"Wu County" is the most historical and cultural value of the county unit in China, from the qin shi huang set up the county to 2001 to withdraw the county to establish a district, the study of Wu county is an excellent analysis of China's most grass-roots organizations. From the macro geographical environment, landscape, political economy to the micro people, things and things, the geographical, cultural and psychological center of Jiangnan lies in this. The concept of "Wuxian cultural relics" needs to be clarified, relics and relics of historical, artistic, cultural and scientific value, regardless of their materials, forms and functions, from scrapers and smashers in the primitive era to calligraphy and paintings of the Ming and Qing dynasties, porcelain and various ingenious and exquisite utensils, whether it is a single building, or a piece of village and ancient town, all belong to the category of cultural relics. In addition to material artifacts, there is also intangible heritage, which is more extensive, and its skills, legends, customs, and memories all belong to this.
Within the scope of Wu County, that is, the zoning areas of Xiangcheng District, Huqiu District (High-tech Zone), Industrial Park and Wuzhong District of Suzhou today, from Sanshan Island, the source of civilization ten thousand years ago, to the richest and most developed county economy today, the continuation and inheritance of the cultural context actually reveals the whole process of the occurrence and development of Jiangnan culture.
Origins
The impression of Dongshan, Xishan and Taihu Lake first came from loquat and bayberry, and the annual harvest became almost a ritual. Going to Dongxishan seems to be two different things that have nothing to do with going to Suzhou, and for a long time afterwards, the relationship between Wu County, Changzhou, Yuanhe and Suzhou has not been clarified (Wu Zetian's Wu County is divided into Wu and Changzhou counties, and is ruled by the same city. Yongzheng set up three counties: Yuanhe, Changzhou, and Wu County, and ruled the same city to the end of the Qing Dynasty. In 1912, the three counties were merged into Wu County), and the origin of those celebrities in Wumen was a headache. The Republic of China's "Wu County Chronicle" is the clearest sorting out of the relationship between the various histories, and it is interesting that Li Gengen, the elder of the Republic of China, has been emphasizing in the dozens of pages of the table that "Wu County" is the "first county" under the county or the government. Now that I think about it, WuXian's identity is actually strong and stubborn, just like Changshu, Kunshan, Taicang (Loudong), Wujiang (Zhenze), administrative divisions are of course easy to change, but the construction of cultural context is not easy.
Map of the Late Qing Dynasty, Source Tan Qijun's Historical geographical atlas of China • Qing Dynasty
In turn, Suzhou's feelings for Taihu Lake are also very delicate, Suzhou has been promoting and publicizing around the ancient city area, Wu County, Taihu Lake has not been the center of gravity, and even let many people think that Taihu Lake belongs to Wuxi. In fact, Wu County is the real "mother county" of Suzhou. In 1928, the urban area of Wu County was established as Suzhou City, and the city and county were divided, less than a hundred years ago (in 1930, Suzhou City was abolished and merged into Wu County, and after the founding of New China, the urban area of Wu County was divided into Suzhou City, and the city and county were divided into the same city, until 1983, when the Suzhou District Administrative Office was abolished, and Suzhou implemented the system of municipal management and county). After Wu County was "divided into four", the "industrial park" and "high-tech zone" on the east and west sides and even the Xiangcheng District in the north were more like an expansion of the traditional urban space, and the Wuzhong District in the south was considered to inherit the positive vein of "Old Wu County", and the south of the city near the ancient city was more urbanized, and the Taihu Lake naturally became a village (once there was Taihu District, and then it belonged to Zhenze, and finally it was attributed to Wu County).
"Shanshuijian" is obviously the core competitiveness of this place, but when Shanshui is too famous, it will also become the root cause of many "unsatisfactory". The protection of natural resources, landscapes and cultural heritage inevitably puts shackles and shackles on urban development. When in Suzhou, whenever there is a chance on holidays, I will visit the ancient villages and ancient houses. From Luzhi, Mudu, Guangfu to Dongxishan, the biggest feeling is "not easy", Taihu Lake to build a toilet needs layer by layer approval, residential repair is far from being able to do things with money, property rights, qualifications, follow-up development and operation are all problems, resource satellites continuously monitor the use of every inch of land here.
The present view of the two mountains in Dongting
Enlightenment has always been: "Those who live between mountains and rivers are superior, the village is secondary, and the suburban is secondary." Wen Zhenheng's thesis is not his personal, in fact, it is the common cognition of the Jiangnan literati at that time, the reason why "the paradise of the world is Wuzhong", it is because the river network is connected to a natural and humanistic space that has both the convenience of life and the full pleasure of the body and mind, and the various and different authors of the "Dongting Dongshan Map", "Xishan Jiyu Map", "Gu District Map" and "Jiangnan Spring" show a human settlement paradigm with both realistic and ideal meaning. Wearing shackles is both a challenge and an opportunity.
The object of the museum's collection is cultural relics, and for movable cultural relics, such as the vast majority of archaeological excavations and the collection of cultural relics handed down from generations, the museum already has a set of effective processes, methods and standards. For immovable buildings, villages and towns, it is huge in size, and it is difficult for ordinary museums to collect (the Metropolis restored the Ming Xuan of Suzhou Master of Nets Garden and the Temple of Dendur in Egypt, which is a minority), but this does not mean that museums should not pay attention to large-scale architecture and spatial structure. Without understanding space, it is difficult to truly understand objects that, once detached from space, dissolve meaning.
Metropolitan restoration of the Suzhou Master of Nets Garden Hall of the Ming Xuan and Egypt's Danduo Temple, source network
Digital technologies offer good solutions, but they also face enormous challenges. Immovable cultural relics are widely distributed, involving 4 national-level historical and cultural towns, 17 historical villages, and hundreds of cultural protection units at all levels in the region. The types of objects to be collected are complex and varied, and the volume varies greatly. There are rich details of brick and wood carvings, as well as ancient buildings and architectural complexes, as well as communities, villages and towns, including streets, roads, water systems, farmland, etc. For different objects, the way the data is collected, processed and presented is necessarily different.
When formulating and implementing data collection and display programs, it is more necessary to consider time, manpower, material resources and capital investment, and achieve ideal expectations as much as possible under many constraints. In the process of repeated discussion, research, comparison and experimentation, and run-in, the data collection scheme was improved and revised in the process of practice. For the data recording of buildings and villages, not only the traditional commonly used building mapping, photography and other technologies are used, but also the application of lidar scanning, panoramic scanning, drone aerial photography and modeling, etc., through computer calculation of related data to reconstruct three-dimensional images.
Zijin'an Arhat digital model
Taking large-scale villages and towns as an example, drone aerial photography and modeling are used. Combining UAV tilt photogrammetry with point cloud model technology, the UAV using a multi-rotor single lens UAV conducts multi-angle oblique photogrammetry on 17 traditional villages, including Luzhi, Mudu, Dongshan, Guangfu, Mingyuewan, Sanshan Village, Dongcun, Yangwan, Wengxiang, Yaluli Village, Dongcai Village, Zhili Village, Zhoushan Village, Tangli Village, Houbu Village, Hancun, etc., to generate point cloud data and make a data model.
Bright Moon Bay aerial photography digital model
Relying on high-performance computer equipment and using Agisoft Metashape model software, the data processing of the collected massive photos (aligning photos, generating dense point clouds, generating networks, generating textures) is used in flight, and the point cloud data of the village is automatically flattened and the corresponding polygon model is generated. Using the collected data, 3D printing, laser engraving, AR, online interaction and other ways to make these cultural relics realize interactive experience, allowing viewers to deeply understand and explore this huge library of immovable cultural relics.
Accuracy comparison of polygon models with Mingyue Bay strip maps generated using Agisoft Metashape model software (high precision, medium precision, low precision)
Break down the scale and gain insight into relationships
The advantage of digital exhibitions is that they can change the scale at will and gain insight into the relationships between objects. "Planning" has existed since ancient times, but "craftsman camping" and "heaven and earth" and our current urban planning are completely different concepts. The ancient villages around Taihu Lake were gradually formed in the process of historical development. Several famous ancient villages in the East and West Mountains can be traced back to the period of Wuyue hegemony, the southward migration of Wei and Jinshi people is an important development opportunity, the Southern Song Dynasty laid the pattern, and the Ming and Qing dynasties really reached prosperity.
The development process of more than a thousand years, from halls and houses to daily life, entertainment, transportation, production, and even such an administrative region as Wu County, subjective adjustment or long-term gradual change, what is presented is actually the fundamental law of human settlement, such as the selection law of "back mountains and water", which is actually a compliance with the time and environment. The scale of the hall is actually determined by the furniture in the hall, the scale of the house is determined by the hall, the formation of the settlement of the house naturally constitutes the community, the community will inevitably derive a variety of social activities, the form, nature of the settlement organization in the landscape and water interspersed into pieces, which ultimately constitutes the most unique cultural and natural landscape around The Taihu Lake.
Taking Yangwan Village in Dongshan as an example, the original "three streets and six lanes and six lanes" said, three main streets, six lanes, probably can represent the general scale range of natural villages in Jiangnan since the Song and Yuan dynasties. Among them, nearly a thousand meters long, the "Ming Dynasty Street" with the most concentrated concentration of ancient buildings in the Ming and Qing Dynasties should be one of the "Three Streets" of that year. Ancient villages often implement closed management at night for safety reasons, so there is a need for alley doors, and now there are alley doors next to the "Heavenly King" at the head of the village, although it is newly built, it may not be one of the original "six lane doors". There are more buildings from the Qing Dynasty in the village, which are basically well preserved. In addition, there are a number of ponds next to the building, and Yangwan Village is surrounded by mountains and rivers, which is complete from the overall safety and fire protection considerations of the village.
More buildings of Yangwan Ancient Village with nearby ponds
Xuanyuan Palace is at the north end of Yangwan Village, and the Xuanyuan Palace Hall is a rare Yuan Dynasty building in Suzhou. Legend has it that during the Spring and Autumn Period, Yangwan was an important military position of the State of Wu, where Wu Zixu greeted his mother, so he built the Xu King's Palace to sacrifice, which was later changed to Xuanyuan Palace. Yang Hu, a famous general of the Southern Song Dynasty, used this place as a arsenal of soldiers and gathered thousands of warships to fight against the Jin soldiers. Whether Yangwan was inhabited during the Wuzixu period is unknown, and if there is a chance to do some archaeology in the future, it should be able to solve this problem, but the Southern Song Dynasty Yangwan has formed a relatively large village should be corroborated by some legends and historical levels. Dialectical treatment and scientific analysis of oral and textual materials are necessary premises and methods for tracing the history of ancient villages.
Regulus Palace digital model
If you go on a field survey, you will have more perceptual understanding. Out of Xuanyuan Palace is the ancient road of Yangwan Village, the two are seamlessly connected and smooth. The middle road is a stone staircase and fruit tree ridge built along the mountain, which are stacked neatly with stones and trees, and there is no obstacle to the building. It is after the frost falls, the yellow leaves are sprinkled with moss, the red oranges are hanging on the branches, the brakes are cute, and the arbutus and loquat trees that are common in the east and west mountains are interspersed, and it is impossible to become this scale without years of business interruptions. The orderly environment and the ancient meaning of the atmosphere are more rare than the ancient buildings in the village, which also suggests that before the "Ming and Qing Dynasties" to which the architectural age of the place belongs, yangwan's human settlements and production activities were already quite large-scale.
Yangwan Ancient Trail
There are as many as 57 historical buildings of various types distributed along the sides of the "Ming Dynasty Ancient Street". It includes three state-level cultural relics protection units in the Yuan Dynasty Xuanyuan Palace, Ming Dynasty Huaiyin Hall and Mingshan Hall, and 4 municipal cultural relics protection units in Jiu Hall, Chongben Hall, Chunde Hall and Jinxing Hall. The village is also scattered with more than 20 Ming and Qing Dynasty buildings such as Jingyun Hall, Ancestral Hall, Dunai Hall, Chongyi Hall, Anqing Hall, Sanshan Hall, etc., and ancient bridges, ancient wells and ancient docks are dotted among them. Many Ming and Qing dynasty architectural portals and courtyards are planted with ancient trees such as ginkgo biloba, some of which are nearly a thousand years old, which shows that the repair or transformation of old buildings in history has always been to preserve monuments (monuments are not only cultural relics and buildings) and context as a priority, organic, sustainable and embroidery needle-like transformation is not the patent of the renewal of megacities now, and the details are full of stacked imprints of time and wisdom.
Ancient trees in Yangwan Village
At present, the study of ancient architecture is more and more specialized in the field of architectural era, style and technology, and the practice of bucket arches, the form of beams and frames, the style of doors and windows, etc. have become the focus of experts. Microscopic analysis and perusal are of course necessary and meaningful, just as we dissected the Ningde Hall (Hall Hall) and Huihe Hall (Residence) as typical houses in Jiangnan in the "Wuxian Cultural Relics Digital Exhibition", analyzed the gate tower, roof ridge, Xuanjia, gables, household and other architectural structures, "poetic" terms such as "mountain mist clouds" and "water wave machine" can actually have a separate attraction for "ancient Jiansu people".
Digital model of mountain fog clouds
In terms of the concept of "judging the form and changing it" mentioned in the "Wudi Architecture Manual" of the "Construction Law Yuan", the decoration of these "flowing clouds and flying cranes" and "water waves and flowers" is more like a show off of skills, and the style of Jiangnan actually stems from the artificial imagination and admiration of the Heavenly Dao. The reason why we want to "break the scale and gain insight into the relationship" is because our goal in the field of ancient architecture research is not only to "repair", "protect" and "utilize" the ancient building itself, but also to the overall protection and improvement of the living environment, and the combing and inheritance of the relationship between the context.
Yangwan Village and even many ancient buildings in the East and West Mountains have collapsed and can no longer be inhabited by people, which is the inevitability of time. The challenge of how the southern migrants of the Song Dynasty handled the cultural relationship between the Jiangnanbei wetlands and the Central Plains, and how the villagers of the Ming and Qing dynasties guided and planned the renewal and development of the villages, are not new issues at present, even if Yangwan in the Ming and Qing dynasties already has its own outstanding answers. The relationship between style, function and environment is probably the direction that needs to be focused, in fact, there is no "Song Yuan" or "Ming and Qing" growing up in si people, only zhuoran houses, landscapes and Jiangnan, which are the most outstanding samples of material use, craftsmanship and habitat philosophy.
Meet Gangnam again
Jiangnan is not only a regional concept, but also has its own unique cultural significance. From landscapes and landscapes, historical inheritance to emotional identity, Jiangnan is the most poetic and aesthetic cultural symbol in China.
Jiangnan Province in the early Qing Dynasty, source network
In the first year of Tang Zhenguan (627), the world was divided into ten provinces, one of which was "Jiangnan Province", which covered a vast area south of today's Yangtze River, north of Nanling, west from Sichuan and Guizhou, and east to the sea. Gangnam Province is the earliest administrative district in history to use Jiangnan as its place name. In the second year of Qing Shunzhi (1645), Jiangnan Province was the last provincial-level administrative region in history to be named "Jiangnan", and its jurisdiction included present-day Jiangsu and Anhui provinces, as well as today's Shanghai. If based on natural conditions, the surrounding Taihu Lake is the core of Jiangnan. Its range ranges from the "Four Houses Say" of Su, Song, Jia, Hu or Su, Song, Chang and Zhen to the "Ten Houses Say" of Su, Song, Chang, Zhen, Ning, Hang, Jia, Hu, Shao and Yong. In addition, "five houses say", "six houses say", "seven houses say", "eight houses say", "nine houses say", etc., all of which do not fall within this scope.
To understand Jiangnan, the first thing that needs to be paid attention to is the regional landscape and environmental characteristics, and the landscape and environment are actually the fundamental reasons for the existence of the concept of "Jiangnan". Because of the natural conditions of the dense river network and warm and humid, rice and soup fish have a foundation, and precision and craftsmanship will become genes that go deep into the bone marrow.
The history of the development of villages, towns and houses in Jiangnan is actually expressed in the practice and application of advanced concepts and construction techniques in the local area. It is conceivable that Yangwan of the Song and Yuan Dynasties should also be the appearance and most important buildings of those villages in the "Map of a Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", such as xuanyuan palace, which is not much different from the north. Comparing Liu Songnian's "Four Landscapes and Water Atlases" depicting Lin'an and the murals of Zhiyan Mountain Temple, it is possible to intuitively understand the difference between Jiangnan and Shuobei. The building itself is not the key, the key is the landscape.
Location map of Xishan Ancient Village in Suzhou
Shanshui city, typical such as Su, Hangzhou, to Jiaxing, Huzhou, Songjiang, Changshu, and then to Mudu, Luzhi, Dongting Xishan, Dongshan and even Yangwan, Luxiang, Dongcun, Mingyuewan and other villages, until thousands of countless gardens, nunneries, temples and halls, halls, terraces, buildings, pavilions, xie, and finally to the rockery, bonsai, landscape strip screens displayed in between, from the most magnificent to the most microscopic presentation, its texture structure and internal relationship is actually consistent, the small is the slicing and reproduction of the large, The big is the interpretation and sublimation of the small. "Shanshui City" is the core feature of Jiangnan, "Boat row Landscape" is the symbol of Jiangnan, the front street and the back river, because of the water, the earthly and noisy is the root of prosperity, is the temptation that scholars and beauties cannot escape, and the city in the landscape can enjoy the convenience of the city, but also occupy the physical and mental pleasure.
Build new urban contexts
The prosperity of the city is the inevitable result of the high concentration of people, logistics and capital flow, and the prosperity of the city has affected the process of human history and determined the way of life we pursue at present. Urban development has brought efficiency, agglomeration and convenience, but it has also led to congestion, chaos, pollution, anxiety, imbalance, unsustainability and other urban diseases, essentially at the expense of long-term and ultimate human settlements in exchange for short-term and partial benefits. Eliminating the boundaries between urban and rural areas is first from the expansion of urban area and the transformation of rural forms, and then there can be the formation of new urban-rural relations. If it is said that the towns and villages in Jiangnan since the Ming and Qing dynasties are actually part of the urban form "copied and sliced", the current "beautiful villages" and "rural revitalization" are actually the combination of urbanization (modernization) of rural functions and maintaining a higher level of rural traditional style. "Maintaining the traditional style" is not logically the best choice, but once the impulse to "change the style" is not suppressed, the result can only be a complete confusion in form and a great disaster in aesthetics.
The progress and development of technology, especially the development of digital technology, will eventually make a huge change in the development model based on the premise of "capital flow", "human flow" and "logistics", and the unstoppable mode change is actually a kind of dissolution of the personnel-intensive model. Urban models characterized by agglomeration are becoming more and more unworkable, and models that aim at the healthy development of individuals and comfortable living will become more and more favored.
Three Hills Island
"Shanshui City" is not only the architecture and habitat in the landscape landscape, from the Shanshui City in the south of the Ming and Qing Dynasties to the future Shanshui City is not a regression, but a sublimation, which is the inevitable result of the joint action of technological progress and concept iteration. In Jiangnan, there is no doubt that the future Shanshui city (Suzhou, Hangzhou) will have more opportunities, the scenery is pleasant, and the network and technology can make work and life more convenient, just as the port 150 years ago could lead the direction of urban development.
Heritage of the world
Compared with the West Lake, which has become a "world cultural and natural double heritage" 15 years ago, Taihu Lake has a richer heritage, directly involving Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, and running through the history of civilization for thousands of years. The scenery of Taihu Lake can be preserved to the present day, and the vast smoke waves admired by Zhao Mengfu, Ni Zhan, Shen Zhou, Wen Qiming and Dong Qichang are still excellent scenery in the world today. The world has changed, the reverence for Taihu Lake has never faded, the standards and levels have kept pace with the times, and the results achieved are exemplary.
Of course, there are also many problems, and the investigation of these villages around taihu Lake can still find many ancient buildings and even listed "control buildings" and "cultural protection units" in various situations, and the most serious ones have even completely collapsed. Because of the housing property rights relationship, there are still many obstacles to the maintenance and protection of ancient (old) buildings with private property rights, and there are still many contradictions that are difficult to solve when it comes to the qualification of ancient building maintenance units and the proportion of capital contribution between public and private housing maintenance. In terms of restoration concepts and standards, there is actually a big gap between some of the principles and standards we have been adhering to and the actual functional needs of building users, and it is worth doing more discussion and exploration at the academic and practical levels, and the treatment of different "cultural relics buildings" and "old buildings" needs to formulate and follow more refined and scientific standards, processes and paths in the spirit of seeking truth from facts.
The ancient window of Huaiyin Hall
Restored windows
Among the many issues, the most difficult to deal with is the relationship between "protection" and "development". The style has been maintained, the building has been preserved, but only the elderly are willing to stay, and the foreign tourists like the style and the local residents' inconvenience and discomfort Contradiction is huge, and the cultural relics that have been repaired with great efforts have become in addition to a small number of attractions for people to visit, and more are closed. Some ancient villages were gentrified, aristocratic, and capitalized, divorced from the general public. The relationship between repair, preservation, and use is subtle and dialectical. Haussmann would have flattened medieval Paris, the Germans could rebuild Dresden, which had been flattened, and the Poles could rebuild Warsaw, which had become a ruin. Although the many "Tang style" buildings in Nara and Kyoto have actually been the product of countless overhauls and even reconstructions of the landing frame, the main buildings protected are consistent with the environmental texture in which they are located, and the building function has not been affected by the application of new materials and construction techniques.
Florence Old Quarter, Source Network
Our concept of town protection is actually deeply influenced by Italy, with reservations about the large demolition, emphasizing the continuity of urban space and development, selectively trimming the texture of the historic district to maintain the basic characteristics of the original town, for the necessary public services and supporting facilities, if necessary, we can demolish some unimportant old buildings to make room, move new and expansion projects out of the old town and old blocks, and improve the quality of life while maintaining the dignity of historical buildings, Florence, Siena, The transformation of Venice's old neighborhoods is a concrete practice of this concept.
The inner courtyard of the neighborhood restored after the adoption of the "culling method" in the Marais neighborhood of Paris, France
The "identifiable", "minimal intervention", and "reversible" in Brandi's theory of restoration have been regarded as basic tenets. Ruskin is "anti-restoration", but it is also the beginning of the British in the protection of villages and estates, urban protection and other aspects of a series of policies and standards, including the "protected areas" and "protected building catalogues" that we are now familiar with are derived from this, focusing on the "historical characteristics" of the area, and seeking a balance between development and protection. Combing through foreign classic cases such as "Lyon Old Town", "Marais Block" and "Chester" can provide us with a lot of reference, but the most important thing is whether we can come up with concepts and demonstration cases of cultural heritage protection and development that conform to China's reality, reflect Chinese characteristics and highlight Chinese wisdom, and the natural, landscape and humanistic heritage of Taihu Lake and Taihu Lake are the best test field and practice place. "It must be protected and utilized with the highest standards and levels", that is the consensus. "Coming up with a solution that can solve the current problem" is the challenge.
When doing data collection, several of our team members were amazed at the abundance of resources, the prosperity of the context, and the integrity of the style, which was almost unparalleled in China. Taihu Lake should aim to become a "World Cultural and Natural Heritage", becoming a World Heritage Site is not just a false title, but a sustainable development of reality and even the future.
"Old Wu County" is a constituent node around Taihu Lake, "Wu County Cultural Relics Digital Exhibition" is the preliminary and basic work we have done for the higher level of protection and utilization of Taihu Lake, the collection and utilization of digital resources can make more accurate and high-level research and protection possible, but also the basis for future transformation and renewal, the display of digital resources is to guide public opinion, gather public opinion, and form a consensus. From WuXian and Taihu Lake to Jiangnan, the past, present and future have never been and will not be broken, and everything is a heritage of the world.
Original author: Chen Zenglu, director of wu culture museum
note!!! Unauthorized reproduction is not permitted!!!
Book recommendations
Introduction: The Ming Dynasty scholar Tang Yin once had a poem describing Wudi in Jiangnan: "The paradise of the world is Wuzhong, and there are zhangmen who are more skilled." The title of the book is taken from this verse. This book focuses on the cultural heritage and architectural relics of Wudi in Jiangnan, as well as historical towns, historical villages and water and land transportation networks, and is presented through calligraphy and painting, inscription rubbings, historical maps, architectural components, and construction tools.
The manuscript is divided into chapters such as "prologue", "self-sufficiency", "self-adaptation", "ease", and "ease", analyzing the urban and rural space, social ecology and cultural features of Wudi in Jiangnan in the historical period (especially the Song to Qing Dynasty), paying more attention to the daily life scenery of Wudi for thousands of years, and presenting all aspects of the life of every "ordinary person" in Wudi - from eating and drinking water to daily living, reading, farming, travel, and even the circulation of materials and products, marriage and funeral, worship, medical and health.