Ideology, System And Architectural History

The 1958 National Architectural History Colloquium has been the first national academic conference of architectural history since 1949. It was held in the stage of the Great Leap Forward and People’s Commune. Academic research and political ideology interweaved together at the conference. This thesis is aimed at presenting the basic facts and features of the architectural history study in the late of 1950s.Then by describing and analyzing the organization, and contents of the conference, it trys to analyze the relationship among ideology,system and architectural historiography.This thesis has three parts. Firstly, it will discuss the organization system of the colloquium and the management system of architectural history researchers, through the way of the colloquium organized and the three architectural history compiled, along with the preliminary establishment of socialist system. It will help us reveal the features of academic system and its influence to architecture history study. Secondly, in the light of discourse analysis, it is aimed to show the change of architecture historiography through the speeches of conference delegates, such as Wang Zhili, Liang Sicheng, Liu Dunzhen. Furthermore, it will present the whole characteristic of architecture history study, under the official historical value,like "making the past serve the present" and "stressing the present, not the past". Finally, based on the analysis of ancient buildings and dwelling researches, the thesis points out binary value orientation of architecture history study in the late 1950s. It included architectural history study orientation influenced by historical materialism, and also included the traditional scholarly method which textual criticism and positivism guided.It is the relationship between ideology, system and architecture history that is always concerned by researchers. By analysis of the 1958 National Architectural History Colloquium, the thesis reaches three conclusions. First of all,the conference system and unit system were important measures to make national power intervene in architecture history study. Moreover, ideology of class struggle turned around the core and value orientation of architecture history study. Lastly, in the late of 1950s, authenticity and practicality was the main value orientation of architecture history study.