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In the Lào Cai province, the buildings of specific architecture fall into two main
categories:
- the traditional buildings of the local ethnic groups
- French buildings dating back to the colonial era
The Tày stilt houses:
Made of strong durable wood (such as « iron wood » called Lime), these houses
are built on stilts, with the traditional palm roof to keep the summer heat away.
They are often surrounded with balconies and open on all four sides to let the breeze
in. Three thousand palms are necessary to cover an average-size house (8m x 12m).
One single family does not own enough palm-trees to make a roof, so the whole village
helps: relatives and neighbours bring their palms and their know-how, in return
for which the family will provide food and alcohol for everyone until the roof is
completed. The most beautiful stilt houses are found in the districts of Bảo Yên,
Bảo Thắng and Văn Bàn.
The Nung and Tu Si houses with traditional baked clay
roof tiles
These wood-frame houses have become very rare. The roof tiles are made of
clay, baked at high temperature in wood kilns buried in the ground. After 5 days
of baking, the still hot tiles are sprinkled with water. Those that do not break
will protect the houses for a century at least. This technique, known as « rakou
» tends to disappear because the hundreds of kilos of wood necessary to bake the
tiles are hard to find. King Hoang A Tuong’s palace in Bac Hà is covered in traditional
clay tiles. Some can still be seen in the north of the Muong Khuong, Si Ma Cai and
Bac Ha districts.
The rotproof wood Hmong houses
To build the walls and roof of their houses, the Hmong and the Dao use one of the
most popular woods in the area, peumou (Fokienia Hodginsii) also called « coffin
wood » because the Hmong and the Chinese like to bury their dead in it. Insects
do not attack peumou and it does not deteriorate when in contact with water. Roofs
made of peumou shingle will last up to 70 years. Some can be seen in Cat Cat, Lau
Chai and Tavan.
Some vestiges of colonial architecture
Many French architects living in Indo-China borrowed building techniques and decoration
patterns from Vietnamese and Chinese architecture. The few Sa Pa buildings that
have survived the wars show how these influences have mingled, with the palace of
Hoang A Tuong in Bac Hà as best example. Some of Sa Pa colonial-era villas and the
houses along the main road in Muong Khuong testify to this cultural syncretism.
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