A Research In Human Landscape And Space Of Mount Tai’s Historical And Cultural Axis

Mountain Tai’s historical and cultural axis line refers to a long belt of cultural landscapearea, where are crowded the most diverse and typical landscape and culture of Mountain Tai,running through the south of Mountain Tai and Tai’an City, more than ten kilometers long.This dissertation is mainly researched in one section of the line, called the Middle Road ofMountain Tai, which is the mountainous area along the south of Mountain Tai, from Dai Ding,via Nantian Gate, Zhongtian Gate, Wanxian Tower etc., to Guandi Temple. It is7kilometersin length and1300meters in drop from north to south. This section is an important part ofMountain Tai’s historical and cultural axis line along which a great diversity of landscape isdistributed. It includes Mountain Tai’s unique natural scenery, its Grandeur Heaven WorshipCeremony which started from remote antiquity and matured in Qin and Han Dynasty, and theStone Carving which is praised as “the soul of Mountain Tai Culture,” as well as the religiousculture, Mountain Tai God culture and folklore, etc.This dissertation chose the mountainous area of Mountain Tai’s historical and culturalaxis line as the research object and adopted approaches of field investigation, comprehensiveresearch, and comparison etc. On the basis of close investigation about the natural andcultural landscapes in this area, this paper gave a detailed and comprehensive summary on thecomposition and characteristics of Mountain Tai’s natural and cultural landscapes, andemphatically analyzed their space constructions and characteristics. It discovered that therules and methods of the construction of Mountain Tai’s natural and cultural mountainouslandscape space illustrated a Spatial Overlay Theory which made all the space constructionpossible and unique.The main research content includes three parts.Part one is an introduction to Mountain Tai’s historical and cultural axis line.In this part, the author first listed out the physical environments which helped shape thehistorical and cultural line of Mountain Tai. The grandeur of Mountain Tai was determined by its geographical conditions, whose natural, historical, cultural and transportation locationcontributed to its being selected as the top of the Five Sacred Mountains in China. After that,the author discussed Mountain Tai’s natural and physical landscapes, including the terraintopography and vegetation conditions. By reading historical documents and reviewingrelevant literature, the author clarified the geographical coverage of Mountain Tai’s historicaland cultural axis line, and also gave a detailed illustration and summary of its physical andcultural construction, which is the highlight of this part. Mountain Tai’s historical and culturalaxis line, a blending belt-shaped space combining natural and cultural landscapes, wasestablished with a series of selection and precipitation of history and culture on a certain basisof physical advantages. The Grandeur Heaven Worship Ceremony, a dominant culture ofMountain Tai, was originated from the rituals of mountain worship and sacrifice in a remoteantiquity. Since Qin and Han dynasties to Tang and Song dynasties, the Heaven WorshipCulture had become typified of Mountain Tai, thus established its unshakable cultural statusas the most revered among China’s five sacred mountains, and also settled the thematiclandscape of Mountain Tai’s historical and cultural axis line. After thousands of years’development from Qin and Han Dynasties to Ming and Qing Dynasties, this area hasdeveloped into a striking landscape belt with a distinctive culture.Part two focuses on the landscapes in mountainous space of Mountain Tai’s historicaland cultural axis line. As for the natural landscape, there are rare stones, plants, mountainsand rivers, and astronomical phenomena. Locations of these various natural landscapes werefully and in great detail investigated and their forms were carefully and objectively described.As for the cultural landscape, the dominant part in Middle Road landscape, a detailedsurveying and mapping was made on all scattered courtyards, individual buildings, stonecarvings, etc., and accordingly a detailed and objective summary was reached on theirformation, construction, spatial scales and distributions. In the end, the author summed up thelandscape characteristics and patterns in the mountainous space of Mountain Tai’s historicaland cultural axis line. These characteristics include the following aspects：①it has richcultural deposits with thousands years’ nourishing;②it reflects Chinese traditional ritualpattern which means kings and figures face the bright sunlight and govern the populace;③itfeatures in vitalizing according to terrains and acting according to circumstances;④it creates an artistic imagery where culture and landscape are interdependent. As a result, thisdissertation illustrated the process and constitution mechanisms that the natural and culturallandscape finally developed into a multivariable and multilayered cultural complex under theinfluence of Mountain Tai’s historic and cultural developments.Part three concentrates mainly on such mountainous space characteristics as the spatialscale, spatial configuration, spatial openness, spatial division, spatial change and spatialrelationship along Mountain Tai’s historical and cultural axis line. The mountainous landscapespace in Middle Road of Mountain Tai was interpreted after that in both the macro and microdimensions in accordance with its spatial pattern and feature. Then it summarized the spatialcomposition, formation and features of the mountainous landscape space in Middle Road aswell as the formal features of its macroscopic parts and the impacts of related physicallandscape construction on it. It also analyzed the building rules, formal features, scale featuresof the block space, courtyard space, architecture space and stone carving space, as well as themountainous landscape based on all these spaces. Meanwhile, it also analyzed both therelationships between individual space and overall space, and the landscape space constructedaccordingly. Through the study on mountainous landscape and spatial building features ofMountain Tai’s historical and cultural axis line, the author summarized the unique SpatialOverlay Theory of Middle Road landscape construction which includes：①a block divisionof the macro mountainous space is the basis of spatial overlay;②a culture is both added tothe large-scale physical belted mountainous space and the small-scale dotted-like space;③anartistic imagery is added to the dotted-like physical space;④a multi-culture is added to thedotted-like physical space. The Spatial Overlay theory revealed the essence of the space of theMiddle Road of Mountain Tai, that is to say, a multi-serial landscape space, which expressedthe significance of space handling on the landscape constructions. This is a constructiveapproach different from either architecture or the traditional landscape gardening, which hassignificant implications for both the construction of architectural space and landscapegardening space.