A Historical And Morphological Study On The Transformation Of Wuchang In Modern Times

Located in the intersection of Yangtze River and Han River, Wuchang is a famous culturalcity with nearly2000years history. From ancient Xiakou city built by Sunquan in the ThreeKingdom’s Period, Ezhou city of Tang and Song Dynasties, to Wuchang city of Ming andQing Dynasties, Wuchang city had undergone a process of military castle, then an importantcommercial town, finally a provincial capital city, concentrating with political center,economical center and cultural center. Wuchang First Uprising took place in1911. With seriesof military and political events subsequently, Wuchang has been closely connected withHankou and Hanyang. In the middle of the Republic of China, the three towns united to awhole city, and once became the capital of the National Government at1927. Although beingdivided and jointed over and over again, the three towns finally has been united to a wholecity stably since1949. Wuchang has became a main administrative district of the newprovince capital city—Wuhan. Without doubt, being the first place of the Revolution of1911and the political and cultural center of the middle region of China, Wuchang plays animportant role in the region urban system. However, it has been ignored seriously in the urbanhistory research field, lacking of comprehensive and systematic results. Today, a new round ofurban history research has being started at home and abroad. To further the research, it isnecessary to develop wide and deep studies of single cities involving various aspects andtypes. This paper is just one part of these basic studies. Since there are quite a big part ofspatial patterns and architectures of modern times stayed in contemporary environment, whichcomposes the essential contents of urban history conservation, it is of important realisticdirective significance to study on the spatial morphology of Wuchang in Modern Times.Basing on the study of urban development of modernization and the relation changes withWuhan three towns in Modern Times as clue, the paper detailed studies the evolution ofspatial morphology of modern Wuchang city. Main contents include six chapters. The firstchapter is the exordium, which introduces the research status and explains the aim andmeaning of the study. The second chapter generalizes the development course of ancientWuchang city and summarizes basic characteristics of urban spatial morphology. The thirdchapter unscrambles the urban development of modernization, indicates that in the late Qing Dynasty, Wuchang started the transformation from tradition to modernization. And in thiscourse, Wuhan three towns have been increasingly integrated together. Spatial morphology isthe results of integrative action of politics, economics technology and etc. The conversion ofurban social mechanisms finally leads to the transformation of spatial morphology. The fourthchapter explores the detail process of the transformation of spatial morphology of modernWuchang city. The fifth chapter is the comprehensive analyze of the spatial morphology ofWuchang city. Using for reference the western urban morphology theory and the typologytheory, the paper proposes a new framework consisting three levels and seven city elementsfor the typomorphological study of Chinese cities with consideration of the specificity of theChinese context. The sixth chapter explores the effects of political and military factor,economical and technical factor, environmental and disaster prevention factor, social andcultural factor on the transformation of urban spatial morphology. These factors work in anintegrative way, arousing a serial of significant historical events that cause the transformationof urban spatial morphology in direct and indirect levels. Also, each factor has differentinfluence in time and effects.The creative points in this paper include three facets. Firstly, it gives an in-depth researchon the modernization development of Wuchang from the perspective of regional system.Secondly, combined with the point of “mutation” and “gradual change”, summarizes thehistorical process of the evolution on spatial morphology of Wuchang in Modern Times.Thirdly, using for reference the western urban morphology theory and the typology theory, itproposes a new framework for the typomorphological study of Chinese cities withconsideration of the specificity of the Chinese context, which is of some theoretical value.And the research outputs with both theoretical and practical values of urban spatialmorphology of modern Wuchang will directly contribute to the urban history conservationplanning, which is of realistic guiding value.