Byline: PAUL GRONDAHL Staff writer -
SALEM, Mass. -- It took seven years, dozens of specialists, millions of dollars and the expertise of an Albany architectural firm to move an 18th-century house from a remote mountainside in China and reassemble its tens of thousands of pieces at the Peabody Essex Museum here.
The 8,000-mile journey began with an unprecedented agreement between Chinese officials and museum curators.
Yin Yu Tang, as the ancestral family home is known, is the first house brought in its entirety from China to the United States.
The permanent installation opened in Salem on June 21. It has drawn capacity crowds over the summer to view two centuries of Chinese culture and history through the prism of an average family's multigenerational dwelling.
``This is a wonderful way for people who have never been to China to gain an appreciation of its culture,'' said Viveca Kwan, a Chinese-American who traveled from Portland, Maine, to tour the house.
Kwan's father is from Shanghai, not far from where Yin Yu Tang was originally located, and she brought her two daughters, Monty, 8, and Midori, 4, to the museum.
``This is a way for my girls to appreciate our cultural history because we won't be able to go to China anytime soon,'' she said.
Yin Yu Tang means ``the hall of the shade of a tree.'' Built with a fortress-like exterior to repel marauding warlords, the 4,500-square-foot structure has 16 bedrooms spread over three floors. Each couple and their children had private living quarters in addition to communal areas.
The focal point of the house is a central courtyard that provides light and ventilation and collects rainwater in two cisterns. The house is built on a stone foundation, with complex mortise-and-tenon timber framing enveloped by a skin of brick covered in a thin coat of white lime. The roof is made of gray ceramic tiles; those on the drip edge are ornately carved.
The austere exterior gives way to an interior brimming with intricate ornamentation suggesting a jewelry box. Flourishes include birds, lotus flowers and geometric designs carved into stone and wood. The layout conforms to the dictates of feng shui, an ancient philosophy of cosmic balance.
The complex relocation process was coordinated under the auspices of the Chinese Ministry of Cultural Relics. Chinese officials hope the project will spur interest in historic preservation there to counter a recent trend of families tearing down old houses and building new, American-style mansions in their place.
``This was an international effort, and it was a challenging project unlike any other for us,'' said John G. Waite, whose Albany architectural firm, Waite Associates, beat out 10 others from Boston, New York City and Washington, D.C.
Waite and project manager Clay Palazzo traveled to the site of the house in the village of Huang Cun in the Yellow Mountain range, 250 miles southwest of Shanghai. A road had to be cut through the region to truck out scores of crates containing the dismantled house.
After the house's two-month ocean voyage, Albany architects began the difficult work of conservation, repair of numerous rotted sections and re-assembly.
The parts were so numerous that they were spread across an entire 100,000-square-foot warehouse -- 25 times the size of the intact house. Further complicating the architects' efforts was the inconsistent and incomplete way the Chinese dismantlers had numbered the pieces.
``This is a cultural artifact, and we took great care to preserve it just as it was when the family lived in it,'' Waite said.
``We weren't interested in another fanciful, inaccurate and Disneyized creation like the Chinese gardens you see in museums around the U.S.,'' he said.
Thirty-five generations of the Huang family, who were merchants, lived in the small village of about 200. In the 29th generation, during the 1790s, a Huang patriarch built the Yin Yu Tang house. For the next 200 years, three generations of Huangs occupied it at a time -- mostly women and children, while men traveled constantly throughout China brokering sales of salt and tea. The family left the village in recent decades, and the house fell into disrepair.
In 1996, the Huang family decided to tear down Yin Yu Tang at the same time that Nancy Berliner, who is now curator of Chinese art and culture at the Peabody Essex Museum, was visiting the village. Negotiations ensued, the house was purchased and the multimillion-dollar project was funded by a charitable trust of Fidelity Investments.
Berliner and museum officials worked closely with Waite employees, who commuted from Albany or lived in apartments near the re-assembly warehouse during the past five years.
``They were extremely professional, very detail-oriented and sensitive to preservation issues,'' Berliner said of the Waite team.
Some of the biggest challenges the architects faced were incorporating a modern heating system in the historic house and creating new mechanical techniques for making the building accessible to the disabled. Meeting Massachusetts' stringent earthquake and fire codes also required innovative approaches to preservation.
The re-assembled house is in an open-air courtyard, surrounded on three sides by the museum's new wing. The architects had to devise a removable skylight that covers the courtyard during winter months.
Project managers also had to overcome language barriers while coordinating Chinese craftsmen brought in to lend Old World carpentry and masonry skills. It was the first airplane ride for many of the Chinese workers, who live today in houses similar to Yin Yu Tang, which lacks indoor plumbing and has only rudimentary electricity.
``It was a really intriguing cultural exchange,'' Palazzo said. ``Both sides were deeply committed to the project's success. There was a lot of national pride for both the Chinese and the United States.''
The cultural exchange evolved into matrimony for Jan Lewandoski, a traditional heavy timber framer from Vermont, who headed up the Waite contingent of craftsmen. Lewandoski married an interpreter from China who was assigned to the project.
Several companies from the Albany area were involved. Liberty Street Restoration was the construction manager and general contractor. Western Building Restoration Co. performed the masonry work, using materials provided by Adam Ross Cut Stone. Jan-Marie Spanard, a trompe l'oeil artist who heads Albany Mural, did exterior decorative painting.
``It was a really complex project, and it was exciting because there were no ground rules to follow,'' said Mike Dawson, project supervisor for Liberty Street Restoration.
``We didn't know much about Chinese architecture when we started, but we used our standard methodology and learned as we went along,'' Waite said.
``This was the first time Westerners had analyzed Chinese building design from this period in such detail,'' Waite said. ``It all went surprisingly well.'' FACTS:EXHIBIT DETAILS Yin Yu Tang, a late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) Chinese merchant's house, is the only installation of its kind in North America. It is part of the permanent collection of the Peabody Essex Museum, located at East India Square in Salem, Mass. Hours: Open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; until 9 p.m. on Thursdays.Admission: Adults $12, seniors $10, and students $8. Youths 16 and under are free. Because of limited space, tickets for 20-minute intervals inside the Yin Yu Tang house are included with museum admission and must be obtained and used on the day of the visit. Visitors are advised to come early in the day to ensure a spot.Information: (978) 745-9500 or http://www.pem.org
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COURTESY JOHN G. WAITE ASSOCIATES A CHINESE CRAFTSMAN works on the reassembly of the Yin Yu Tang ancestral home at a warehouse near Boston. PHOTOS COURTESY JOHN G. WAITE ASSOCIATES GENERATIONS lived in the Yin Yu Tang ancestral house when it stood in rural China, above, while the reassembled house, left, awaits visitors at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., after a seven-year restoration process overseen by John G. Waite Associates, an Albany architectural firm.
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