Reconstruction of Min-Zhe Wooden Arch Bridges and Its Legitimation as Tangible and Intangible Heritage

ABSTRACT

Min-Zhe bridge in Fu-Jian and Zhe-Jiang Provinces of China is a unique type of woven wooden arch bridge with important cultural heritage values in both tangible and intangible fields. Reconstruction (including in-situ rebuilding and relocation) is a traditional approach to extend the bridge’s lifespan, which has been passed on and lasts till now. Today’s reconstruction practice and its legitimation on intervening in the Min-Zhe bridge as both tangible and intangible heritage is discussed in this paper under the modern conservation context. Firstly, the reconstruction activities since its ‘discovery’ in 1980 are investigated through general information and case study. Then, the legitimation issues are discussed according to the criteria of the authenticity text for World Heritage bridges and the criteria of continuity for living heritage. Finally, suggestions on protecting the continuity of the building tradition and ensuring the reliability of the continuous production in the future are proposed.

KEYWORDS:

• Authenticity
• continuity
• living heritage
• reconstruction
• wooden arch bridge

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ It is also called Chinese Wooden Arch Bridge, Chinese Timber Arch Bridge, Rainbow Bridge, Covered Wooden Bridge, and Chinese Corridor Bridge in various studies. In this research, it is called Min-Zhe wooden arch bridge in order to underline its distribution area in Fujian (Min) and Zhejiang (Zhe) province.

² Conventional rebuilding of the Min-Zhe bridge refers to the overall inspection, restoration and treatment of the bridge through disassembly and reassembly. The process of conventional rebuilding is explained in detail in the section “Reconstruction Processes”.

³ The bridges’ information is collected by the records carved on the bridge (in the stone steles or the timber structure members), county annals or other written/oral records.

⁴ The statistics are made according to the collected records carved on the bridge (in the stone steles or the timber structure members), county annals or other written/oral records. Considering many records may have been lost over the years, the actual building/repairing activities in ancient times should be much more than the known records.

⁵ A Representative Bearer is officially designated as an outstanding bearer and educator of a specific tangible cultural heritage on the municipal, provincial or national level.

⁶ The table is made according to the collected records carved on the bridge (in the stone steles or the timber structure members), county annals or other written/ oral records.

⁷ *** for National Representative Bearer of the Min-Zhe Bridge Craftsmanship; ** for Provincial Representative Bearer; * for Municipal Representative Bearer.

⁸ The figure is made with screenshots from the documentary Discovering the Rainbow Bridge created by the Chanel 10 of the China Central Television in 2001: https://tv.cctv.com/2010/01/16/VIDE1355595176470321.shtml?spm=C55924871139.PKgX4CXWWE68.0.0

⁹ As the rebuilding projects of the Min-Zhe bridges were recorded on the bridges’ pillars or roofs, many of them are wear down or lost. So, the actual number of bridge reconstruction activities in the past should be higher than the statistics given in this paper.

¹⁰ Daoju Zheng, The Record of the Restoration of the Baixiang Bridge, 2002, was recorded on a stele at the gateway of the Baixiang Bridge.

¹¹ According to the author’s interview with Xudong Su, the director of Culture and Tourism Bureau of the Pingnan county.

¹² Ibid.