Review13_Rebirth-of-the-Grand-Canal.pdf, Exercises of History

Download Review13_Rebirth-of-the-Grand-Canal.pdf and more Exercises History in PDF only on Docsity! 160ISOCARP · REVIEW 13 TOC WANG JIANGUO YANG JUNYAN CHEN HAINING REBIRTH OF THE GRAND CANAL REBIRTH OF THE GRAND CANAL PRESERVATION OF THE CANAL LINEAR CULTURAL HERITAGE CORRIDOR AT HANGZHOU Wang Jianguo, Yang Junyan, Chen Haining 161ISOCARP · REVIEW 13 TOC WANG JIANGUO YANG JUNYAN CHEN HAINING REBIRTH OF THE GRAND CANAL THE GRAND CANAL AND ITS HANGZHOU SECTION In the ancient imes, there was no express delivery as we have today. Instead, the ancestors pursued the goals of quicker and safer conveyance of goods by using waterways and ships. Where a waterway went, there resources, fortunes and cultures would be. Canals, developed in the form of human-made wa- terways, relected the society’s wisdom and strength for survival, and usually embody outstanding engineering technologies. Canals emerged in response to the requirements of urban development and they breed and spread brilliant civilizaions in their eras. Today, even though some or parts of these civiliza- ions have been destroyed, intangible wealth remains along the canal paths. While canal construcion was undertaken at a naional level to facilitate naional city-building and strategic objecives, there also were substanial cultural efects. Canal development greatly inluenced the lives of the broad masses of people in communiies along their routes. For instance, the com- mercial wealth of the canal promoted the growth of atracive and gorgeous street cultures in towns and ciies along the canals. The administraion of the canal nurtured the historic Chinese system of the scholar-bureaucrat class. In fact, some historians contend that the cultural side efect of the Grand Canal was similar to that of City States in Medieval Italy, where the rich culture in Florence and other ciies led to a Renaissance in Europe (Zheng, 1986; Chen, 2013). Canals brought about economic development, social change, cultural diversity, and other changes which had profound impacts on urban develop- ment patern of later eras. The Grand Canal, which is also known as the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. Figure 1: Bird View of the Grand Canal (Hangzhou Secion). Photo Credit: XU Haohao 164ISOCARP · REVIEW 13 TOC WANG JIANGUO YANG JUNYAN CHEN HAINING REBIRTH OF THE GRAND CANAL Even today, the Grand Canal, consising of the tangible and intangible cultur- al heritages, maintains a strong vitality. It is a place where the ancient meets the modern, which is the canal’s most precious fortune. The urban agglomera- ions along it are one of the most important arteries of economic development in China. Today’s Hangzhou is a historical and cultural city not only famous for its gor- geous natural and humanisic sceneries, but also well-known for the emerging technology hub. The city leads the revoluion of smart economy by building a smart city in contemporary China. It is home to booming e-commerce and Internet inance industries, many of which incorporate cloud compuing, big data and other Internet of things (IOT) technologies. The city is becoming prominent as the global center of e-commerce. As a result, the City of Hang- zhou hosted the eleventh G20 Summit in 2016, and has been selected to host the Asian Games in 2022. It also aims at being the naional innovaion center of Internet inance by 2020. In such an IOT era of e-commerce and Internet inance industries with to- day’s rapid progress in aviaion, high-speed railways, highways etc, we have a totally new transportaion system. Compared with these modern methods of carrying goods and informaion, the transportaion funcion of the Grand Canal is gradually waning. In addiion, fast-paced modern urban construcion have resulted in a series of serious challenges to the ancient canal. There are fewer and fewer interacions between the canal, the city and the people. The City of Hangzhou, which became prosperous because of the Grand Canal, has become alienated from it. From the perspecive of the surrounding urban en- vironment along both banks of the Grand Canal, especially for its Hangzhou Secion, the key problems we are going to focus on are: · Isolaion of the styles and features between the ancient and the modern structures along both banks of the Grand Canal; · Isolaion of the spaces between the Grand Canal and the City of Hangzhou; · Isolaion of the sightseeing aciviies between the sceneries of the Grand Canal and those of the City of Hangzhou. Consequently, it is now ime to consider how we can leave the great canal for our descendants in another millennium. It is ime for thoughful considera- ion about how and what preservaion work should be undertaken in the con- text of accelerated urbanizaion. We propose that preserving the cultural heritage of the Grand Canal has its own characterisic which can be summarized into three speciic key words; one is “large-scale”, one is “living” and the other is “linear” (3 “L”). The key word “large-scale” indicates the grand scale of the canal, both in ime and space. The key word “living” indicates that the canal is sill carrying on the important urban funcions of conveyance (coal transportaion from north to south), water supply (South-to-North Water Diversion Project), irrigaion, lood control and so on (Xinhua Daily, 2012). Finally, the key word “linear” indicates the speciic form of the regions’ cultural heritages in relaion to the canal. In fact, the concept of a “linear cultural heritage” is an emerging ield in internaional cultural heritage preservaion. The term enhances the con- cepions of “cultural route” and “cultural heritage corridor”. It mainly refers to tangible and intangible cultural heritage groupings located in linear or zonal regions. These groupings represent the movement routes of human beings, 165ISOCARP · REVIEW 13 TOC WANG JIANGUO YANG JUNYAN CHEN HAINING REBIRTH OF THE GRAND CANAL and they embody the development routes of regional cultures (Shan, 2006). Accordingly, we can deine the Grand Canal as a “large-scale living linear cul- tural heritage corridor” (Shan, 2009; Yu, et al., 2009). Because of the canal’s speciic circumstances, preservaion requires difer- ent ways and methods compared with those for tradiional cultural heritages. There are three perspecives regarding this issue: · The historical perspecive - It is necessary to consider preservaion for the cultural heritage of the canal from the views of authenicity and integrality. The preservaion work should keep the collecive memories and emoions for the tens of millions of people living, and who have lived, along both banks of the Grand Canal. It should focus at eforts to maintain the vibrant historical features of cultural and industrial prosperity to ameliorate the idenical ap- pearances of today’s ciies that oten lack individual characterisics. · The developmental perspecive - It is necessary to enhance the internal re- laionships between the canal and the urban environment from the views of dynamics and reciprocity. The preservaion work should closely connect the economic and social development of the ciies and the towns distrib- uted along both banks of the Grand Canal, aiming to achieve beter life qualiies for local communiies by promoing their physical environments. · The systemaic perspecive - It is necessary to guide landscape construc- ion from the views of systemaizaion and interacivity. The preservaion work should establish a system of sceneries and sightseeing aciviies going on along both banks of the Grand Canal. This system should aim at revital- izaion eforts for the aciviies that are relevant with the canal, to restore the extraordinary vitality in concert with management and planning work for the post-applicaion era as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The “Grand Canal” in the following paragraphs speciically refers to “the Hangzhou Secion of the Grand Canal”. Figure 3: Daily Aciviies along the Banks of the Grand Canal (Hangzhou Secion). Photo Credit: XU Haohao 166ISOCARP · REVIEW 13 TOC WANG JIANGUO YANG JUNYAN CHEN HAINING REBIRTH OF THE GRAND CANAL THREE MAPS: THE CANAL, THE CITY, AND THE PEOPLE DEFINITION OF THE PROJECT AREA The Urban Landscape Promoion Project along Both Banks of the Grand Canal (Hangzhou Secion) consists of both a focused area and a research area. The focused project area, where maintenance, promoion and revitalizaion work will occur, is a 90km2 area along both banks of the Grand Canal (also known as the Hangzhou Secion). It starts at the Sanbao Ship Lock in Jianggan District in the south and extends north to reach the municipal boundary of Hangzhou. It includes the middle and eastern watercourses of the canal for a total length of 54 kilometers (33.6 miles). The ields along both banks have project area widths ranging from 500 meters (1,640 feet) to 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) based on actual site situaions. We have also ideniied a 160km2 research range in the main city of Hang- zhou. This area consists of the ields, located to the south of the highway around the city (ofset one block) and to the north of the highway, together with surrounding elements of wetlands, roads and mountains. OBJECTIVES OF THE PLAN With the intent to rebirth the Grand Canal to beneit the local communiies, the objecives of the project are: · To solve the three key problems which are: isolaion of the styles and fea- tures between the ancient and the modern; isolaion of the spaces between the Grand Canal and the City of Hangzhou; and, isolaion of the scenic sight- seeing opportuniies between the canal and the city; · To provide design soluions for each of the three key elements “the canal, Figure 4: Locaional Relaionship and Size Comparison between the Grand Canal (Hangzhou Secion), the West Lake, the Imperial City of the Southern Song Dynasty and the Qiantang River 169ISOCARP · REVIEW 13 TOC WANG JIANGUO YANG JUNYAN CHEN HAINING REBIRTH OF THE GRAND CANAL THE FIRST MAP: THE CANAL RELATES TO A HISTORY OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS The irst map is the Holography System Map of the Image of the History. “The canal relates to history of thousands of years” by incorporaing and adoping the core values, characterisic elements and historical events which occurred since its construcion. These have been recorded into a holography system map which serves as the image of the history. It is used to show pres- ervaion areas and land use uilizaion of historic landscapes along the Grand Canal. The map provides a global vision of the Grand Canal, and was produced by incorporaing three methods: Method 1. Matrix Mapping: The posiion of the Hangzhou Secion of the Grand Canal (compared to other secions within other ciies along the canal) was deined through research and analysis of three parts types of data base: 1) the hydrological system in China including both the ca- nal system and the ive-water system; 2) the basin length and the age of construcion for each secion of the canal; and 3) the total GDP and the quanity of heritage points in ciies along the canal. Compared to the other canals that have been listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Grand Canal is the oldest and the longest canal. It is also one of the canals with the largest engineering features and the only canal with the signature of “caoyun”. Compared to other canal ciies, Hangzhou is the historical and cultural city where the ancient meets the modern. From the point of view of Hangzhou urban patern, illustrated Figure 8: The Holography System Map of the Image of the History 170ISOCARP · REVIEW 13 TOC WANG JIANGUO YANG JUNYAN CHEN HAINING REBIRTH OF THE GRAND CANAL by the ive-water system, the Grand Canal is the origin of prosperity and openness for the city. This matrix ideniied the three core values of the Grand Canal from a global perspecive. Method 2. Evaluaion for Characterisic Elements: We ideniied ive cat- egories of characterisic spaces for the canal, which could be described as “two islets, three branches, three harbors, four coves, and seven joints”. In addiion, within the eighty-one historical elements of the Grand Canal, the planning scheme extracted twenty-two categories of characterisic spaces, including such diverse categories as bridges, ports, ship locks, dams, and etc. The distribuion of the exising characterisic elements was used to idenify historic blocks, such as found in Tangqi and Qiaoxi, as well as the three clusters located to the south of the Wulin Square. Method 3. Routes of Historical Events Superimposiion: The planning scheme endowed the spaial forms of the Grand Canal with humanisic feelings which strengthen the place characterisics of historical events. For instance, the routes of the southern inspecion tour by the Kangxiiii Emperor prompted the establishment of markets and trade centers by numerous handicratsmen. The inspecion also inluenced folk customs and fesivals. THE SECOND MAP: THE CITY EMBRACES URBAN SPACES INTERACTING WITH THE CANAL The second map is the Morphology System Map of the City-Canal Spaces. It is intended to illustrate how “the city embraces urban spaces interacing with the canal”. To exhibit this city-canal interacive relaionship, we created a morphology map for comprehensively displaying superimposed reconstruc- ions of exising buildings and simulaions of future spaial forms, which had been opimized for the physical environment of the city-canal spaces. The map visualizes the ideal model of urban forms along both banks of the canal from the perspecive of city-canal interacion. It was constructed using the following three methods (labeled Methods 4 to 6): Method 4. Comprehensive Evaluaion for Exising Buildings: For the comprehensive evaluaion for exising buildings, the project excluded lands where construcion was prohibited. This development-excluded zone had a total area of around 39km2, including lands designed for eco- logical conservaion (mainly in the Tangqi Wetland), historic cultural her- itages, green parks, and etc., as well as the lands with planning schemes approved with a total number of 153 blocks. We then evaluated the ex- ising buildings on the remaining land which could support development. During this process, we ideniied the lands where demoliion should oc- cur, areas where reconstrucion or parial redevelopment might occur, as well as areas to support future development. iii  The Kangxi Emperor, 1654-1722 AD. Figure 9: (next page) Simulaion and Analysis of Physical Environment in Guanjiayang Figure 10: (next page) Simulaion and Analysis of Physical Environment in the Heritage Park of the Reinery 171ISOCARP · REVIEW 13 TOC WANG JIANGUO YANG JUNYAN CHEN HAINING REBIRTH OF THE GRAND CANAL 174ISOCARP · REVIEW 13 TOC WANG JIANGUO YANG JUNYAN CHEN HAINING REBIRTH OF THE GRAND CANAL clear the dynamic sightseeing model along the canal from the perspecive of people-canal interacion. Our process is composed of three methods (labeled Methods 7 to 9): Method 7. AHP iv Landscape Blurry Evaluaion: The AHP landscape blurry evaluaion was an analysis of 25 central viewpoints on the Grand Canal and 38 facades along the canal, one by one and each from three aspects and nine elements. These elements included the aspects of urban skyline, architecture form and visual percepion. The guidance for landscape pro- moion planning in the next step would be implemented according to the results of this evaluaion. Method 8. Mulidimensional Visual Analysis: The canal’s landscape overlooking system was established from four perspecives: touring on the boats; sightseeing from the banks; viewing from the bridges; and, overlooking from the buildings. The comprehensive analysis of the ef- fects based on height limitaion was carried out for sightseeing aciviies around the Grand Canal and the West Lake. According to the exising development plans, there would be six main cluster areas of high-rise buildings around the West Lake in Hangzhou. Taking this into account, we were able to recommend the short-term, the medium-term and the long-term future construcion arrangements for high-rise buildings in iv  Analyic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a structured technique developed by Professor Thomas L. Saaty for analyzing complex decisions based on mathemaics and psychology. Figure 13: The Sightseeing System Map of Dynamic Optesthesia 175ISOCARP · REVIEW 13 TOC WANG JIANGUO YANG JUNYAN CHEN HAINING REBIRTH OF THE GRAND CANAL Hangzhou based on the two main viewpoints of the Grand Canal near the West Lake. Consequently, the Wulin Gate, the Sanbao Ship Lock and the New City of Grand Canal would be the cluster areas of high-rise buildings which should be given priority to construct. Method 9. Mapping Layering: Dynamic sightseeing is one of the main characterisics of the sightseeing aciviies related to the Grand Canal. Hence, we built landscape intenion models under diferent speeds, based on interacion relaions between the sightseeing percepion and three movement modes including boaing, walking and bicycling. THE FUTURE-ORIENTED CONCEPTION AND STRATEGIES Based on our three analyical maps about the canal, the city and the peo- ple, we proposed an urban landscape plan for the Grand Canal based on the concepion of “one grand heritage area”. This plan consists of nine de- sign strategies, six focused planning districts, twelve acion plans, and twen- ty-four-secion designs. The concepion of “one grand heritage area” not only sets forth the single heritage domain of the Grand Canal, but also integrates the characterisic cul- tural and natural heritages resources in the Grand Canal, the West Lake, the Imperial City of the Southern Song Dynastyv and the Qiantang River from the holisic layer of Hangzhou. The canal is proposed to be the sightseeing vehicle to communicate with the slow traic system of green corridors. It is intended to cascade the sightseeing and recreaion system, to build up the heritage preservaion plaform, and to establish the spaial framework incorporaing the concepion of grand heritage area with “one canal, one lake, one city, one river” for the City of Hangzhou. The nine urban landscape promoion strategies could be summarized based on the project and relevant research as: 1) Perfecion strategy for ive-water system on the layer of canal land- scape promoion: This strategy establishes the Grand Canal as the vehicle to advance the interacions between the city and the canal in Hangzhou. It uses the Canal, as the ith water body, to unite the four other kinds of water bodies, which include sea, river, lake and stream by means of tour routes and which weave through the water system and between the pro- posed green corridors. 2) Exhibiion strategy for culture diversity along the canal. This strategy calls for the exhibiion of the muli-cultures along the canal including a deep analysis of the canal culture and its historical, industrial and urban cultures germinaing by the canal. 3) Combinaion strategy for planning and heritage monitoring. This put forward the relevant ideas and methods for a heritage monitoring pro- gram of the canal. It is envisioned that this strategy will be the basis for the post-applicaion era of the West Lake as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. v  The Southern Song Dynasty, 1127-1279 AD. 176ISOCARP · REVIEW 13 TOC WANG JIANGUO YANG JUNYAN CHEN HAINING REBIRTH OF THE GRAND CANAL 4) Opimizaion strategy for the city-canal structure on the layer of urban landscape promoion. This program opimized the spaial relaions be- tween the city and the canal from three aspects. It proposes the opimal distribuion for high-rise buildings along both banks of the Grand Canal. It ofers construcion guidance for waterfront buildings. And inally, it estab- lishes overlooking corridors. 5) Improvement strategy for quality of public spaces. This work guides the systemaic construcion of waterfront public spaces; opimizes the physical environment of public spaces, and includes the planning for night scenes along the canal. It lays emphasis on the spaial relaions between the canal and public spaces, such as public green spaces, squares, water- front pedestrian streets, portal nodes, boulevards, ecological corridors, landscape parks, and so forth. It also improves the thermal, wind, and the acousic environment by calling for the construcion of wind corridors, traic calming zones and the opimizal forms of high-rise buildings. Fur- thermore, the promoion strategies were put forward 24-hour scene-plan- ning of the Grand Canal. 6) Shaping strategy for architectural features and characterisics. This strategy sorts architectural features along the canal into ive categories for guidance, i.e. the old city areas, the ancient towns, the countryside areas, the industrial areas and the new towns. The architectural features and characterisics were shaped holisically based on the distribuion of colors along the canal and landmark buildings in the point-and-plane in- tegraion manner. 7) Construcion strategy for green slow traic systems on the layer of sightseeing acivity promoion. This program organized the slow traic systems depending on waterfront spaces and public greening. It aforded sightseeing routes for the ciizens and tourists as recreaion places for itness aciviies and leisure. 8) Revitalizaion strategy for canal vitaliies. This secion of the over- all plan calls for planned aciviies, incorporaing tradiional sports, folk performances, special cuisines and tourism, along the canal in order to illustrate an in-depth percepion of canal vitality through muli-layer tour experiences ranging from half-day tour, one-day tour to muli-day tour. 9) Creaion strategy for the new “Ten Sceneries of the Grand Canal”. This strategy advances landscape coordinaion in the grand heritage area. It proposes the creaion of the ten sceneries along the Grand Canal, while echoing the West Lake across the distance. Addiionally, the planning scheme proposes six focused planning districts and twelve acion plans. The role of these special areas is to transform the staic ulimate blueprint to an acion plan that could be efecively operated and implemented. The twelve acion plans included the preservaion acion for city-canal structure, the renovaion acion for waterfront development, the perfecion acion for ive-water system, the experience acion for canal cul-