Return To "Shan-Shui"

With the development of modern natural science and the industrial civilization,modern science has provided us with a basic theoretical model and research tool. Thelogical mathematical system has also promoted human material progress and avoidedmany defects in design. However, with the process of Chinese urbanization, theone-side pursuit of the logical thinking model under the guidance of the scientificcognitive approach, design has evolved into quantitative scientific process, which leadto the the pursuit of technology modernization without the reflection of the localculture.The city is becoming "one side thousand cities","a disease all ills".Meanwhile, this kind of design thinking which emphasizes things and neglects man,also neglect seriously the realization of the human value in the spiritual and culturallevel and the noumenon value, lacking the exploration of psychology and theunderstanding of the humanity. All of these facts have lead to the "alienation"ofhuman being. With the collapse of the traditional culture and the attacking of theforeign culture, it has been brought a new way of living. But the people who live herecan not find their own cultural identity, becoming more and more confusion andstruggling. It has becoming the first important issue for the period about the way ofhow will the Chinese live in the world.In the paper, we should understand the intrinsic logic and goals of our ownculture firstly, and then derive the corresponding future design idea from a differentway of thinking, but not to use the priori science model to analyse contemporarydesign. In Conclusion, we will try to rediscover the truth of our national culture,understanding and carrying forward in our own way of thinking. So this paper baseson the study of local culture and the introduction of an artistic cognitive approach.Through reference of the traditional Chinese landscape painting’s cognitivemedia, we will try to explore the relationship between human and nature behind thecognitive style and the cultural idea, so as to bring about the value of ancientlandscape painting and the possibility of the combination with the construction ofmodern landscape design. And then put forward the concept of “Shan-Shui” in thedefinition of Chinese modern city landscape construction, establishing a newhumanistic platform conforming to the Chinese cultural context, so as to promotedesign to return to the roots of the national culture. Therefore, we will put forward the development of the Qian Xuesen’s idea of “Shan-Shui City”. The fundamentalpurpose of the paper is to explore the concept of national human habitat and theenvironment. In fact, this is a kind of ecological living pursuit, trying to create asettlement concept of “Yijing” which means return to nature after living in the city fora long time.This is neither a universal design model nor a return to the forest in appearance.But it is a reflection of the thinking process about the Chinese urbanization. It is notan expression of the old pattern, or a specific development mechanism for stacking ofmountain and water. It is an exploration in the process of urbanization, but notregarding the city as the inevitable result, which is a poetic expression of theharmonious between human and nature. By the way of returning to noumenon in thephilosophical reflection, we hope that the artistic cognitive approach will work as apowerful supplement for the scientific cognitive approach and achieve an interactionbetween science and arts to get another kind of understanding about the urbanenvironment as a starting point of thinking.