Research Of Cognition And Mapping On Traditional Chinese Urban Fabric Based Upon "Dijie"

The traditional urban fabrics' taken as the entry point to preserve and study Chinese historical urban morphology,whereas the existing formal urban planning system plus cultural relics preservation regulation that the latter relies on remain confined to the tangible object or general form and style,leaving the characteristics and components of traditional Chinese urban fabric(including the cultural and geographic factors,street network and housing quarters)undervalued and overlooked of the causes of formation.Moreover,as the separation of urban housing property from the land ownership due to land nationalization,the decision-maker tends to overlook the ‘dijie'(boundary of land ownership,corresponds to western terminology plot boundaries)of housing quarters during renewal and renovation of historic towns and districts.Therefore,destruction of the traditional urban fabric becomes inevitable both in theory and by the law.Hence,plot as the hidden order has been ignored.In this research,the correlation of ‘dijie',literally plot boundaries,and the traditional housing quarters,is chosen as an important breakthrough to traditional Chinese urban fabric to reveal ‘dijie' 's control and restriction of the buildings within a historic block,and how the latter takes use of the construction logic to flexibly fit into the former in various sizes and shapes.By introducing the very term plot on western urban fabric and morphology and utilizing the cadastral maps of Nanjing City and Cicheng Town(Cixi County then)in the 1930 s in comparison with mapping of remaining buildings recently conducted by Nanjing University,we found that the boundary walls of courtyard buildings basically keep the same with the ‘dijie' marked in 1936-37,both the original plots and those bisected or subdivided after.The boundary walls that enclose a courtyard,support a house as its lateral wall or screen it as its eave wall,stand as the physical embodiment of the plot boundaries.In the morphological researches on historic cities and districts,it's evident that ‘dijie' stands longer and more stably than buildings.In this way,for traditional Chinese urban fabric a cognitive framework is reestablished and a set of mapping methods reinvented too,into a toolbox of effective graphic language.By sampling and mapping the Old City South,i.e.the historic downtown of Nanjing,the traditional urban fabric and morphology is evident based upon ‘dijie' with the aerial images in 1929 as a reference.A new cognitive framework and mapping method as well applied into study and preservation of traditional urban fabric in historic cities in China will prove considerable exemplary significance.Aimed at preserving the traditional Chinese urban fabric,experiments on mending and sustaining the fabric are conducted in historic districts in Nanjing and Cicheng: taking a single ‘plot' or unit block as a case,dividing according to ‘dijie' and filling in diverse housing quarters types that accord with the local construction logic,finally with support of the working street network the complete traditional urban fabric in China will be successfully restored.The whole thesis contains about 64000 words,102 pictures and charts.