Research On The Characteristic And Renewal Strategy Of Public Space In Beijing Old City

Beijing, is one of the first batch of national historical and cultural cities, has more than 3000 years’ history with 800 years as the Chinese capital. It is the peak of the Chinese ancient city urban construction, and also the precious material and spiritual wealth of China. But this ancient city with a long history and profundity seemsto lose itself in the process of rapid modernization. The traditional city space is difficult to fit in the modern lifestyle. While years of massive old city renewal work has been carried out, little success comes eventually. So we can see that, currently Beijing is mixture of old and new urban space, and blended styles, whichcannot meetthe requirements and direction of the development of historical and cultural city. On the one hand, as an ancient city, Beijing is the condensation of traditional Chinese urban planning thoughts, which has huge historical and cultural values, and needs to be protected carefully. On the other hand, as the national capital, Beijing is also faced with huge development demand and modernization construction, which means the contradiction of the old city’and update work can never be solved easily.Public space is the important composition of urban physical form, concerning the city layout and function. It is also the main carrier of urban life, history and culture, and the space forpublic communication.So the protection of open space is an important content in urban renewal,also a key part of the sustainable development of historical cities. The conservation and renewal of old city public space in Beijing haslong been the focus of attentionamong architecture, planning and landscape architecture disciplines. Therefore, this article chose the old city public space and buildings in Beijing as the point of penetration, based on historicaldocuments and the predecessors’achievements, through field investigation, comparative analysis and summarization, to systematically study the Beijing old city public space, and come up with methods of urban renewaland historical style conservation, from the angle of public space integration.The thesis launched the research from the following three parts.Part One, the public space basic theory research.In this dissertation, the public space development of the west and Chinawas studied in detail.Firstly the dissertation sorted out the development of western city public space, explored the public space elements of Chinese cities through the feudal period, then analyzed and studied the connotation of public space characteristics, and finally paved the way for further study.Part Two, the analytical research of the systematization of the Beijing old city public space.In this dissertation, the research of the Beijing old city public space development was carried mainly from three aspects. Firstly, it anatomized the historical evolution and composition elements of the Beijing old city public space, analyzing the development from the Yuan dynasty to the period of the Republic of China in Beijing. Itsorted out different elements to each stage of the Beijing old city, such as rivers drainage, neighborhoods, streets, markets, temples, to summarize the characteristics of elements of the Beijing old city public space in different historical periods, and generalize the influentialforces of Beijing old city public space evolution, such as the natural conditions, urban development and the social and cultural factors. Secondly, this dissertation analyzed the overall characteristics and values of the Beijing old city public space, pointing out that the overall features of Beijing old city public space lie in the integrity and order of space, unification and change of color and scale, and the combination of natural and artificial factors, which haveprecious historical, cultural, ecological and social values. Thirdly, this dissertation reviewed the course of the construction of the Beijing old city public space, after the founding of the People’s Republic of China.It reflected on the problems of old city construction in Beijing, and found out that currently the main problems come from the conflicts between traditional cognition of space form and modern life,the research and practice of the non-systematic planning and construction, and the deviation from economic interests to public interests, which leads to the content of the public space update.Part Three, the update strategyof the Beijing old city public space.In this dissertation, on the basis of the explicit integration concept and requirements,it proposed the integration strategy of the Beijing old city public space, urban axis, and historic water systems from the macro level. From the middle level, it put forward the integration strategy of public space, cultural heritage and pedestrianization of public space. From the micro level, it proposed the integration strategyof continuous public space interface.From the construction management level, the strategy of the old city public space information network was also proposed. Finally, based on the research and analysis the south NaoShiKou historical and cultural blocks, it specifically corresponded the integration strategy to the protection and development of the historical and cultural blocks.