The roof of Dinh Bang village’s communal house has the largest blade in Vietnam. (Source: Vietnam Photo Newspaper)As a massive ancient architecture containing unique traditional wooden decorative art values, the communal house of Dinh Bang village (Tu Son town, Bac Ninh province) has long been considered one of the three most beautiful communal houses in the country. Of North
“First is Dong Khang
communal house, Second is Dinh Bang, glorious Dinh Diem”
These are folk verses about three famous communal houses in Kinh Bac region. Dong Khang Communal House today no longer exists, Diem communal house had five compartments and two wings before, now there are only three compartments and two wings, now only Dinh Bang communal house remains.
Dinh Bang communal house is located on the Red River Delta, stretching along the National Highway 1A, about 20km from Hanoi to the North.
According to history books, Dinh Bang communal house was started construction in 1700 and completed in 1736. The person who had the original idea to build a communal house was a Dinh Bang mandarin named Nguyen Thac Luong. He and his wife, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Nguyen, together with people in the area contributed to building the communal house.
The communal house of Dinh Bang village is a place of cultural and religious convergence. Before the communal house was worshiped 3 natural gods: Cao Son Dai Vuong (God of Earth), Thuy Ba Dai Vuong (God of Water) and Bach Le Dai Vuong (God of Planting). These are the gods worshiped by the agricultural inhabitants, praying for favorable weather and good crops. Every year in the 12th lunar month, people hold a festival to pray for a bountiful harvest year.
Also at the communal house, the people also worshiped the Luc To (six people who had merit to restore the village in the 15th century. Later, when the Ly Bat De temple was destroyed by the French colonialists in 1948, the people received the tablets of the eight kings of the dynasties. Ly returned to worship at Dinh Bang communal house.
The typical value of Dinh Bang communal house is an ancient architectural work with a large scale, solid structure according to traditional techniques, elegant and harmonious shapes, especially the art of sculpture and decoration. decorated on architectural parts with hundreds of rich pattern projects, becoming typical architectural decoration sculptures of the nation in the 18th century.
Dinh Bang consists of a massive communal house connected to the rear harem in the form of a mallet-shaped plan, also known in the form of a Confucian character as the “nail” type. The great hall is 20m long, 14m wide, 8m high, the beautiful drooping roof occupies 5.5m of the total height.
The unique beauty of the communal house is reflected in the spacious roof space, the massive features of the blades, the rules adapted to the monsoon climate, and the dense sculptural decoration.
Dinh Bang communal house is located in Dinh Bang ward, Tu Son town, Bac Ninh. (Source: Vietnam Photo Newspaper)Dinh Bang Communal House has a truss structure, consisting of seven compartments and two wings (sub-space). The communal house is built on a high platform with a terrace of green stone. In particular, the communal house has the architecture of a stilt house with a wooden floor 0.7m high above the ground, six rows of horizontal columns and ten rows of ironwood columns with diameters from 0.55m (with sub-columns) to zero. 65m (with mother column) is propped on green rocks.
The roof of the communal house is 8 meters high with the façade ratio of the roof larger than the body (the roof occupies two thirds of the height of the communal house) creating a sense of grandeur. The communal house is roofed with tiled roofs and has the farthest reaches of the traditional wooden structures in Vietnam. The house has a door with a table around it.
The interior of the communal house is decorated with many rich themes such as dragon, phoenix, pine, apricot, bamboo, wine gourd, sword. In particular, the dragon image occupies a large proportion with the number of about 500 images. The main hall (the nave) has a low floor, paved with nem leaf tiles. This space is the lowest, the term is “boat bed”. The plank floor of the two sides is gradually higher, a total of two levels, distinguishing the status of the officials when meeting the village work so that people sit “upper” and “below” depending on their position in the village.
The hammock door and ceiling of the main hall are elaborately carved. On the plank, below the balustrade of the main column and the small column, there is a carving of “Bat Ma Troi Phi” (The herd of eight galloping horses) with very lively tunes. In the communal house, there are many paintings of horizontal phoenixes, and the couplets are painted with gilded lipstick.
Like many Vietnamese communal houses built in the late 17th century and early 18th century, Dinh Bang communal house has a superficial architecture, in harmony with the nature of Vietnam. The communal house has a long, high roof, curved blades, roofed with thick, wide and thick tiles. The roof angle means “sword ship” bends backwards. Among the traditional wooden architectures in Vietnam, Dinh Bang communal house is the one with the longest reaching heads.
Dinh Bang relic was ranked a national historical relic by the State in 1961. Through many ups and downs of history, the people of Dinh Bang have preserved and continuously renovated the communal house, meeting the spiritual and spiritual needs of the people. cultural heritage of the community, and at the same time serve the needs of visiting and researching a typical sculptural architectural heritage of the homeland of Bac Ninh – Kinh Bac./.
Source: Collected internet.