Mao'ao Stone Houses Introduction
The stone houses in Matsu's Miaoao are a model of "local materials utilization." The stones are sourced from coastal sandstone, the framework is made from bamboo harvested from the mountains, and the roofs were traditionally thatched with wild grasses. The stone houses in Miaoao can be broadly classified into three different styles and construction methods. The first style is characterized by a "dragon" layout with irregular stone masonry, which is the most common and economical approach. The walls are constructed using natural river stones or roughly hewn stone blocks of similar sizes, displaying a rugged beauty. The second style features a single-handed, horizontal masonry technique, where stones are chiseled into uniformly sized blocks and stacked horizontally in layers, resulting in a clean and orderly wall surface. The third style is the Sanheyuan (three courtyard) type, employing a herringbone pattern in its construction. This method, which is more skilled, stronger, and costly, uses processed stones of equal dimensions stacked at an approximately 45-degree angle, with the joints interwoven in a zigzag pattern resembling the Chinese character for "person," which is quite distinctive.
