China's Tulou: Where Everything Old is New Again

This newly-built low-income complex in Guangzhou, modeled on the traditional Chinese tulou includes 287 living units for a maximum of 1,800 people. It also houses a canteen, store, library, ping-pong room, internet bar and basketball court. (Photo by Chaoying Yang)

Modern versions of the traditional Chinese tulou or 土搂 (earthen buildings) are popping up again in Southern China.

The Chinese architecture firm Urbanus recently finished a low-income housing complex near Guangzhou modeled on the form of communal architecture that traces its roots back to the 12th Century in Southwest Fujian Province.

Their work is the subject of an exhibit at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City that will run until April 2009. The exhibit will feature two full-scale bedroom models from the Guangzhou development. A typical housing project holds up to six adults with 355 square feet of space in total.

Inside a traditional tulou in Yongding in Fujian Province. (China Tourism Press/Getty Images)

Built round for defensive purposes, traditional Chinese tulous are rammed clay buildings found most often in southwest Fujian Province, but are also located in Jiangxi and Guangdong Provinces.

The buildings often associated with the Hakka, a subgroup of the majority Han ethnic group of Chinese. While many of the tulous are round, there are also numerous rectangular tulous. They can house an entire family clan of up to 80 families or 800 people. Tulous typically have one door or gate and a central courtyard with a shrine.

Beijing's City Weekend Magazine reported that in 1986, U.S. spy satellites monitoring China took images of the Fujian tulou. Government officials saw their round structure and mistook them for nuclear missile silos. They realized their mistake after CIA agents sent there to investigate reported: "Those aren’t missiles, dumbass, those are mud!"