Spatial And Social Transformation Of The Contemporary Factory-houses In The Tea Village Of Tongmu,Mount Wuyi

This dissertation is a research on the spatial and social transformation of the contemporary factory-houses considering the influences of tea industry.It is based on the fieldwork in a typical village,Tongmu,located in Mount Wuyi.The research puts forward an architectural typology,factory-house.It is a vernacular housing prototype with integrated domestic,productive and commercial space,developed in contemporary Tongmu,which boasts the invention of black tea Lapsang Souchong and Jin Jun Mei.The research proposes the approach of “spathnography”,which aims not only to interactively elaborate the social causes of spatial transformation,but also to bring out the latent spatial crisis coming with social changes.Furthermore,the research establishes a stance in future spatial practices in rural area based on the knowledge of its spatial essence and social benefits.“Spathnography” as the basis of epistemology and methodology,explores an approach bridging materiality with perception,elites with masses,history with present.It is constructed on three pivots: subject-object integrated space,space as social landscape,and temporality of space.The supporter of the approach is the fieldwork of 165 samples of factory-houses in four major natural villages and detailed “mapping” of 25 typical factory-houses.In addition to the microscopic interpretation of rural space and everyday life,it also integrates macroscopic perspective to reveal the meanings of Tongmu research in global tea trade history and national tea industry.The main part of the dissertation is constructed on the framework of “spathnography”.Chapter 3 shows diachronically how the spatial structure of the tea villages in Mount Wuyi and the spatial pattern of the factory-houses in Tongmu is formed and reshaped in the history of global tea trade and local institutional changes.Chapter 4-6 explores synchronically the microscopic representation of the spatial and social changes,trying to understand the inner logics and social impacts of the transformation of the factory-houses.Chapter 4 elaborates on the local social sphere.It discusses how contemporary domestic space is reconstructed according to the new family relationship brought by the changing “identity” cognition of tea farmers.Chapter 5 starts from the tea market.With the transformation of “techniques” as a thread,it explores the spatial adjustments in the factory-houses faced with new productive methods and relationships.It also reveals the essence of traditional productive space like Tsing-lou and the origin of the dilemma in contemporary productive space.Chapter 6 casts light on the “other” brought in by tea commerce.Starting from the phenomenon of the symbolization of space,it studies the social differentiation in local tea community and its spatial expression in the commercial space of the factory-houses.Chapter 7-8 is the conclusion part.Based on the transformational pattern of Tongmu factory-house and the comparative case study of Keemun tea,Taiping Houkui and Darjeeling tea,it extracts quantifiable factors of the tea industry and constructs a visualized model to show the interactive mechanism of spatial-social transformation.It further proposes three questions on tradition as a summary of the viewpoints and stances of the research.First,what tradition? It puts forward the approach of spathnography to explore the spatial essence of vernacular architecture instead of the mere material expression.Second,tradition of what time? It emphasizes the genuine tradition of contemporary vernacular architecture by admitting its dynamism and contingency.Third,whose tradition? It points out the dangerous duality between the urban and the rural,the elites and the masses,thus calling for attention to the users of space as the starting point of understanding and constructing contemporary rural environment.