assessment and proposals to historical preservation and regionial planning in chinese baroque...
TRANSCRIPT
1
Assessment and Proposals to Historical
Preservation and Regional Planning in “Chinese
Baroque” Heritage Area, Harbin, China
Wenjiao Wu
Instructor: Marcia Kees
Figure I - Map metadata: Google Maps; Sketch: Wenjiao Wu
Old City Area Chinese Baroque Renewal Project Area
Urbanization Expansion
2
Background
In late 1890s, Tsarist Russia expanded its power and began to build the Middle East
Rail in the Northeast of China. Then along Songhua River and the Railway rose the
city of Harbin.
Area A and C (see Figure I) were dominated mainly by Tsarist Russia that time, the
style of Beaux Arts/Baroque/Classical Revival/Renaissance Revival/Eclectic were
flourishing. However, a new style called “Chinese Baroque” appeared on a large scale
in Area B which lies to the east of the Middle East Rail.
The dominance of Tsarist Russia was quite weak in this area that time. Chinese
businessmen gathered here in this new city, and made contribute to national industry
and commerce. In the pre-industrial order in Chinese cities, the buildings themselves
were mostly mixed-used, “store in the front, factory/workshop in the backyard” or
“store in the downstairs, bedrooms in the upstairs” pattern were quite common.
Designers and craftsmen met the clients’ need, invented a new style that combine
Western style and Chinese traditional style together – Chinese Baroque.
Those architectures had remarkable Baroque facade, the belt course and the cornice
divided the building into three levels – ground floor, second floor and parapet wall. It
focused more on the main entrance and made a remarkable corner – it faced right to
the street corner with a higher and more ornamented parapet wall if the building lied
3
there. And the second floor was emphasized by different types of balconies. (Figure
II)
Figure II – Photo by Wenjiao Wu, 2013
On the other hand, the ornaments on the façade were usually those indicated lucky,
moral character and wealthy in ancient China, like bat, bamboo and peony. Behind
Baroque façade was also Chinese traditional courtyard. Usually several buildings
formed an individual courtyard, if you walk through the doorway you will enter the
“interior” space that strengthened the communication of different families.
All Baroque facades composed a continuous “rhyme”, seemed gorgeous, well-aligned
and various. The streets in this area was generally like a fishbone, groups of side
streets extended from several main streets, formed intensive grids, which were
convenient to get to the neighborhood area, according with the function of the
commercial-and-residential place in pre-industrial order.
4
Needs and Goals
After the Communist Party’s state-individual cooperation movement in the 1950s, the
“store in the front, factory/workshop in the backyard” and “store in the downstairs,
bedrooms in the upstairs” pattern had declined rapidly, and finally almost disappear
after the reform and opening-up policy after the 1980s. The place was no longer
needed in the wave of globalization and industrialization. Additionally, as Area A and
C became more and more developed and a new bridge across Songhua River was
constructed, the place had been long forgotten in the urban expansion (Figure I).
The once well-ornamented courtyards and facades became dilapidated, only some old
people and the bottom of the society lived there (Figure III). Some buildings were not
used anymore. They stood in the street corners with glasses on the windows gone
long ago, even cannot be a shelter for vagrants in the extremely cold winter. Lots of
fires had occurred. The place once achieved “firmness, commodity, and delight”
(Vitruvius’ three old axioms) had faded.
If an architecture is no longer functional, the exterior form will also extinct. It is
imperative to repair those buildings and give them new meaning.
The heritage area planning are facing two problems besides the architecture itself: one
is traffic congestion: people, cars, and even some three-wheeled vehicles drawn by
man go in the narrow streets at the same time, there are no space for walking and
5
parking. Sidewalks are occupied by vendors, food markets and even wastes. The other
one is public space must be improved:
almost no greening, no place for leisure or
entertainment, poor-quality environment,
and lacking of municipal infrastructure.
To solve these problems, Harbin municipal government planned to implement the
renewal project and designated the project area (Figure I). The aim should be
“keeping the basic form of the historical courtyard and features of the architectures,
inherit the original commercial/cultural/folk-custom characteristics; expanding the
space for historical culture and modern commerce through protection and
development of the architectures; improving traffic capacity and developing public
space through rational zoning.” The final goal is to change the “messy and disordered
situation” and renew the place into folkways-commerce-tourism district. (Wan et al.
2011)
Assessment of the First Phase of the Renewal Project
The first phase of the renewal project has completed (Figure IV). It is hard to say that
the project is successful. First, the traffic is still a critical problem, the sidewalks ought
Figure III - Thanks to Tianhua, Zhao
6
to be improved are completely gone. Pedestrians, cars, and three-wheeled vehicles are
still mixed together, which may be a serious potential safety hazard.
Second, to remember the old customs and the history, some symbols are added such
as lanterns and signboards in an old style trying to reproduce the city view in pre-
PRC era. Actually the stores are “fake” and empty, without any functions. Revival
does not mean simple replication of the symbols of the past, and when symbols have
exceeded everything, the heritage area will represent nothing but a fleeting image for
those tourists who seek for superficial novelty. Native citizens hardly go there for
leisure or entertainment.
The first phase of the project only covers several side streets, the other streets/blocks
in this projected area are still in poor condition (Figure V), which makes a strong
sense of incoherence. A more integrated planning of this area must be put forward
and carried out.
Figure IV – Thanks to: Google Image
7
Figure V - Photo by Wenjiao Wu, 2013
Proposals
New Meanings of the Heritage Area
While the old city district A and C have developed flourishing private economy and
have their own successful commercial areas (Figure I), the commerce of “Chinese-
Baroque” historical heritage area cannot escape from the shadows of state-operation
era. History is not the ruins of the past, and the best way to protection is well
planning and to make it alive.
However it does not mean that the importance of understanding the past can be
ignored. Narrative publicity board can be set in the streets of this area, museum(s) can
be built in this area or another part of the city to provide some educational programs
to the public.
8
Removal and Illegal Removal Issue
The removal work of the second phase of the Renewal Project has already began. The
planning removal area is more than 150,000 square meters, or to say, more than 3,000
households. It is common sense that “removal” is not an appropriate way in historical
preservation. Citizens want to see “reconstruction” or “renew”, let alone the home, or
to say, shelter of some people in low-income social group will surely be deprived in
this process, which will cause more critical social issues.
The existing planning reflects the totally wrong ideology of the local government.
The “Great Leap Forward” ideology is still taking its control even after half a century.
A banner can be seen in the construction site: “The earlier the better, spare no efforts
to make the projection speed up greatly”. Such utilitarianism value orientation will do
irreversible harm to the historical buildings, and also not beneficial for the further
development of the heritage area for the deprivation of historical, cultural and
aesthetic values.
It is happening every day and everywhere in China. Therefore it is not surprising that
plenty of illegal removal also occurred (Figure VI). Chinese central and local
governments has built lists of historical preservation buildings similar to the National
Register and Local Register in the USA, and cultural relics have come under
increasing legal protection, however, a lot more historical buildings not included in
the lists are facing the danger of being damaged or demolished. Illegal construction
9
team hired by real estate developers demolish the old buildings and build new dull
commercial or residential buildings. Under existing government-leading management
mode in China, to avoid these problems, unless the government agency certificate or
qualify every renter of the land to ensure that they have the ability to protect
historical sites and to employ certificated construction team and carry on the
supervision during the whole construction process. It is apparently impossible,
though.
There are many individuals who engaged
themselves to historical preservation, but there is
still not a powerful citizen conservation
organization to give pressure to the government and
educate other citizens such as National Land Trust
in the USA. In consideration of the long-term (and
still continuing) suppression exerted by Chinese
government to all non-profit citizen organizations, there is still a long way to go.
Integrate Land Layout and Improving Public Spaces
Because of the high population density and unclear commercial mode of this area, the
land layout has to be modified and integrated in a progressive way to improve the
environment quality and land utilization rate of the old streets.
Figure VI - Thanks to: Google Image
10
Residential lots: to decrease single-function residential lots and emigrate some
residents through ways like government-funding replacement, to manage private
scrap purchase industry prevailing in this area to improve environment quality and
street view, and to increase public service facility lots like commercial, recreational
and leisure.
Mixed-used lots: to meet the market demand and leave some flexibility to attract
some potential profitable private economy entities, tax credits can be applied.
An example: a food market had blocked the streets, even hard for pedestrians
to get through, while the buildings right by their side were totally abandoned,
no renter or owner, with carved balconies hanging above (Figure VII).
Figure VII - Photo by Wenjiao Wu, 2013
Government agencies should take the responsibilities of renew the interior
space and façade of the building to make it functional again, and move the
11
street market to an appropriate commercial place nearby, or even, to
encourage the stall owners to move into the interior space of the building.
Improving public service facilities and infrastructure construction: to build
elementary and secondary school lots, to improve open public cultural spaces, and to
increase public parking lots. (See “Transportation” below)
Characteristic landscape: to activate the “accelerant” of the city view, such as a
representative Chinese-Baroque architecture, a time-honored brand store; or to build
a brand-new accelerant points, such as commercial pedestrian street and cultural
exhibition square.
City greening: to take the advantage of existing architecture and neighborhood
structure to build “axis-nodes” greening landscape. Consider the extremely-cold-
winter regional characteristics, the greening belts and squared can be used as ice
sculpture exhibition area, just like the other districts of Harbin city.
Transportation
As it is inappropriate to broaden the old streets or to build overpasses for they will
damage the traditional city view, the potential transportation ability of surrounding
area must be explored to ease the traffic pressure of the heritage area. First take the
advantage of existing “fish bone” neighborhood structure to improve the road
12
network structure; second to build auxiliary lane on the two flanks of the heritage
area to diverge traffic volume; third to take the common transportation management
measures such as one-way street, limiting the types of vehicles, and stipulating the
passing time of automobiles; and last to imitate the measurement of other commercial
areas – to carry out limit-time walking plan according to the pedestrian traffic
volume.
For the static traffic, to build parking garage, off-street parking lot, and especially
underground parking lots on the basis of preserving existing parking lots.
In conclusion, what makes the history, how we can create the new story, how to give
new meanings to the old form without destroying it – should be the core of the
renewal project.
References
WAN, N., PAN, W., & LU, H. (2011). Protection and Renovation Program of Chinese-Baroque
Historic Block in Harbin. City Planning Review, 6, 018.
ZHOU, X., TANG, J. (2009). A Study on Commercial Development Pattern and Planning Method
of Historic District: Taking Jinli, Kuanzhai Lane and Wenshu District as Example [J]. In Urban
Planning Forum (Vol. 5).