| Chongqing is a famous historical city with a long history and glorious traditions,locates at the confluence of the Jialing River and the Yangtze River in the southeast ofSichuan Basin. With its convenient and advantage of water transportation and defense,Chongqing has been one of the strategic military town of the Great South West since theancient times. Having been opened relatively early as an port since modern times,Chongqing was then a metropolis in southwest with high-degree modernization, rapiddevelopment of economy, culture and education. The provisional capital period is themost glorious times in the history of Chongqing, and this period is very important bothin China’s modern history and world history. At that time China was in the War ofResistance Against Japan and the third revolutionary civil war, so cities across thecountry were unable to carry on a large amount of constructions. However, Chongqinggot an unprecedented construction climax because of being the war-time capital.After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the national governmentmoved to Chongqing, a large number of offices, schools, factories, business units andinstitutions therewith moved inside, that made Chongqing become China’s politicaleconomic, cultural, education center and the far-east command center of the worldanti-fascist from a regional central city. Chongqing urban population raised up to morethan1.24million from470000, and the urban built-up area swelled by nearly two times.In order to solve the city’s problems timely, construction task was unusually heavy.Different from with any other areas, the war became the prime motivator whichpromoted the development of modern architecture in Chongqing. Therefore thedistinctive characteristics of architecture of Chongqing during the war time include:temporary, defensive, flexibility, speed, etc. In response to the major war, a series ofresponding measures, taken in the construction industry at war time, have importantreference and values in current and future urban development.This paper takes the architecture development during war time as the main subject.Some precious historical materials is obtained by visiting related institutions:Chongqing Public Record Office, Chongqing Libraries, museums, and experts inarchitecture such as Yang Songlin, Yu Zhuoqun and so on. According to analysis thefirst-hand original data collected from historical documents, records, papers, localhistory, the framework of the research is constructed by five levels: system, technology, professionals, education and historical heritage conversation.The paper includes following eight parts:Part I: This part, which included origin of topics, research purpose, significance,status, content framework, methods and innovation, is the background of theresearch--the research framework of modern city and architectural history in China.Part II: Based on the background of history, society, economy and polity, the partdiscusses about the urban development and plan during provisional capital period，summarizes the influence of cultural context and war in the development ofarchitecture.Part III: This part, including construction management agency, building regulationsystem, the architect’s responsibilities and construction teams, mainly describes the wartime building development from the system level.Part IV: This part which included the development of building technology andbuilding materials, describes the architecture development during war time from thesystem level.Part V: This part focuses on the design concepts of architects. At war times, agroup of well-known architects moved to Chongqing following the NationalGovernment. They not only brought new technologies, new system, new concepts, butalso cultivated a group of outstanding architectural talents during war time. This part,including academic community, the architect’s practice and the formation anddevelopment of design concepts, describes the mixture of architectural design conceptsled by architects.Part VI: This part discusses architectural education. During war time a largenumber of cultural and educational institutions moved to Chongqing, whichtremendously promoted the development of Chongqing’s education. War-time capital’sarchitectural education which cultivated a group of outstanding architectural talents hadplayed an important role in architectural education. This part had three aspects: thegeneral situation of war time education, Zhongyang University Department ofArchitectural Engineering and Department of Architecture, Chongqing University.Part VII: This part was about historical heritage conservation. The Society for theStudy of Chinese Architecture had moved to the west of China and conductedinvestigations for historical heritage in the northwest region during the war. At the sametime, Liang Sicheng completed the Chinese Commission for the Preservation ofCultural Objects in War Areas, List of Monuments, which was the base of catalog for the 1st heritage conservation units. This part mainly expounded overview and investigationabout historical heritage in Chongqing during the period of temporary capital from threeaspects—survey of cultural heritage, Chinese important heritage catalog and restorationof the historic relics.Conclusion: Based on the study of architectural development, the last partsummarized the characteristics and mechanism of the development of architecture in theperiod of temporary capital and discussed the enlightenment and contribution for thepresent. |
