Xuan Vu village, Ninh Van commune (old), now Xuan Phuc residential group, Nam Hoa Lu ward, Ninh Binh province, was established in 1730 under the Le Trung Hung dynasty. Since the village was established, village communal houses have also begun to be built.
The communal house is mainly made of ironwood, built with lime mortar and baked bricks. Over time, along with the devastating war, the old communal house was damaged and had to be completely dismantled. Later, the people of Xuan Vu village decided to restore and rebuild a new stone village communal house but still retain the architectural features of the old communal house.
The restored communal house has a front hall, a rear palace and left and right sides worshiping ancestors. All main details such as pillars, surrounding walls... of the communal house are made of monolithic blue stone, by artisans who are children of the village and voluntarily contributed to build.
At each beam (an important structural part of the communal house roof), the joints joined together by moss are covered by motifs of "flying dragon - dancing phoenix"; "dragon - unicorn - turtle - phoenix" or "dragon - chrysanthemum - bamboo - apricot"...
The front hall of the communal house has 3 compartments, inside there are main columns and military columns made of finely carved stone, connected to each other very firmly. The main columns are carved with dragons, the sub-columns are carved with grass, trees, flowers, leaves, birds, especially 4 pine, chrysanthemum, bamboo, apricot trees representing 4 seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter.
Mr. Luong Van Quang, a sculptor and the person directly involved in restoring the communal house, shared that to complete the carving, 100 artisans and stone workers worked for 2 years and more than 200m3 of stone to build the communal house.
Mr. Luong Van Tinh (68 years old), the caretaker of Xuan Vu communal house, said that all the stones and wood for building the communal house were contributed and donated by the villagers and completed in 2004.
Currently, in the rear palace of the communal house, there are still 4 ancient stone pillars dating back hundreds of years. These stone pillars are exquisitely carved, made by hand, but the carvings are very prominent... These are also the heritages that the ancients left for the descendants of Ninh Van fine art stone village.
Xuan Vu communal house is not only a place to organize traditional meetings and festivals in the village on February 11-12 (lunar calendar) but also a place to organize the death anniversary of the ancestor of Hoang Sung stone craft village held on August 16th of the lunar calendar every year" - Mr. Tinh shared.
