The 542-meter-long Baoyuan Road is a relatively concentrated section of old houses in Guangzhou.
17 Baoyuan Road
The traditional houses on Baoyuan Road are full of the atmosphere of city life.
There are many fashionable new stores on Baoyuan Road, and many of the operators are local descendants, many of whom have a Xiguan complex.
Historical and Cultural District Trail (3)
Xiguan has “three treasures” – Duobao Road, Baohua Road, and Baoyuan Road. Among them, the 542-meter-long Baoyuan Road is a relatively concentrated section of old residential buildings in Guangzhou, with more than 20 cultural relics buildings. There has never been an old street like Baoyuan Road, and you can find the nameplates of “Guangzhou Historical Buildings”, “Guangzhou Cultural Relics Protection Unit Old Residential Buildings” and “Liwan District Registration and Protection Cultural Relics Units” like Baoyuan Road.
In 2012, Baoyuan Road Historical and Cultural District was included in the Guangzhou Historical and Cultural District. In recent years, some small literary and artistic shops have emerged on Baoyuan Road: homestays, tea houses, Cantonese restaurants, fashionable Western restaurants, cafes, unmanned convenience stores… Nowadays, Baoyuan Road can not only explore the ancient world, but also add a fashionable temperament and literary atmosphere.
Text/Guangzhou Daily all-media reporter Wu Duo
Photo: Guangzhou Daily all-media reporter Chen Xuzi
Coordinator/Guangzhou Daily All Media Reporter Ji Shenling
There are Duan Gu:
The Xiguan Residence is well preserved, and the owners of the big houses are not small
When it comes to Baoyuan Road, you can’t bypass the “Three Treasures” of Xiguan. According to records, the “Three Treasures” zone (Baoyuan Road, Baohua Road, Duobao Road) appeared around the Qing Dynasty. At that time, with the development of commerce and the rapid increase of the population in Xiguan, emerging wealthy businessmen and a group of compradors from foreign banks successively built houses near Xiguan, and they first chose land to build houses in the suburbs of Xiaxiguan Chung and opened up Baohua District. After that, Baohua District was not enough to live, and the plain between Shangxia and Xiguanchung was developed into a residential area, and residential areas such as Baoyuan Street and Duobao Street were gradually formed, and in the Republican period, there were Baoyuan Road and Duobao Road. Doing business naturally requires a wide range of financial resources, and the names of Baoyuan Road, Baohua Road and Duobao Road also contain the good intentions of businessmen. Baoyuan Road is 542 meters long, connecting with Longjin West Road, Fengyuan Road and Baohua Road from west to east, which is the most extreme street in the “Three Treasures”.
Wading doors, Manchurian windows, barred window flowers, flower street tiles, wooden stairs… The old street is full of elements of Xiguan houses. According to statistics, there are more than 20 Xiguan residential buildings distributed on the street of Baoyuan Road, as well as several magnificent Western-style buildings. Among them, the first half of Longjin West Road and Fengyuan Road is well preserved in the first half of Xiguan Folk House, forming a continuous overall style.
“In the old days, the area around Xiguan was mostly rich people and businessmen, and we found that Baoyuan Road was also related to the 13 Elements, and there were many Fujianese who helped foreign companies to do things. This road is dominated by the Xiguan bamboo tube houses of the family, although it is not as good as some ‘mansions’ on Duobao Street, but it is very valuable because of the many cultural protection nameplates. Tang Guohua, professor of the School of Architecture and Urban Planning of Guangzhou University and director of the Lingnan Institute of Architecture, introduced.
No. 9 Baoyuan Road was the residence of Chen Zeqiu, a wealthy businessman during the Republican period. Don’t look at this Xiguan residential inconspicuous, but the old story of Chen Zeqiu, the “king of flower yarn (cotton yarn)”, marrying his daughter has been circulating in the market. It turned out that Chen Zeqiu built his family from scratch in his early years, opened “Yichang”, “Kuanyu Xing” and “Daochenghua Yarn Company” in Guangzhou, and also engaged in tea, medicinal herbs and other businesses, covering Southeast Asia and even Australia. Because of his humble background, he lost his father at a young age, and he was diligent and thrifty. “In 1937, Miss Chen got married, and the dowry she took with her was half a mile long, in addition to jewelry and jade, there was also a complete set of furniture made of rosewood, and the phoenix crown she wore weighed seven or eight pounds. Within six days, hundreds of tables were opened. It is said that this is also the only time that Chen Zeqiu, who is usually low-tuning and thrifty, has shown his wealth to the world.
No. 141 Baoyuan Road (Mingqindi), the “historical building of Guangzhou”, is one of the few Western-style buildings on the entire street, although it has been renovated and reinforced, it cannot hide the combination of Chinese and Western styles. The exterior wall of Mingqindi is stone rice, the first floor still retains the traditional Xiguan Gate, the triple door is painted with red paint, the foot door is decorated with Meilanzhuju pattern, inlaid glass, but the second floor façade has a Baroque style, you can see Roman columns, brick arches, curly mountain flowers (the delicate stone carvings in the middle of the roof, also known as the building). It is said that the more complex the mountain flowers, the richer the owner.
No. 18 Baoyuan North Street, inner lane of Baoyuan Road, was once the house of Liang Dayong, a giant merchant of Thirteen Elements. Liang Dayong relied on running a ceramic shop, and was given a second-grade tie by the Qing court as a senior doctor. At that time, there were many operators of mass consumer goods such as silk and tea, but Liang Dayong chose to do the ceramic business in a different way, he opened a ceramic factory in Jingdezhen, shipped the products to Guangzhou, and then exported them overseas. Liang Dayong built a large house for each of his five sons, and the one he lived in was called “Liang Senior Minister”. The large house covers an area of more than 2,000 square meters, and the garden alone covers an area of more than 1,000 square meters, with pavilions, waters, century-old chestnuts and white kapok in the garden, which can be called the model of Xiguan house. Unfortunately, this Xiguan house was demolished in the 80s of the 20th century, and now only the model is displayed in the Liwan Museum.
Xiguan House
Building structure: the exterior wall is mostly made of blue masonry and masonry, and some of the exterior walls are stone and rice; The gates are equipped with three major parts: low foot ceiling door (foot door), wading and gate; Most of the buildings are two-storey, some have four floors, with small balconies, and roof design. In the division of space structure, it is one positive and two biased, the main hall area is the largest, the front hall and the back room, the two sides of the room mainly include the side hall, study, bedroom, kitchen, etc., the side opens the small door, the staircase leads to the second floor, and the back is equipped with a patio to increase lighting; The single room is a “bamboo tube house” structure, with a wide and narrow face, and a depth of tens of meters.
“Three major pieces” at the door: the foot door is a light four-fold folding door about 1.7 meters high, and there are many wood carvings of various patterns at the upper end, such as grape bunches, pomegranate flowers, squirrels, etc. Behind the foot gate is a unique Lingnan characteristic walk, with sliding rails, which can be pushed and pulled. The innermost door leaf is mostly made of Pontianak wood or camphor wood, which is thick and strong. The triple door is designed with aesthetics, ventilation, lighting, privacy and theft in mind.
Neighborhood: Old residents reminisce about old people’s feelings The new shopkeeper has a Xiguan complex
Pan Guangqing, 85, a consultant at the Liwan Geological Office, came to live near No. 30 Baoyuan Road in 1947 and has lived for more than 70 years. Mother-in-law Pan told reporters about her life in Xiguan: “Usually there will be people who pick up wonton, mung bean paste, almond paste to sell, and after 7 p.m., someone will report, ‘There are sky lanterns, street lamps, Gao Guy light oil lamps, pick a pot, play a gong’, once, the newsman also caught the thief who stole the footstones in the middle of the night, because he was injured, and we went to offer condolences early in the morning.” ”
As written in the Mingqin Gate couplet “Liwan Xiguan Sprinkles the Wind and Lost Soul”, Baoyuan Road has always been cherished by the neighborhood as one of the “Three Treasures” of Xiguan. However, the reporter noticed that the capitals of the foot doors of several houses were carved off a little, screws were nailed, and the original bottle railings of the second-floor balcony were defective in many places and were replaced with simple balustrades. The houses are old, the residents have moved away, and there are mostly hardware stores, building materials stores, gas charging points, and express delivery points along the street, and the impression of Baoyuan Road is somewhat decayed.
However, recently, many neighbors have found that many fashionable new shops have sprung up along Baoyuan Road. The reporter visited and learned that many of the operators of these stores are local descendants, and many of them have professional backgrounds in design and architecture. Their answers, in addition to the considerations of business operations, are also mixed with the operators’ emotional memories of Guangzhou and their personalized pursuit of aesthetics.
136 Baoyuan Road is an Internet celebrity barbershop, dark green and pink paneled walls, floor-to-ceiling windows, leather chairs create a strong retro feeling, four cats are placed in the glass window in the doorway, so this store is also affectionately called “cat hair salon” by the neighborhood.
Mia, the manager, told reporters that they came here in 2011, when there were only two or three Chao stores on Baoyuan Road. The reporter learned that the owners are all authentic Guangzhou girls, and the proprietress studied interior design, and later transferred to the hairdressing industry and met the gentleman who works nearby. “The hostess underwent a retro makeover and the paintings on the walls were all painted by her. Later, four cats were adopted in the store, and a cat element was added to the space. In fact, the trend does not have to go to Zhujiang New Town to chase, Xiguan also has it. Mia said.
There is a Nordic-style bakery in the middle of Baoyuan Road, and the manager, Mr. Xie, is a native of Xiguan. The handmade bakery required enough space, and he thought of the single-family building near Baoyuan Road at the beginning, “first of all, the site consideration, and some Xiguan complex”. He also specially kept a Manchurian window wooden door at the door.
No. 117 Baoyuan Road is a homestay, and the story of a small couple in Guangzhou collecting tens of thousands of old things to create a themed homestay has attracted a lot of attention. Staff Xiao Guo told reporters that the house where the homestay is located has collapsed more than 20 years ago, Lin Biyun and his wife, who are experts in architecture, have been rebuilt with reinforced concrete, and the hostess has collected green bricks and flower street bricks from the collapsed and abandoned buildings for interior decoration, retained the patio, and also used black and white TVs, disc wraps, tape recorders, and record players collected from Tianguang Market to create different theme rooms, arranging a small Guangzhou city well life display space.
Expert:
Pay attention to the valuation of buildings
It is recommended that the entire street be uniformly protected
Over the years, Tang Guohua has been paying attention to the situation in Baoyuan Road. According to Tang Guohua, there are three types of nameplates hung on Baoyuan Road, namely “Guangzhou Historical Buildings”, “Guangzhou Cultural Relics Protection Unit” and “Liwan District Registered and Protected Cultural Relics Unit”. China has long initiated the identification of cultural protection units, and there are protection units at all levels from top to bottom, and Guangzhou’s “historical buildings” and “historical and cultural districts” were only proposed in 2013. The person responsible for the management of the cultural protection unit shall not change the façade, structural system, color tone, basic plan layout and characteristic interior decoration of the original building, and shall not damage, modify, add or dismantle relevant buildings and other facilities without authorization. In historical buildings, those with high value and may be rated as cultural protection units should not only protect the exterior, but also protect some internal elements. If the value is low, it is necessary to carry out appearance protection. “The value of cultural preservation units is higher than that of historical buildings, and the protection is higher. And in historical buildings, there are high and low values. Then, the value determination is very important, including the appearance, internal structure, components, history, etc. must be examined. He said.
And he found that the cultural protection units listed earlier actually lacked the most important value assessment link, “The protection concept in the early years was not enough, thinking that it was good to hang the card, and the subsequent work was not in place.” Without a valuation, there is no protection guide, the responsible person does not know what to do and what not to do, and it is easy to damage the building. Tang Guohua said.
For the activation and utilization of Baoyuan Road, Tang Guohua suggested the preparation of a unified protection plan for the entire street, “For the listed buildings, if they are cultural protection units, the change of use function must first be submitted to the Cultural and Broadcasting New Bureau for approval, and then enter the process of applying for fire, health, and industrial and commercial licenses.” For unlisted buildings, commercial use does not need to be approved by the New Bureau. Therefore, this also requires the joint cooperation of planning, urban management and cultural protection departments. ”
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The micro-renovation of the Baoyuan Road area was included in the renewal and transformation plan
In March this year, the Guangzhou Municipal Government issued and implemented the “Guangzhou Pilot Work Plan for the Protection and Utilization of Historic Buildings” to encourage historical buildings to be transformed into guesthouses and cafes. The reporter learned that the micro-renovation of the Baoyuan Road area has been included in Guangzhou’s 2018 urban renewal annual plan, and the Baoyuan area will also be updated to create a comfortable walking experience space.