Research On The Evolution Of Urban Space In Nanking From 1840 To 1937 With The Perspective Of Mega-events

After the first Opium War,the development of Nanking city was also influenced by other mega-events,such as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement,the Westernization Movement,the 1911 Revolution,Opening of Hsia Kuan,the `New Policies' of Latter Stage in Qing Dynasty,City planning of Nanking in the period of Nanking KMT Government.Furthermore,the experiences of taking as the capital of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the KMT Government were very unique to the modern development history of other Chinese city.Focuses on the related mega-events in Modern China and Nanking,the range research from 1840 to 1937 can be basically divided into three stages,which are Space Decline and Destruction in later Qing Dynasty(1840-1881),Space Development and Transformation on the influence of Westernization(1882-1927),Space Planning and Reconstruction during the period of the KMT Government.Through summarizing on the periodic characteristics of Nanking's spatial evolution,analyzing the changes and countermeasures of urban function and urban structure interfered by the mega-events,the research purpose is to find out the hiding logic of urban construction,the mechanism and basic laws during the spatial evolution from to the phenomena to the essence on the influence of mega-events.The research shows the results as followings.From 1840 to 1881,Nanking suffered from a huge damage from a series of wars.During the period of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom,the process of urban spatial development were in the state of disorder,and the spatial structure was reconfigured under the command of HONG xiu-quan.When the Hunan Army recaptured the city in 1864,the extreme intervention of Taiping army to Nanking' s spatial development was disappear as well.Nevertheless,the wars in quick succession,not only caused the decline of the original spatial function,but also retard the growth of new ones.Overall,the process of urban spatial development was at stage of decline.From 1882 to 1926,Nanking entered into an important development stage of city modernization affected by the new tide of Westernization Movement.Protestant Hospitals,Modern Industrial Factories,European Churches and Modern Financial Institutions began to emerge in abundance after 1900.But the intervention from Qing government was ended by the 1911 Revolution ten years later.During the period of Beiyang Government,the construction of Nanking city was quite slow.In the opposite direction,Hsia Kuan was developed rapidly because of opening market for trade,which promoted the prosperity of industry related to the business and trade inside the city wall.Urban space began to expand both eastward in the middle of the city and along the Yangtze river bank outside the city.However,the above structural change was only a kind of partial adjustment,which didn't bring the whole change of the urban space.So the process of urban spatial development was at the stage of structural and functional adjustment.The period of 1927 to 1937 was commonly called 'the golden age' in the modern construction history of Nanking.Urban planning began to use and act in Nanking's urban development.Although the level of plan implementation was not enough,it also brought the huge changes to the spatial structure.When the capital road system was established,Zhongshan Avenue and its following roads constituted the new growing axes of Nanking.Xin Jie Kou became the core of the city in this new structure.Urban space began to expand northwest.The process of the urban spatial development was at the stage of reconstruction.With this step,Nanking's traditional spatial situation from Ming Dynasty was broken finally.All in all,the evolution of Nanking's urban spatial development is a combination of the self-development and hetero-development affected by the mega-events.Among these,the self-development which is taken as a kind of hiding self-organization extend throughout the whole evolution process,and the herero-development under the influence of mega-events,which is taken as a kind of dominant random fluctuations,happened at a certain stage.In this case,there are two possible results.When the self-development dominates,it will be a slow accumulation and transition process of the urban space.When the intervening of the mega-events is big enough,it will bring a structural change of the urban space in a short time.