Study On Effects Of Water For Hankow Urban Form And Its Mechanism

Wuhan has always enjoyed the reputation of being called "River City". To this city,the meaning of Yangtze River and Han River is self-evident. Especially for Hankow,which is on the northwest of Wuhan, the relationship with these two rivers is moreclosely. With many water networks densely covered, the natural pattern of Hankow hascreated an unparalleled geographical conditions and location advantages. It is “water”that can be an important clue to understand Hankow industrial development andmorphology evolution, and can be used to looking for the correlation between municipalconstruction, waterways, flooding, urban form.This paper chooses water-related evolution of urban form Hankow as main researchsubjects and shows a long period longitudinal dynamic investigation on it. Throughliterature analysis and comparative analysis of historical maps, I studied the relationshipbetween “water” and city boundaries, road construction, land division, external spatial,architectural morphology. According to different properties of water from, I analyzed andcombed the urban morphology evolution in time and space through natural lakes,waterways, flood, water, etc.First, the rivers and lakes of nature had created a prototype of the pattern of Hankow.During Chenghua Period of Ming Dynasty, the diversion of Han River led directly to thebirth of Hankow. The trend of Yangtze River and Han River determined the direction ofthe linear development of the city and formed a "fishbone pattern" of street space, alsoled to the appearence of waterfront architecture such as reed sheds, abutment buildingsand houses on stilts. Secondly, a great location and waterway conditions let Hankowbecame the first of China’s "four towns" in the Ming and Qing. After its inception, withits unique re-export, Hankow had maintained a prominent economic status. Thedevelpment of wharf, road system and the evolution of the plot can reflect the processthat Hankow urban form began to develop along the small rivers to the Yangtze Riverand Han River with a waterway economic stimulus. In addition, the construction of theconcession area of Hankow brought advanced modern urban planning theory, but alsoaccelerated the pace of modernization of Hankow. The overly intimate relationship with water made Hankow suffering from flood. The construction of levee facilities not onlyprotested the safety of Hankow, but also virtually reflected the clues of Hankow urbandevelopment as the city boundary, and led the city evolved from the sea to the ground. Inaddition, catastrophic floods can also be considered as a major event for the city ofHankow, which brought the city a devastating blow. Finally, urban modernization wasalso reflected on water conservancy, that the appearance of water greatly facilitated theemergence of people’s living in Hankow. To a certain extent, the modernization of thefire protection system and drainage system also improved the urban landscape.The long period investigation of Hankow urban form shows that water is ainfluencing factor in urban form and also a necessary condition to the industrialtransformation and scoial transformation. Water made a decisive impact to the earlyurban forms, and embedded in the urban fabric for a long term and will influence theurban form in the future. In recent years, Wuhan vigorously pursued the "drawing riverinto the lake","two rivers and four banks","three-piece three towns Lakes" and otherpolicies, which reflected the continuing influence of water on urban form. And this paperalso provides some historical and theoretical support to this.