Extending Material Preservation: A Bridge Reconstruction Festival in a Chinese Rural Valley

Abstract

This project explores the preservation of the Covered Bridge as heritage in a rural valley of Southeastern China and develops a form of resiliency for the local community against capitalist development. The Covered Bridges are an infrastructure heritage that embodies broad social and religious significance. The material conservation of the bridges is challenged by intensifying summer floods, together with aging, depopulation, and poverty of the rural population. This design prioritizes the process of culture preservation over material conservation. The preservation of local knowledge and culture practices are the keys to cultivate a continuous and sustainable relationship between village development and bridge preservation. Set in the context after a prospective flood, the design involves the bridge reconstruction process in a two-year bridge festival which encapsulates the meaning of intangible vernacular heritages, through a combination of local rituals, food cultures, geomantic knowledge, traditional forestry, and the native hydrology system.