Heritage-led Urban Regeneration in China

Jing Xie, Tim Heath

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780367331894
• eBook ISBN: 9781317378433
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Urban planning, regeneration and design is an essentially cultural practice with the outcomes often depending upon an understanding of and engagement with the past. As cities in China strive to be competitive and attractive on the world stage, their decaying historical urban fabrics are being transformed into vibrant places through historical-cultural led urban regeneration, however, the impact of their rapid development has escaped serious scrutiny.

Heritage-led Urban Regeneration in China presents the detailed evolution of three well-known historic streets in China: the Southern Song Imperial Street in Hangzhou; the residential Pingjiang Street in Suzhou; and the commercial Tunxi Old Street in Huangshan. From their original formation to their more recent regeneration, this book offers a critical evaluation of historical-cultural led urban regeneration projects in China and provides theoretical guidelines for contemporary practice in relation to its tangible and intangible urban heritage.

Using interdisciplinary research in architecture, urban design, history and cultural studies, Jing Xie and Tim Heath provide a detailed analysis of the conservation and regeneration efforts of China as an emerging and pivotal world power. An invaluable resource for urban designers, urban planners and architects interested in and working in China, Heritage-led Urban Regeneration in China helps its readers to engage with the essential and invisible factors that produce these revitalised places while forming a critical view towards these projects.

1
Embracing the Legacy of Historic Urban Streets

Throughout history and woven into the grain of many urban spaces exist elements which have shaped the identity of individuals, cultural groups, countries and empires. The processes of change in our towns and cities are ongoing, however, we live at a time when evolution in our towns and cities is occurring at a faster pace than ever in history. The profound social and cultural changes of the 20th century in many countries have been due to the conflict, upheaval and division with the urban fabric arguably being the most definite factor in these transformations. This is evidenced nowhere more so than in contemporary China where civil wars, World War II, the Cultural Revolution and Economic Reforms amongst others, have all been surpassed by the impact of urbanisation and economic growth. Indeed, the unprecedented scale of urbanisation and population growth has transformed Chinese cities since the 1990s. Under this current overwhelming process of modernisation in China, the loss of historic and cultural legacies has become more apparent and of increasing concern. Interestingly, Ashworth and Tun-bridge’s observations of European and US cities in the mid-20th century reflect similar experiences:

A generation’s concentration on the almost overwhelming needs for new housing, new industry and new infrastructure had led to an abrupt break in the centuries-long evolution of the physical fabric of cities. The past and its values had been rejected in favour of a ‘brave new world’ whose creation threatened to destroy all trace of preceding architectural achievement.¹

The scale, issues and challenges that China has faced resulting from its ‘great economic leap’ at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries, however, has been magnified many times. Rohit Jigyasu articulates how:

Urban growth is transforming the very essence of many historic urban landscapes… urbanisation provides economic, social and cultural opportunities that can enhance the quality of life and traditional character of urban areas [however]… the unmanaged changes in urban density and growth can undermine the sense of place, the integrity of the urban fabric, and the identity of communities.²

As such, a longing for the past has become a broader social phenomenon in the modern world and this is explicitly manifested in the heritage movement worldwide through the revival of both tangible and intangible historic assets. China has also experienced this phenomenon, particularly since the turn of the 21st century as it has surged as the new magnet of the global economy. Alongside the excessive assimilations of modern (i.e. precisely ‘foreign’) urban landscapes in China, historical and cultural-led urban development evidenced by the preservation and rebuilding of historical forms, has become an increasingly popular practice in the 21st century. There has become an increasing awareness, amongst national and local governments, academics and the public, of the importance and value of the built heritage in towns and cities. This is echoed by Steven Tiesdell et al. who identify that: “The sense of place and character found in historic urban quarters is a scarce resource that needs protection and management both to preserve and exploit its positive attributes.”³ These unique historic townscapes being recognised as catalysts for identity to the extent that ultimately our identity is not our own but exists because of ideological cycles built into the physical backdrop of our world. Indeed, the urban fabric is embedded with social echoes of previous generations and era and as Michael Hebbert states: “It is in urban space that humans discover who they are and make history.”⁴ Retaining some physical evidence has become an important factor in preserving the cultural identity or memory of a particular place and in locating contemporary society in relation to previous traditions. Robert Hewison articulates this as giving meaning to the present by interpreting the past.⁵

A concern with preserving historic architecture is not, however, a recent phenomenon, as David Lowenthal and Marcus Binney note that: “isolated instances of deliberate preservation can be cited from time immemorial… but to retain any substantial part of the material works of our predecessors is an idea of quite recent vintage.”⁶ The notable shift in the scale of conservation projects, from single buildings to larger urban areas as a reaction to the rapid urbanisation process and current models of urban development has led to an awareness of the value of place-based heritage.⁷ As a result, many decaying historical townscapes have now been transformed into consumption-based ‘chic places’ primarily catering for tourists. All over China, for example, there are many such examples of famous regenerated historic streets/districts, such as Liulichang, Qianmen, and Nanluoguxiang in Beijing, Xintiandi in Shanghai, Kuanzhaixiangzi in Chengdu, and so on. Regardless of their unique regional and sub-cultural differences, these historic districts are typified by their comfortable building scales and lively street scenes. These are nostalgic, attractive and even somewhat exotic when compared to the prevailing contemporary urban landscape. Indeed, these renovated historic districts/streets are now inundated with visitors and have become some of the most popular tourist destinations in China. The authenticity of these revitalised streets/districts is often questioned and, as Diane Barthel suggests, many such developments are ‘created’ to “serve the fickle demands of the market”.⁸ It is important to note, however, that historic preservation at an urban scale arrived quite late in China despite the pleas of a few scholars in the middle of the 20th century.⁹ Unfortunately, this was at a time when a significant proportion of its historic structures had been annihilated by the process of rapid urbanisation. Such devastation is, however, often the catalyst required to stimulate action and as Tiesdell et al. note: “It is in times of change and danger—either from without or from within—that a national or local consciousness of heritage increase. The heritage is held to represent some form of security or refuge, a point of visible and tangible reference which seems stable and unchanged.”¹⁰

In China, as with other massive urban developments in which the local governments have acted as de facto developers, all historic preservation projects are initiated and implemented by the government. Every Chinese city is striving to be competitive and attractive for both economic and political reasons. Modernisation, or arguably ‘Westernisation’, through large-scale development, redevelopment and infrastructure projects is a common approach evident across most Chinese cities. In parallel and often in conflict, however, there have been significant efforts to revitalise local areas and economies through historical and cultural-led urban redevelopment. Thanks to the state ownership of the land, historic conservation projects can in theory be implemented as efficiently as new commercial projects and their models of development are essentially similar. State-controlled land ownership means that all conservation projects belong to local governments who, usually in partnership with private developers, can transform an otherwise decaying urban fabric into commercial places with a ‘historical flavour’.

The urban conservation movement has led to local architects and urban planners playing an increasingly major role in urban conservation practice in China. In contrast to many large new-build projects, rather than giving commissions to foreign architects and urban planning consultants, the governments have tended to favour local design institutes from leading universities. In particular, detailed planning and working drawings for conservation projects are all produced by the domestic universities and design institutes. Significantly, this means that many academic teaching staff (often registered architects and urban planners) from university-based architecture and urban planning schools in China are actively involved in conservation practice and as a result also undertaking research on this topic. Due to this unique practice model, the universities and design institutes in effect share the responsibility and profit with the local governments and private developers. This can create challenges with the theoretical development of conservation knowledge being heavily influenced by the academics’ own practice. Some have therefore suggested that the research can lack detailed critique and that there has been limited research on Chinese urban conservation, particularly from historical, methodological and theoretical perspectives.¹¹ Although topics related to urban heritage conservation have received increasing attention, the practice and theory of urban conservation in China is still overwhelmingly influenced by the Western traditions and approaches. As such, this raises significant questions about the transferability of theoretical and methodological approaches between the West and China and highlights the growing need for Chinese scholarship and research with a systematic approach.¹²

To date, this Western-influenced and profit-driven process of heritage conservation in China has inevitably resulted in only a cursory inquiry about the rich historical experience embedded in the townscape heritage. Significantly, if heritage is a valuable asset that we can extract from the past and bring forward to the future, a socially and culturally-rooted response towards heritage conservation is required. The most relevant solution and approach can however often be contentious with Tiesdell et al. noting that: “dealing appropriately with the valued legacy of the past is a challenging problem for many cities.”¹³ Although there is more or less a common consensus on the definition of authenticity in relation to architectural heritage, Plácido González Martínez notes how this “vanishes when heritage assets characterised by constant change, such as cities, are addressed” and he goes on to state that “this especially applies to Chinese cities.”¹⁴ Moreover, there is a vexed question in heritage conservation practice regarding the moral and aesthetic ‘authenticity’ of reviving historic fabrics. Ashworth and Tunbridge in their book The Tourist-Historic City raise the much-disputed question of which of many pasts should be restored.¹⁵ Achieving a successful conservation project can therefore be a matter of opinion, however, it essentially hinges upon how much we understand and effectively engage with our past. It is important that preservation and conservation projects acknowledge the various unique values of the place. Indeed, Donovan Rypkema notes that:

Preservationists often talk about the ‘value’ of historic properties: the social value, the cultural value, aesthetic value, urban context value, architectural value, historical value, the value of sense of place. In fact one of the strongest arguments for preservation ought to be that a historic building [townscape] has multiple layers of value to its community.¹⁶

In urban heritage conservation projects, it is therefore imperative that not only are the qualities of the tangible artefacts understood and handled sensitively but also that intangible heritage including the social and culture dimensions are recognised and embraced. In fact, many argue that the importance of intangible heritage actually surpasses that of tangible assets.¹⁷ It is important therefore to acknowledge and capture the reciprocal relationships between the historic townscape and the lives and experiences of its communities over many centuries. The architecture and public spaces that constitute our townscapes hold inherent power as physical manifestations of social, cultural and ideological movements. It is often assumed that the influence of these urban settings is limited to momentary enlightenment on an individual basis. There is, however, a wider system of the subconscious by which citizens and communities are defined en-masse by the subtexts of our cities. Interestingly, Tricia Austin describes a collective and individual “sense of self” that is composed by processes of narrative, symbolism and invoked memory that are embedded within the townscapes of our cities.¹⁸ She also argues that this self-identity is created by “both the intellectual account you provide to yourself of who you are, and the place you are in.”¹⁹ Each of these ideas are defined first and foremost by our physical and intellectual settings. The most powerful and exploited aspect of the built form is therefore the capacity for a wordless and pervasive communication of ideology and the implied situation of the self within a constructed identity. In a similar vein, David Littlefield also stresses that:

The importance of symbol, association, metaphor and narrative cannot be underestimated. Buildings and other constructed spaces become revered, protected, symbolic, sacred, destroyed. By understanding our relationships with buildings we learn much about ourselves.²⁰

The Heritage Conservation Movement

In the West, the emergence of Modernism from the late 19th centu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Figures
• Preface
• 1 Embracing the Legacy of Historic Urban Streets
• 2 Historic Preservation, Heritage Conservation and Urban Regeneration
• 3 Imperial Street: Southern Song Imperial Street, Hangzhou
• 4 Residential Street: Pingjiang Street, Suzhou
• 5 Commercial Street: Tunxi Old Street, Huangshan
• 6 The Past and Future of China’s Historic Street Districts
• 7 Achieving an Authentic Historic Urban Street in China
• Bibliography
• Index