Rencai Insurance Company in accordance with the contract. The insured amount of each bridge is 1 million yuan (RMB) and the validity period is one year.
Now that the one-year deadline has passed, the Wan'an Bridge has suddenly caught fire, and the cause of the fire is unknown. The firefighting video circulating on social media shows that there are no fire hoses on the Wan'an Bridge, fire extinguishers are scarce, people use buckets to fight the fire, and the fire cannot be extinguished, which makes people desperate.
At 0:36 on the 7th of the 7th, the official of Pingnan County re-issued the "Fire Notice on Wan'an Bridge in Changqiao Town, Pingnan County" through the public account "Panorama Pingnan", adding a sentence: "In the next step, Pingnan County will assess the fire situation and make every effort to do follow-up work such as repairs." ”
We still have to ask whether the ancient covered bridge heritage insurance is renewed in a timely manner? Has the cultural heritage of the ancient covered bridge been effectively protected?
Wan'an Bridge, April 2018. Photo by Miao Fusen
Three questions how not to let the covered bridge become a dream?
The beauty of the ancient covered bridge lies in the fact that there is no need for a nail and a rivet and a mortise connection technique, in the scenery of the long rainbow lying waves between the high mountains and ravines, and even more in the folk customs of the local people who rely on the bridge. Wooden arcade bridges are mostly distributed at the junction of Zhejiang and Fujian, and there are still more than 100 wooden arcade bridges since the Song Dynasty in the mountainous counties and cities of southern Zhejiang and northern Fujian, mostly in the areas of Taishun, Qingyuan and Shouning in southern Zhejiang and northern Fujian.
In Pingnan County, Fujian Province alone, locals describe these "secret bridges": there is the longest surviving Wan'an Bridge in the country; There is a Ten Jin Bridge with a span of only 10 meters; There are five piers and six holes, there are also two piers and three holes, one pier and two holes, and a single hole span of 35 meters, known as the "first dangerous bridge in Jiangnan" Baixiang Bridge; There is the Longjing Bridge, which has been praised by bridge expert Mao Yisheng and many bridge experts inside and outside the province as the "model" of the mainland wooden arch bridge, and the Qiancheng Bridge, which is designed to spread the wings of a rooster...
"Traditional Construction Techniques of Chinese Wooden Arch Bridges" was selected into the United Nations "List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding", and the applicants were in Qingyuan, Taishun, Fujian, Shouning and Pingnan in Zhejiang, and now every four years, the four places take turns to write performance reports.
In recent years, the provinces, cities and counties where the project is located have issued special funds for the transmission activities of inheritors at all levels to encourage the public to participate in bridge-building activities. It is understood that in the past four years, Zhejiang and Fujian have built 32 new wooden arcade bridges through fundraising and donations, and the team of inheritors has also expanded, from 33 to 52.
However, in recent years, the protection of wooden arcade bridges has been worrying. First, it is still difficult to resist the threat of natural disasters and fire damage, in 2016, three ancient covered bridges in Taishun County, Zhejiang Province, were damaged by typhoons. In addition to being washed away by the flood, the Yuqing Bridge and the Jian'ou Buyue Bridge in Wuyi Mountain in northern Fujian were destroyed by fire.
Second, community practices are booming but young people's participation is limited, and how to achieve intergenerational inheritance is still a problem to be solved. After becoming the inheritor of the wooden arcade bridge, a young college student in the Department of Architecture in Shouning County admitted to reporters that building a covered bridge in the deep mountains is "lonely and difficult to fight."
Wan'an Bridge, April 2018. Photo by Miao Fusen
At present, Shouning County, Pingnan County, Zhouning County, Zhenghe County in Fujian Province, and Taishun County, Qingyuan County and Jingning County in Zhejiang Province are applying for heritage in a group. In 2012, 22 "Fujian-Zhejiang Wooden Arcade Bridges" in seven counties in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces were included in the "Preliminary List of China's World Cultural Heritage" by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.
Since the establishment of the Organizing Committee of the Seven Counties of Zhejiang and Fujian in 2019, the "Charter of the Alliance of Counties and Cities for the Protection and Application of Wooden Arcade Bridges in Fujian and Zhejiang in China" has been revised and improved, including the rescue of endangered wooden arcade bridges, the establishment of a cooperation coordination mechanism for county and city application for heritage, and the establishment of declaration agencies for Zhejiang and Fujian provinces. The seven counties regularly hold joint meetings of counties and cities to study the development policy of wooden arcade bridges, start the procedures for declaring wooden arcade bridges as world cultural heritage, jointly prepare action plans for applying for heritage, and formulate protection plans for Zhejiang-Fujian wooden arcade bridges.
A number of cultural protection personnel told the China News Network reporter that the protection of the ancient covered bridge is imminent. "'Protection, inheritance and utilization' have always been the three key words in the study of cultural relics, and the protection work is in the first place, and the same is true for the study of wooden arcade bridges." A cultural security official said so.
Liu Yan, an architectural historian who wrote the book "Weaving Wooden Arch Bridges", put forward a sharper view. Liu Yan said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from China News Network that in fact, the Wan'an Bridge was still a out-arm bridge in the Republic of China, and it was changed to a wooden arch bridge when it was rebuilt in 1932. It witnessed the boom of wooden arch bridges between the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China in Fujian and Zhejiang. "In this boom, many small and medium-span bridges that 'do not need to be woven wooden arch structures' have been built with wooden arches, which is similar to the 'revival' of wooden arches under today's intangible cultural heritage boom."
Liu Yan introduced that during the Republic of China, the Wan'an Bridge was built by Huang Chuncai's grandfather. In 1954, the Wan'an Bridge was washed away twice, and Huang Chuncai rebuilt it with his father. In 2014, Huang Chuncai built a 3-span large wooden arch bridge in Baishuiyang. "Therefore, the burning of the Wan'an Bridge is naturally extremely painful from the cultural relics, but the technical inheritance is not impossible to restore."
"Objectively speaking, the bridges built by the Huang family in 1932 and 1954 are beautiful and harmonious, 'comfortable' and 'exquisite', but the bridges built in 2014 are stiff and out of order." Liu Yan pointed out that the same family's technical inheritance, or even the same person's technical techniques, why can 1932 and 1954 be pleasant, and 2014 is not satisfactory? "So after 2022, what if the Wan'an Bridge is rebuilt by 'traditional craftsmen'? Will it be a continuation of tradition, or a fake antique? Where are the answers that architecture can give, and where are the professional guides that can be made? (End)