At present, as people pay more attention to protection of traditional architecture, some elaborate works with history and culture have emerged in various places. However, it is undeniable that there are plenty of phenomena of “being damaged in protection and lost in construction”, which made protection of ancient architecture less than satisfactory. Besides factors like people’s cognitive level and management mechanism, etc., this is also related to design and construction level of ancient architecture.
Led by the new urbanization, business of ancient architecture protection also continues to develop. However, there are many problems which deserve social concern and desperately need to be researched and solved, including problems of protection and inheritance, as well as problems of rational utilization, optimization and innovation. In ancient architecture industry, institutional powers were dispersed, channels between enterprises, industries, as well as enterprises and the government, were not clear, and a platform for communication and exchange was lacking. These problems influence healthy and sustainable development of the work to a certain extent.
Premier Li Keqiang pointed out in “Key Work in 2014” of 2014 Government Work Report of the Two Sessions of the State: “We should promote new urbanization with human as the core by improving system and mechanism of urban-rural development integration, insisting on new urbanization path of people-oriented concept, synchronism of four modernizations, layout optimization, ecological civilization and culture inheritance, as well as following development rules, promoting actively and steadily, and focusing on promoting quality. ” The importance of culture inheritance was highlighted.
Architecture is the carrier of culture, and ancient architecture is the core of traditional culture. As the carrier of a sort of culture and spirit, as well as the historic record of lives of a nation, ancient architecture is the habitat of spirit of human culture, the temple of beliefs of human culture, and the hall where historical monuments and cultural souls are engraved. Besides, it is the reflection of cultural patterns of different regions, countries, nations and communities, as well as a symbol of cultural diversity, possessing extremely important historical and cultural value. All these need to be improved by us in practice.
We used to work on plenty of projects of ancient architecture and archaizing architecture. From today’s perspective, it is absolutely necessary to improve and promote them, integrating our products and industries with development of urbanization, making them highlight instead of burden of future cities. This new round of urbanization construction can enable us to blend in, and it is worth our research and exploration in thought and manner.
China is an ancient civilization with sustainably developing traditional architectural culture of five thousand years as well as much world-class ancient architecture dating from different times. This traditional architectural culture is the root of China’s urban-rural construction business and Chinese nation. In contemporary urban-rural construction of China, a city without traditional architectural culture is a city without historical and cultural foundation. To inherit traditional architectural culture of Chinese nation, we should first define what is called national traditional architectural culture, and figure out its history and present situation.
Firstly, what is national traditional architectural culture? In simple terms, it is the overall achievements of material civilization and spiritual civilization of historical buildings of Chinese people of all ethnic groups. National traditional architectures have a long history and are everywhere in China. The Hemudu Ruins in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province, and the Banpo Ruins in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, with a history of seven thousand years are undoubtedly one of the oldest traditional architectures of the Chinese nation. Concerning the scale and influence of traditional architectures of Chinese nation, there are large great architectural engineering projects like the world-famous, Great Wall, etc., as well as small architectures like the Hanging House of the Miao nationality, Wind-Rain Bridge of the Dong nationality and Stone House of the Buyi families of China, etc. Since the reform and opening up, the country was able to establish the correct concept for traditional architecture of the Chinese nation. At the turn of the century, as research of theory of Chinese ancient architecture culture was carried out, and theory and practice of traditional architecture of Chinese nation returned to normal social ecological life.
Secondly, systematic engineering aims art integrating national traditional architectural culture, traditional techniques and crafts with modern architectural science, modern construction materials, modern building techniques and demands of modern national social life. Review, summary and communication for actual application situation of culture, technique and craft of national traditional architecture during more than thirty years of reform and opening-up are of great importance to enhance social and economic benefits of China’s contemporary urban-rural construction as well as promote development of China’s new urbanization.
At last, building level decides the level of our urbanization. Thus, in urbanization construction, we should pay attention to the relationship of inheritance of national architecture. Firstly, how to closely combine national architecture with modern architecture is a key point which deserves our attention in developing the relationship between inheritance and promotion. Secondly, research in national architectural technique must be closely combined with our protection and construction of ancient architecture.
