Minangkabau Traditional House (tower house)

Houses or Houses Godang Tower is the name of Minangkabau traditional house which is the traditional home and many encountered in the province of West Sumatra, Indonesia. This house was also called other names by local people with the name Home Bagonjong or there is also a mention by name House Baanjung. Houses with this model is also often found in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. However, not all regions of the Minangkabau (Darek) are allowed to set up this traditional house, only in areas that already have status as a village just this house be founded Tower. So also in the area called the seacoast, this traditional house was also used to be no established by the nomads Minangkabau.
Function Tower house as a place to live together, have separate provisions. Number of rooms depends on the number of women who live in it. Each of these women who have been married get a room. While the old woman and the children get a place in a room near the kitchen. Teenage girls get a shared room at the other end. All parts in the house except the Tower is a room off the bedroom.
The inside is divided into long and tapering and the space is marked by poles. Pole was lined from front to back and from left to right. Berbanjar mast from front to back marked tapering, while the pole from left to right mark the space. The amount depends on the tapering of the houses, could be two, three and four. Space consists of an odd number between three and eleven. Tower Houses are usually built on a plot of land owned by parent families in the tribe / people are hereditary and are owned and inherited only from and to the women on these people.
Tower House front yard is usually always there are two buildings Rangkiang, used to store grain. Tower house on the right wing and left the building there is space anjung (Bahasa Minang: anjuang) as a place alongside the bride or the coronation place of the customary head, because it is also called the Tower's house as a home Baanjuang. Anjung in harmony Bodi - Chaniago did not use crutches underneath, while the harmony Koto-Piliang wearing crutches. This is consistent philosophy adopted for these two distinct groups, one group adhere to the principle of hierarchy of government to use anjung using crutches, the other faction anjuang as if floating on air. Not far from Tower House complex is usually also built a mosque that serves as a place of worship, places of education and also live at the adult men are unmarried. Architecture This traditional house has a unique form of architecture with pointed roof peak shape that resembles a water buffalo horn and was formerly made of fibers that can hold up to tens of years but later the roof of this house is much changed with tin roofs.
Tower house is made of a rectangular and divided into two parts front and rear. From the front part of the Tower house is usually filled with carved ornament and generally patterned roots, flowers, leaves and field square and a parallelogram. While the outside rear hemisphere coated with bamboo. Traditional houses are supervised from long poles, building a big house made up, but not easily fall by the shock, and every element of the Home Tower has a special meaning is backed by the legend that exists in indigenous and local culture. In general, Tower House has a ladder that lies on the front. Meanwhile, a separate kitchen was built on the back of the house that didempet on the wall. Engraving On the walls of House Tower is made from board material, while the back of the bamboo material.
Wall board is installed vertically, while all the boards into the wall and be given a carved frame, so the whole wall becomes a full engraving. Placement motifs carved depending on the composition and location of the board on the wall of House Tower. Basically, the carvings on House Tower is decorative filler field in the form of a circular or square lines. General motive vines, roots leafy, flowering and fruiting. Roots generally circular pattern, the root line, cheek by jowl, intertwined and connecting connection. Branch or twig roots have curves outward, inward, upward and downward. In addition to the root motive, other motives are the motives encountered triangular geometry, four and a parallelogram. Motifs of leaves, flowers or fruit can also carved its own or in rows.