Guangnan Dong (Kam) Architecture & Culture Preservation Center is a nonprofit organization formally registered with the Bureau of Civil Affairs in Longsheng Various Nationalities Autonomous County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Guangnan Village was named in 1048 and is now a thousand-year-old village inhabited by ethnic Dong (Kam) people in the northwestern part of Longsheng Various Nationalities Autonomous County. It covers an area of 24.1 km2 (9.3 square miles) and is home to approximately 800 families and 3,000 people. With a subtropical climate and an average annual temperature of 18 ℃ (64 ℉), Guangnan Village enjoys ample precipitation, lush forests, rolling hills and extensive water systems. The region borders Hunan Province to the northwest and has historically been the corridor between the southern Chu region and the western Yue region.
    The Pingdeng River runs through Guangnan Village from north to south, situating the village in a favorable natural environment between hills and waters. Guangnan Village is home to a variety of cultural heritage and unique ethnic customs of the Dong people. Locals often refer to the village as the “drama nest” and the “home of song and dance.” Besides traditional instruments such as the pipa, the duoye and the lusheng, the yanping and the huadeng operas have been around for more than 180 years. Both operas are recognized as intangible cultural heritage, and so are the “grass dragon” (caolong) and the “grass lion” (caoshi) dances. In the northeastern corner of Guangnan Village lies the Xingbo Fengyu Bridge, which is the 240-year-old crystallization of the traditional architectural values of the Dong people.
    In 1934, the bridge witnessed the Long March by the Chinese Red Army as soldiers marched through the village. In 1925, American missionary Robert L. Bansum spread Christianity in Guangnan, established a missionary school and enjoyed a following of over 40 converts, opening Guangnan Village’s first chapter of foreign encounter.

    There are three major types of residences in Guangnan: the decrepit original ganlan-style houses that need immediate care and renovation, the renovated ganlan-style houses with repainted facades and masonry additions, and the masonry buildings that have replaced the ganlan-style houses at Dazhai and Jiajiang where they are currently situated. Although the family houses Dazhai, Jiajiang and Manglan have retained an overall antique appearance and unique characteristics of clustering ganlan-style buildings, a number of wooden houses are in disrepair and can no longer satisfy the demands of modern living. As a result, since the 1980s, some agricultural households in naturally formed settlements such as the Guangnan greater village, Jiajiang, Manglan, Guangxiao and Dula began building new brick houses in the villages and on the roadsides. Wooden houses with traditional architectural flavors gradually disappeared as the brick houses were built, and the villages lost the uniformity of architectural style. Nowadays, people generally agree that the wooden houses of the Dong people should be preserved as the symbol of Guangnan, but the lack of a consistent policy and guidelines remains as the major concern of the village.

    Despite the messy village-scape due to the absence of sensible regulations of building activities, both the local natural environment and traditional Dong culture are relatively well-maintained in Guangnan. Considering the complexity of maintenance and transformation that the old house should have gone through to meet modern living standards, the replacement is often the most convenient choice for the villagers to improve their living conditions immediately, even if it is somewhat insensitive to the village’s built environment and has exacerbated the disorganization of building forms within the village.