Study On Preservation And Renewal Of Chikan Historical District In Zhanjiang

The preservation and revitalization of Chikan Historical District,which is one of the two preservation of historic and cultural sites,has been playing an important role in urban construction of Zhanjiang.As one of the most prosperous business regions in modern Zhanjiang,Chikan Historical District can be traced back to the Southern Song Dynasty.During mid and late period of the Qing Dynasty even Franch invasion,it had blossomed into flourishing port,and became a trade center of Zhanjiang.Until the late stage of reform and opening-up,due to the acceleration of urbanization and the transfer of commercial centers,Chikan Historical District was facing many development difficulties and rapidly declining.Because most of the historic buildings are complex,lacking a unified scientific definition and reasonable value judgment,a large amount of historical information in Chikan Historical District has been lost in the process of management and utilization,and the social landscape,features of social structure and customs have changed greatly as well.So based on analysis of relative theory of “Environment Vein”,from the angle of physical structure such as material form,function type and spatial texture of historical protection space,this research utilizes methods of on-spot investigation,interview and questionnaire survey,analyzes the features of the landscape structure,the historical value and the evaluation of recreational value in order to find out what can we do for the rehabilitate and construction of Chikan Historical District public space.Now there are some main conclusions as follows.(1)Chikan Historical District almost retains the complete spatial texture characteristics,which reflects its historical evolution process.Taking two roads called Sanmin Road and Minzhu Road as the boundary,the Chikan Historical District forms two different types of texture and architectural style: Like a chessboard,Sanmin Block are divided into east-west streets and north-south streets.There are many arcade buildings located in the north-south street,with a strong sense of continuity and sense of sequence.On the contrary,there is fewer arcade buildings and less style in the east-west.On the whole,Most of buildings in it have large size and the streets are bright and clear.And the traffic system of Datong Block and Sanhe Block are both like fishbones,including the main street,the roadway,the courtyard or the household.While walking in these blocks,there will be a feeling about “winding path leads to a hidden spot”.Most of the buildings are small in size,and there are both traditional brick-wood buildings and Chinese-Western brick-concrete buildings existing simultaneously.Therefor,the texture of Chikan Historical District combines Chinese and Western life philosophy,engineering technology and aesthetic art.(2)There are six kinds of phenomena in the protection and construction of historic districts.For example,the distribution of historical architectural is scattered,and the landscape characteristics of single recreational spots are not obvious.As another example,the proportion of opening and sharing of historic recreational spots is low,and the open space of public recreation space has less historical landscape elements.Because of the lack of connection between ecological recreation corridors and streets,the continuity of street scenery is not strong.Due to the complete separation of life space and landscape recreation space,the efficiency of recreational space is low,and the production space further weakens the value of recreational space.At the same time,not only half of the historic buildings are passive development and utilization,but most of them are private,so it is difficult to carry out scale and mass renovation.(3)The factors affecting the landscape features of the street and lane recreation space include that the morphological integrity of the old street’s historical texture;the visual continuity with the historical architecture as the main street interface;the coordination of the historic buildings,including the proportions,scales,forms,styles,colors,and historical readability of the buildings;the ratio of the length to the height called D/H of all streets;the design of scene auxiliary facilities.(4)There are five kinds of facade styles in Chikan Historical District,which are traditional Chinese style,French neoclassicism style,Chinese-Western style,Soviet style and modern simplicity style.Among them,the French neoclassicism and the Chinese-Western style called “Nanyang style” are the main historical architectural style.(5)The preservation and renewal of Chikan Historical District should be implemented.For instance,maintaining and extending the texture characteristics of the material space is priority.Then more public recreational space should be provided for the public to enjoy.Coordinating and controlling the nature of land use is the key to the optimization of recreation space structure.To retain the traditional handicraft industry is the way to maintain environmental context and increase attractiveness in living street.All in all,in the process of transformation,the maintenance of readable historical information should be integrated with the external environment to integrate into a systematic functional and cultural system,which can effectively promote the continuity and development of urban history and culture.