A study on Wuhan modern city heritage (1861-1957) _from the perspective of social transformation

Abstract

Between the years 1861 and 1957, Wuhan transferred from a traditional feudal town to a modern industrial city. This paper aims to investigate the effect of social transformation upon Wuhan modern city heritage, in the aspects of spatial morphology, construction scale and landscape features. The contents of this paper include three parts: The first details the theoretical research, of which there are two narratives of social transformation attributed to shaping the form and direction of Wuhan’s modernisation – both domestication and localisation. On the other hand, there are three transformation levels – physical, institutional and ideological. The second part concerns the empirical research. This paper divides Wuhan’s modernisation processes into four typical periods, and examines the city construction activities and heritage features of each period – Colonial (1861-1888), Westernisation Movement (1889-1911), Xinhai Revolution (1912-1937) and the beginning age of CHN (1949-1957). Third, and finally, it is concluded that social transformation has profound impacts on construction activities, architecture styles, distributions and leading subjects. In addition, domestication and localisation have worked together to shape the urban physical space environment, and the three towns of Wuhan display a disparate heritage that could reflect the varied construction focuses and features across different transformation periods.