Starting in 2015, the State and Shanxi province will raise funds of 1.5 billion yuan ($239.85 million) to preserve and repair 235 ancient wooden architectures protected at the provincial or national level in the province by 2020, according to a cultural relics meeting on March 9.
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The Sakyamuni Pagoda of Fogong Temple in Shanxi's Yingxian county, also known as Yingxian Pogoda, was built in 1056 and believed to be the world's oldest wooden pagoda. [Photo/Xinhua] |
Shanxi was hailed as a treasury-house of wooden architectures. It has over 280,000 registered ancient architectures, which leads other provinces in the country. Moreover, the history of these ancient structures range from the Wei Dynasty (AD220-265) to contemporary times in a variety of styles.
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King Guangren's Temple, also known as Five Dragons Temple, is located in Shanxi's Ruicheng. It is the most ancient Taoist building existing in China to date and one of China’s four wooden buildings built in the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907).[Photo/Xinhua] |
However, most of these buildings lacked sound preservation and suffered from poor conditions. Some auxiliary relics, such as murals and paintings in these buildings, were also damaged as time went by.
Early during the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010), the State Administration of Cultural Heritage launched a project to preserve ancient architectures in south Shanxi, which benefited 105 wooden structures at the national-level with a fund of 400 million yuan.
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Foguang Temple is a Buddhist temple located in Shanxi province's Wutai county. It is the third earliest preserved wooden structure in China.[Photo/Xinhua] |
"This time, we hope the project can cover all the rare and worthy ancient architectures," said Wang Jianwu, head of the Shanxi Bureau of Cultural Heritage. Wang also explained that Shanxi has a great number of ancient buildings and didn’t have enough funds for their preservation. Therefore, the two projects are significant for ancient architecture preservation in Shanxi.
Edited by Michael Thai
