Research On Process Of Historic Changes Of The Historic District

The historic district is the district that authentically reflects the changes of local history, represents the cultural style of a certain historic era, and also occupies a certain area. It is the subject to, presently or potentially, cultural-relic conservation and urban planning. Comparing to the cultural relics, the historic district is featured by blurred boundaries, superposed historic traces, and continuous renewals.Currently, the regular method for historic district protection is preserving and maintaining the original elements of the district. The method is based on the present and the target state of the district, while the target state does not apply to a uniform standard, and it is still open for discussion.Employing a specific historic district as the samples, this thesis introduces the methodology of urban archaeology. By using text literature, maps, oral records, and fieldwork data, this thesis aims to investigate the process of historic changes of the historic district, to produced foundational materials for the target state of historic district.This article select Xisibeitoutiao district, Beijing, as the research subject. Such district is part of Historical and cultural protected area in Beijing, also affiliated to Chaoyangmen-Fuchengmen Historical landscape zone. Xisibeitoutiao District is a representative case of the progressively evolved residential and commercial district.The urban archaeological approaches in this article include reviewing the street pattern, architectural features and highlighted replacements from the Yuan Dynasty to present and outlining the features of this historic district in six separatechronological periods – late Yuan Dynasty, Jiajing period in Ming Dynasty, Qianlong period in Qing Dynasty, late Qing Dynasty and early period of Republic of China, the year 2000 and 2014. By taking into accounts the process and reasons of changes, this article will analytically evaluate the historic merits of the key elements of this historic district, as a reference for the future conservation.