【Cultural China Tour】

Two braided wooden arch bridges are connected, a pool of blue-green waterhole lies quietly, the warm yellow light and the light or dark petroglyphs naturally outlined by the iron and manganese minerals between the rock crevices contrast with each other, here is the Yellow Rock Cave No. 1 located in Shanxia Lang Village, Jiangkou Street, Huangyan District, Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province, the design of stone and water symbiosis makes this place unique and quiet.

黃岩石窟的採石歷史最早可追溯到唐上元二年。從永寧城石料古城牆的修建，到黃岩城區的建設，石窟是當地築城、鋪路、造橋、修渠及民眾建房所需石板石條的取材地，被稱為“山下郎石板倉”。黃岩石窟內至今仍有多個百米高的石板倉和幾十處人工洞穴。

In order to provide citizens and tourists with a good place for leisure and entertainment, in recent years, the local government has revitalized the sleeping resources, and the abandoned mine cave renovation and upgrading project has been included in the landmark node project of Huangyan Jiufeng Mountain Landscape Construction, and the Huangyan Grottoes Culture and Art Center project came into being.

Two years ago, Xu Tiantian, a professor at the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University and the head of the architectural design team of the Huangyan Grottoes Culture and Art Center, led the Tsinghua University design team to carry out ecological repair and activation of the Huangyan Grottoes. "For thousands of years, people have opened up large and small production channels in the caves, which are the memory of local development, and what we need to do is to use architecture to present the local culture and pyrotechnics." Xu Tiantian said.

Abandoning large-scale renovations, the team integrated local materials and construction techniques, employing an "architectural acupuncture" approach to minimize intervention in the grottoes. In view of the potential safety hazards such as weathering and structural instability in the caves, the team carried out risk removal investigation and reinforcement at nearly 4700 points. The determination of each point and the implementation of each reinforcement operation are like an acupuncturist looking for acupuncture points.

"In addition to precision, we also designed a number of staggered corridors along the production channels carved out of the cave walls, which are connected by hollowed-out railings, which not only reduce the weight load of the stone walls, but also integrate into the thousand-year-old grottoes with a softer texture." Xu Tiantian introduced. Looking in the direction of her finger, the light has also become a unique information carrier in the grotto, "The soft light clearly marks the direction of progress and the information of the attractions, which provides convenience for visitors while maintaining the original style to the greatest extent." ”

Different from the tranquility of Cave 2, Cave 0 has made a lot of space and sound: an indoor theater with a rock wall overhead, and two outdoor theaters with an open-air residence; The water on the rock wall is murmuring, and the water droplets are crisp and pleasant; In the theater, flutes, pipas, and drums are intertwined, and the music is melodious.

Nowadays, the 3D grotto section, black and white text rubbing, and the stone hall supported by steel brazing all make people feel the interweaving of geology and anthropology in the grotto, coffee bars, wind shops, and trendy shops to meet the diverse needs of tourists one by one, and the once abandoned thousand-year-old quarry has become a public space that integrates natural landscape and cultural functions.

"I used to see the mine being abandoned, and my heart was empty. Now it's beautiful, and it can help us increase our income, not to mention be more satisfying. Zhou Honggang, secretary of the party branch of Shanxia Lang Village, smiled from ear to ear, "'Architectural acupuncture' has rejuvenated the thousand-year-old grottoes and made our lives better!" ”

(Reporter Liu Xi, Lu Jian, correspondent Zhang Mingyu)

[Source: Guangming Daily]