A Research On The Settlement Space Of Qiangang Village Under Place Identity

As to the traditional villages in China, whether the unrest under wars for liberation, the foundation of New China, or the rapid development of the Reform and Opening-up, brought unprecedented impact to all of the physical forms of the settlement and living styles, traditional culture. In this paper, the Guangzhou Conghua Qiangang Village, shown as an example, is traced the history of this village settlement space within the last hundred years have occurred: wars and political unrest, the confusion of administrative divisions,constructions withoutplanning and abandoned traditional settlement living style. These historical changes lead to the "place" in the disappearance of traditional settlements space, turned into "space." And this historical change, also had some impact on the settlers: their spatial perception of the place and place identity changed. How these changes affect, that it is the main issue of the concern in this research.In this study, the settlers are separated into three generations: the old, the middle-aged,and the young. The settlement space is divided into traditional settlement space and new settlement space,and separately slicely studied under architecture perspective.Then using the concept of place identity which comes from environmental psychology and human geography, this study try to clarify the seemingly vague unknown phenomena,from the settlers’ daily routine and their memories,to watch, understand, represent and show, from 1970, when living the traditional settlements living space, the elderly, middle-aged villagers,how place identity built, but after going through historical changes, living in the new settlement space,the elderly, for the middle-aged young people,how place identity forms. The main content of the study, according to the following chapters unfold theme.The first chapter, the study leads to the topic of the background and recalled the different disciplines of space research for the settlement as the basis of this study.The second chapter, discussing the meaning throughout the text of "place identity", the significance of introducing this concept, and how to combine that with the research topic of this thesis.The third chapter reviews the history of the study object village, its history,profiles,features of both traditional and new settlements space, morphological characteristics.And combin with the changes that have occurred within the last hundred years,as foundation to understand the place identity changes.The fourth chapter, the research use cognitive maps and interview methods, combined with retrospective local literature, put the old, middle-aged and young, three generations into contrast:leading to the same an the difference of recognition and place identity. Traditional Settlement where elderly and middle-aged people who lived in before, producing more sophisticated and clear place identity,they had the same Qiangang place identity with different small neighbourhood identity, and also covers some of the similarities and differences between the different villages; and by the early years of war, liberation and the Cultural Revolution, and the impact of the reform and opening up,in which the rapid development impact on the formation of a new settlement space, the younger generation of villagers has the place identity which gradually blurred and its content decreased. In one word,place identity began to weaken and disappear with the historical changes of settlement space.Chapter V, based on the above findings, it is proposed that the protection and development of both traditional and new settlement space should combine with the strengthening of placeidentity.And combined with relevant case studies presented, the essay come up to several proposals and strategic initiatives for future development.