Hoa Xa Communal House

NATIONAL RELIC HOA XA COMMUNAL HOUSE - A MASTERPIECE OF ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE
IN THE HEART OF THE HOMELAND

Hoa Xa Communal House, located in Thai Hoa village, Hoa Xa commune, Hanoi city, is one of the typical communal house architectural works of Northern Vietnam. Not only is it a place of worship for the village tutelary god Nguyen Duc Chinh - a general who helped Dinh Tien Hoang unify the country, the communal house is also evidence of cultural values and traditional architectural art

The overall architecture of the communal house is strongly ancient in style with a tight, harmonious layout. The communal house was built on high, dry land facing south according to feng shui principles, creating solidity and sacredness

The structure of the communal house includes a large main hall with a solid limwood frame and exquisite carvings. The trusses and columns of the communal house are decorated with majestic dragon and phoenix patterns, expressing the prosperity and sacredness of the communal house

The decorative motifs inside the communal house are an impressive highlight with intricate wood carvings reflecting the daily life and beliefs of the ancients. In particular, the horizontal plaques and couplets in the communal house are all written in Han characters, deeply meaningful in honoring the merits of previous generations

Hoa Xa Communal House is not only a place of worship but also a historical witness associated with many important events, including the “Truong Son Stick” movement during the resistance war against the Americans. This communal house not only represents cultural beauty but is also the pride of generations of local people

Every year, the Hoa Xa Communal House festival is held with traditional rituals, attracting a large number of local people and pilgrims, preserving the precious cultural values of the nation

Hoa Xa Communal House is located on a large, spacious plot near the residential area, facing south and looking out onto the village road. In front of the main sanctuary hangs a horizontal plaque with five characters THAI HOA IN THE UNIVERSE. In front of the communal house is a lush ancient banyan tree casting cool shade beside Uncle Ho's fish pond.

According to the genealogy of the Tutelary God: After He passed away, the people of Hoa Xa built a shrine; that shrine was the predecessor of the current communal house, located at Go Be at the head of the village bordering Thai Binh village. This was a place where the water source was often eroded and the dike section was weak, so the people moved the shrine back to the village, with a great contribution from royal consort Chu Thi Di, a daughter of the village.

Hoa Xa Communal House is an architectural work consisting of the Great Hall and the Rear Sanctuary. In front of the communal house is a large brick-paved courtyard, with walls and pillars, and a screen built in the scroll style. The ornamental pillars have a square cross-section, with a large square base narrowing at the neck. The sides of the ornamental pillars have raised edges and relief-carved pairs of Han-character couplets. The tops of the ornamental pillars are built with lantern niches, and on top of the pillars are stylized floral clusters.

The Great Hall of Hoa Xa Communal House is a horizontal building with 3 bays, 2 side wings, and 4 roof sections. The central bay of the Great Hall is 4 m wide, and the side bays are 2.30 m wide. The interior is wide, so the roof slopes are long, and the communal house roof is covered with old ri tiles. At the two ends of the ridge are two leaf-dragon finials with curled tails. Between the ridge strips are unicorns made of terracotta and coated with lime mortar, crouching and facing each other vividly. The roof corners form soaring curved dao corners. The unicorns and dragons were made of terracotta in the 18th century.

Regarding the sculpture of Hoa Xa Communal House, the cốn panels made from short rường beams connecting the main columns to the military columns remain intact. These rường beams are fitted closely together. On the rường beams are relief carvings of the four sacred creatures “Dragon, Li, Turtle, Phoenix” and on the back are stylized flowers and leaves. The richness of sculpture at Hoa Xa Communal House is also shown in the fact that each cốn panel has its own themes “Fish-Dragon Playing in Water”. At the center of the cốn panel, the ancients relief-carved a large dragon spouting water. Beneath the dragon's body, a carp is swimming upward with the aspiration “carp turning into a dragon”. Also in the Great Hall, there are short rường beams relief-carved with blade-shaped sparks; these are traces of the Le era preserved after renovations. The richness of the communal house's interior is also expressed by the ancients in the elaborate carving on the kẻ and bẩy. Some bẩy are relief-carved with a “single dragon” on both sides. Then the longevity-character motifs and folded-leaf motifs on the blocks are also reasonably embellished by the ancients. With the arrangement of horizontal plaques and couplets, the architectural space of the Great Hall becomes even more solemn and ancient.

With its ancient architectural style and tight structure, through historical periods and the challenges of nature, the communal house still exists with all important architectural components bearing the distinctive style of typical artistic architecture from the Le to the Nguyen dynasties, creating the most general and complete overall composition for the communal house. And the communal house has made an important contribution to understanding the historical process of decorative art of Vietnamese communal houses in general.

It is precisely because of those characteristics that Hoa Xa Communal House was ranked as a ministerial-level relic under Decision No. 91/QD-BVHTT dated January 28, 2005.

The communal house is associated with the name and career of the Tutelary God Nguyen Duc Chinh, a Left Dao general of the Dinh dynasty. The communal house is where villagers worship the Tutelary God to express gratitude for the great merits He brought to the village.

The communal house, together with the village festival, has nourished the spirit of countless generations of Hoa Xa people, contributing to shaping the noble, cultured character of Hoa Xa people, a Hoa Xa “Long-skirted” yet no less strong and capable than royal consort Chu Thi Di.

A Hoa Xa countryside always peaceful, filial, attentive to culture and education, Hoa Xa gentle and clear as the Day River but ready to set aside everything for the cause of national reunification. At the time of village founding, the Tutelary God and villagers contributed to helping Dinh Bo Linh quell the rebellion of the 12 warlords and unify the Vietnamese land. In the period of fighting the Americans to liberate the South and unify the country, Hoa Xa with the movement “ Not a single pound of rice short, not a single soldier short” Hoa Xa youth enthusiastically trained and enlisted to go South to fight, while women stayed behind and managed the household, creating a heroic Hoa Xa with the beautiful image of “Truong Son Stick” legendary, the image of The loyal ring faithful, steadfast, waiting, so that during his days in Hoa Xa, musician Pham Tuyen felt that lifeblood and joined the villagers in singing the song “Truong Son Stick” that echoes forever into the future.

When learning about the culture of the homeland, there are inevitably many shortcomings and limitations; we very much hope everyone will contribute supplementary opinions and corrections so that all village people can understand more clearly about their homeland, a civilized, beautiful, and prosperous countryside.