Research On The Traditional Dwellings Of Manchuanguan Ancient Town In Southern Shannxi

The object of this study is the ancient town named Manchuanguan located at the border of Shanxi and Hubei.Manchuanguan can be dated back to two thousand years ago.It was located at the border of Qin sate and Chu state and was a natural port in ancient times.A mass of goods and material had been transferred herein.The investigation of this ancient town started from 2009,but the achievement seems to be not very enough in the literature.According to architectural history,urban design,geography,sociology and other related theories,the author made a deep study on Manchuanguan ancient town by using investigation,survey analysis,comparison analysis and other means.Based on some surveys on the current situation of Manchuanguan town,this thesis depicted the development history,analyzed the street distribution and architecture characteristics and tried to find the effect factors behind the architectural features of this ancient town.Some suggestions about the architecture protection have been proposed and recirculation of ancient building has been visualized.In this thesis,the evolution of this ancient town has been firstly reviewed and the natural and geographical environment has been investigated.The culture and customs in this area has also been presented which had influenced the style of architecture in this town.After that,how this ancient town can become a prosperous city has been discussed based on the geographical environment.Then the arrangement of streets in this ancient town has been studied based on daily life function,social activity component,etc.Most of streets and alleys in this ancient town are built lean back of mountains or along the river side not only for beautiful view but also for the convenience of daily life.It can be found that the morphology of most streets varied freely as the development of the whole town is in a natural way.Hence,it is very convenient for the citizens to have communication,commercial stuff,and social activities.Many dwellings,municipal houses in ancient time have been reserved until now.Most of them were built in Qing dynasty while some can be derived from Ming dynasty.These buildings can be summarized to three kinds of architecture:public buildings,commercial buildings and workshop,and residential buildings.The arrangement and pattern of buildings,the appearance of facade,the construction feature in detail,and the ornament for some buildings have been re-described to investigate the architecture feature.Four typical ancient buildings have been dealt with in deep study,and some remarkable conclusions have been drawn from this study.It has been observed that the courtyard,raft door,Chinese-style tile,wharf wall,and timber frame are very common in Manchuanguan traditional buildings.Commercial area,residential area,and workshop area are fused very well.The architectures in this area has taken the advantages of other ancient buildings in South and North of China.And these features are verified to associate with the trade,transportation,and immigration.Due to the fast development of society,sometimes traditional buildings cannot be protected because of re-building for the modern city.Ancient towns carry the history of one area,or even the history of some ancient culture.The protection of ancient town is necessary and it is our responsibility to do that.In this thesis,some suitable suggestions and techniques about the conservation and new development have been proposed based on the detailed study of Manchuanguan ancient town.