A Study On Evolution Of Spatial Form Of Ancient Shangjin City In The Qing And Ming Dynasties

Ancient cities are a traditional landscape in China.With the development of modern social and economic construction,traditional cities that ever symbolized feudal rule have gradually disappeared in the long rive of history,and only a small number of ancient cities are luckily preserved.As an important evidence of Chinese history and culture,are quite precious.However,in the promotion of protecting historical and cultural cities,towns and villages,some destruction phenomena have existed in many places.Some relevant departments fail to explore the cultural connotation and historical details of traditional settlements;instead,they are short-sighted to pursue economic benefits and political achievements;in fact,they destroy ancient sites in the name of protection.Grieved as we were,we shall find it yet more urgent to record and study the original information in traditional settlements.Ancient ShangJin City is located in the northwestern part of Hubei Province,which is a heritage site in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.As one of the few existing ancient cities in Hubei Province,has important empirical value in studying the architectural and social history of the border area between Hubei and Shanxi provinces during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.With fierce development of historical and cultural settlements protection work and acceleration of urban development,the ancient city has been listed as one of national key cultural relics protection units.Like many famous historical cities,it has faced enormous pressure in protection,development,construction and tourism.In this case,the thorough and systematic research on it is a prerequisite for it to obtain effective and reasonable protection.However,the existing researches are still insufficient.Although the ins and outs of ancient ShangJin are still unclear,its renovation and the construction of its antique commercial street has begun,which seems to be impetuous and blind.In authors’ view,if we thoroughly understand the construction and evolution context of ShangJin,we can clearly define its protection characteristics and direction in its development.Under this background,the authors conduct a study on construction history of ancient ShangJin City in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.This paper begins with a large number of historical documents based on local chronicles of Ming and Qing Dynasties.Through sorting out written records and image clues and repeatedly comparing and proving each other,the authors have gradually grasped the development vein of ancient ShangJin City and summarized influential factors in its evolution process in combination with the information revealed by geographical environment,social background and existing remains.On this basis,the author divided the ancient Shangjin city during the Ming and Qing Dynasties spatially into the administrative space,the cultural and educational space,the religious space,the space of daily life including residence and commerce,and sorted out their spatio-temporal distribution respectively and concluded the evolution characteristics therein.Then,based on the remains,the author analyzed the texture of the ancient Shangjin city and categorized and interpreted the architectural characters within and outside Shangjin.In the last part of this paper,a conclusion on the overall landscape characteristics of this ancient city is drawn,providing a basis for the next step of protection and tourism development.