Research On Settlement And Architectural Model Of Ancient Yankou Town,Wusheng County,Sichuan Province

A settlement,a place for people to gather and live in as well as a carrier of historical background and local culture,has obvious regionalism.With the increasingly acceleration of urbanization progress,more and more towns have become cities,making the traditional settlements and buildings face harsh crisis for survival.In the vast west region,the traditional settlements have been disappearing due to geographic conditions,traffic conditions and insufficient protection awareness.Therefore,it is very imminent to research traditional settlements and buildings’ models.Ancient Yankou Town,Wusheng County,lying in the boundary of Sichuan Province and Chongqing City and the midstream of Jialing River of East Sichuan Province was an important local business wharf,commodity collection/distribution center and traffic hub in the history.Formed by immigrants from other provinces,Ancient Yankou Town was a place for many nations in the past and is a town settlement of complete face and distinct local characteristics nowadays.In that town,there are many traditional buildings back dated in Ming and Qing Dynasty,making the town become a settlement of high value for history research.In addition,there are also one building recognized as valuable cultural relic by the city and two buildings recognized as valuable cultural relics by the county.In the paper,the author mainly analyzes and researches the architectural model and building characteristics of Ancient Yankou Town Settlement systemically.In this paper,the author conducts deep analysis and research on the settlement’s address selection,layout,architectural plane,space,decoration and construction technology by taking the ancient Yankou town as the main aim to research,focusing on the history as well as the reality of the town’s protection and development,adopting the research method combined with site investigation and theoretical analysis and embarking on the relation of natural environment,cultural environment and social environment,and proposes program for the protection and development of Ancient Yankou Settlement,providing references for the research of Chinese traditional town settlements.The paper is composed of five sections.Section I is introduction in which the author proposes the purposes,significances,methods as well as contents of the reseach on ancient Yankou town’s settlement models and architectural features and the outline of the whole paper.In Section II,the author describes the natural conditions and cultural background of Ancient Yankou Town which are location analysis,natural environment,religious belief,customs & folkways,social organizational forms and production & living modes.Section III,IV and V are the core of this paper in which the author researches and analyzes the ancient town’s architectural models,road layout,architectural features,protection and development deeply.In Section III,the author analyzes the ancient town’s settlement models and features including the address selection,general layout,road systems and node spaces.The rich and variable models and functions of streets are explored by analyzing the space structure of the street system.In Section IV,the author analyzes the space layout,architectural structure and decoration workmanship of local traditional buildings by embarking on civil buildings and public ones and digs out the cultural contents and demands under the exterior forms,providing favorable support to the ancient town’s protection and development.Finally,in Section V,based on the former research and analysis,the author states the ancient town’s cultural and economic values,analyzes the current situation and problems of the ancient town settlement and buildings.In addition,protection and development strategies which are applicable to current ancient Yankou town are summarized based on researched information.By the aforesaid research in the five sections,the author intends to dig out the exclusive local cultural features of East Sichuan resulted from social culture and geographic environment under the “immigrating” background when sorting out the features of the traditional settlement and buildings of Ancient Yankou Town and then based on the observation and summarization of history course and current situation of Ancient Yankou Town,to explore and prepare strategy for the protection and development of the traditional settlement of Ancient Yankou town in order to provide references for the research and development of traditional town settlements in different local environments of China.