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A communal house of Bana ethnic people is being built in Quang Trung Museum (Tay Son District). That is a gift of Gia Lai Province People’s Committee to Binh Dinh Province. Its construction started at the end of April 2006 and expectedly finish at the end of this year.
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Overview of the highland communal house.
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When we arrived, the construction site was still in mess. Frame of the communal house with twelve 40-cm-wide inside piers and twelve 30-cm-wide outside piers was erected. Three workers were whittling at 40-cm-wide timbers into staircases. Such four staircases will be placed in front, at back and at two gables of the communal house. Other workers were roofing the communal house with thatching.
“This is a meaningful work because it marks contribution of Bana ethnic people in particular and other ethnic people in general to Tay Son Movement and course of Quang Trung-Nguyen Hue King. It helps to introduce and preserve some characteristics of Bana ethnic people’s culture. With its completion, Quang Trung Museum will have one new beautiful and unique work to attract more interest of visitors. |
The Bana-style communal house is designed by Gia Lai Province Architectural Association and is being built by Tan Thanh Construction Co. (in Pleiku City, Gia Lai Province) who is specializing in communal houses in Gia Lai Province. The communal house remains all typical characteristics of traditional communal house of Bana ethnic people, from outside design to materials such as wooden frame, neohouzeaua walls and thatched roof. However, according to Mr. Vu Hoai Nam, who is in charge of technical supervision, there are some changes in the design to adapt reality. Because the communal house is large, many big timbers are used. For examples, steel bolts and nuts instead of rattan ropes are used to join piers, beams and joists. Abutments are driven 1,2m below the ground in which 0,6-m foundation buttresses are reinforced with ferro-concrete.
It is notable that all the material and the workers are from Gia Lai Province. Some of the workers are Kop villagers at Kon Dong townlet, Mang Yang District. They have a lot of experiences in building communal house. They major in roofing and weaving the neohouzeaua walls because other carpenters are not able to do those things. “This communal house is the 4th which I participate in building. I know how to build the communal houses because my old villagers teach me. I live on farming but whenever there is need of building the communal house, I call other villagers to join in” said Mr. Y Kot, leader of the thatch roofing and neohouzeaua wall weaving team. “The communal houses created by our ancestors are very interesting. Wherever there is the communal houses, there is solidarity and strengh” continued Mr. Y Kot.
Other carpenters told us that the building of this communal house was much more special than others because this communal house was made of wood only. Every thing had to be made by hand except drilling on wooden piers to install bolts and nuts and craning the piers into pole holes.
The construction company tries its best to finish the work by the end of 2006 to commemorate the 218th Ngoc Hoi-Dong Da Victory and 2007 Tay Son - Binh Dinh Festival.
After the finish of the communal house, Quang Trung Museum will collect artefacts and other items related to culture of Bana ethnic people to display there.
Some data about the communal house:
Floor square: 160m2
Height: 17m
Timber volume: 53m3 of finished timber
Thatch volume to roof: more than 3.700 bunches (20-25cm-wide/bunch)
Total cost: around VND 900 million (over USD 56.000) |
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