Research On Spatial Pattern Of Traditional Villages In Guangfu Area

A large number of traditional villages survive in Guangfu area.These villages are widely distributed and contain a high historical and cultural value.They are essential to the Lingnan ethnic people,bearing the high central meaning concerning social,economic,and cultural development.These historical villages,essentially,bring both theoretical and practical significance to the study of Guangfu culture.This thesis aims at investigating the spatial characteristics of traditional villages;by extracting the spatial elements featuring universality,stability,and inheritance,the content attempts to construct the multi-level system of village spatial pattern.Delving into the Guangfu villages,this thesis categorizes the spatial patterns into four types as Shatian traditional villages,Guangfu culture-oriented traditional villages,Hakka culture-oriented traditional village,and Guangfu-Hakka traditional villages.Each type of the pattern is examined through four aspects of the landscape environment,the interrelationship between dwelling house and ancestral temple,the village texture,and the agricultural landscape.It finds that,besides the overall landscape consistency,there are still existing differences among the pattern structure;hence,earth spatial pattern category is carefully subdivided into eleven sub-categories,and each sub-category is analyzed in detail.This thesis attempts to construct the “database for traditional village spatial pattern in Guangfu area” based on the investigation of the village spatial pattern and their geographical spatial information.On the basis of the uniformity of the spatial distribution for each case,meaning at least one sample for each town,437 traditional villages are carefully selected for investigation.Through the method of single-and multi-element analysis,the content achieves to draw the structural map for each case.This thesis showcases the four spatial types as: the Shatian village is mainly distributed in the Pearl River estuaries,with a narrow spatial distribution and strong convergence,which is closely related to its environmental condition of the land and the sea;the Guangfu culture-oriented village is the dominant types covering many of the territories,which manifests its essential role in the Cantonese culture;and the type of Hakka culture-oriented village is mainly distributed in the eastern and northern parts of Guangfu,ranging from Conghua,Zengcheng to northeastern Shenzhen forming a strong convergence,which is attributed to Hakka culture;the Guangfu-Hakka village is distributed in the eastern and northern part of Guangfu,with the mix-influence of both Guangfu and Hakka cultures,this type of village displays a diverse spatial pattern.The spatial pattern of the Guangfu traditional village takes shaped and is formed under the influence of the local environment,concerning natural and cultural,through a certain period of the transformation process.At the village level,the Shatian traditional village is constructed along the banks of the embankment and lie on their backs.The Guangfu culture-oriented village is featuring with its typical Cantonese comb-shaped village shape and the temple-orient and house-following pattern.The Hakka culture-oriented village shows a conformity to the terrain and a good ethnic defense,as well as an integration of both house and temple.The Guangfu-Hakka village demonstrates a mixed cultural influence resulting in a diverse village space.These four spatial patterns are a practical knowledge formed through the exploration of village construction with the adaption to the geographical distribution,climatic conditions,social systems,and cultural traditions.At the regional level,the physical restriction of far-reaching mountains and rivers become insurmountable barriers to the cultural dissemination,turning into the boundary of the village spatial distinction.The broad rivers,the waterways,and the steep mountains road in Guangfu area becoming the primary channel for cultural exchange,collision,and integration,which molding an architectural assimilation for Guangfu village.At the junction of Guangfu and Hakka cultures,a marginalized cultural transitional zone is reached where both of their own dominant cultures are weakened;it shows a mixed spatial pattern of village communities.This provides a new perspective on the better understanding of the Guangfu cultural exchanges,which is critical to the improvement of the study of the Guangfu traditional village.