A Survey On The Water-front Landscape In The Traditional Stockades Dong Villages Landscapes

The Dong people have a long history of migration and are one of the old ethnic minorities in south China. The area where the Dong people live together falls into the complex and diverse natural mountains.With a social background rich in ethical history and culture, the traditional villages of the Dong people present many unique features of the local culture, such as the water-front landscape, landscape architecture, human landscape and spiritual space etc. And the Dongs have created brilliant traditional architectural art that embodies the rich local culture and ethical features.This paper takes the scenery of the traditional villages of the Dongs as its actual field research object, especially those of the villages that are better protected and typical of the Dong neighborhood in Guizhou, Guangxi and Hunan province, and has accordingly analyzed the distribution characteristics of the Dong villages'water system, the magnificent water-front landscape architecture and the national spirit and culture level and finally discussed about the sustainable development there in the future, with the Dong's traditional and unique culture and spirit as its research clues through the whole paper. This paper unfolds its analysis and research in a part-to-whole order.At first, this paper discusses about the origin of the water-front landscape in the traditional Dong villages from three aspects, including the natural geographic environment, historical development and human concept. The primary factors that contribute to its formation are the Dong's geographic location and the climate there.And the Dong's migration and history origin also makes this unique mountainous society continue the traditional agro-farming culture, which in return rendered the formation of the Dong's unique water culture, the spiritual notions of the Dongs to live beside water for the love of the nature. So they choose to settle in the villages with water. These historical origins and social and cultural factors are actually the prerequisites in the formation of water-front landscape in the Dong villages.As a result of those natural,historical, ethnic, social and other factors, the traditional villages of the Dong people have developed specific site selection principles and overall layout shape and embody the rich settlement landscape culture which is closely related to "water".Be it the piedmont village location by the mountain and water, or the water-level village location against the mountain, or the mid-mountain village location blended with mountain and water, the concept of "water" is integral part of the Dong's site selection principles. The complex physical geography has created a variety of drainage patterns outside the traditional Dong village, which falls into three basic water structures: running-around, passing-across and passing-by, meanwhile inside are water landscapes with disturbance in peace, resulting the near-water scenery characteristic of the Dong households.This paper focuses on analysis of the near-water scenic space environment. An all-round analysis and research has been made respectively from the aspects of point, line and surface. Firstly, it analyzes the surface-form near-water space environment which is the highly centralized embodiment of the grasp and creation of the water-front scenery in the entire stockaded village. Secondly, it comes to the linear near-water space environment, which is usually the venation of the village development. Thirdly, the dotted near-water space environment is studied, which is a key ingredient within the village. These three different forms of near-water space environment, combined with the landscape architectures associated with the surface of the water, have created a rich three-dimensional space for its own level, and formed the plentiful and beautiful water-front scenery of the Dong villages, and reflected the national culture of the Dong people, who put an emphasis on and are good at dealing with the concept of harmony between water and man, and water and nature.Finally, through an analysis of the different water-front landscapes within the traditional Dong villages, this paper made a general survey on the regional and national culture specific in the Dong areas as well as the continuance and extensity of the Dong's ideological connotations embodied in the interlacing cultures.This paper also brings forward the concept of sustainable development for the water-front landscape's ecological and human features in the traditional Dong villages, which is an initiative step in the study of the water-front landscape culture of the traditional Dong villages and contributes to better inheritance and protection of the excellent cultural heritage in the minority districts.