Abstract
The conception of contextualism in community planning emphasizes the integrity of architecture and its surroundings. It also implies the sustainability of landscape meaning within a community. In as much as planning theories have not mentioned how extensive the background of a community should be considered by a community planner, this paper will seek to answer this question. It considers Nanluoguxiang (NLGX), a community in the old city of Beijing, as the study area. Based on government documents, interviews of residents and also landscape observations in NLGX, this paper identifies the contextual practices in three renovation stages from the perspective of place uniqueness. The planners considered the background of NLGX at three different scales in its three renovation stages. In the last stage, they considered the entire country within the context of planning. NLGX has a unique image in Beijing, even within China. The image of it is the main market at the north end of the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal shows the spatial organization power of the ancient empire because it was the key food supply route for the capital. This is not only the cultural heritage of local residents of NLGX, but is also identified by other citizens in China. We conclude that an historical community can be preserved better by national funds if it has found a unique meaning of its landscape within a broader background.
Highlights
Within the context of renewal of old quarters or historic districts in Chinese cities, contextualism provides a useful concept for discussing the preservation of traditional landscapes
Contextualism in urban planning implies the sustainability of landscape meaning
We review the basic conception of contextualism briefly in the first part of this article
Summary
Within the context of renewal of old quarters or historic districts in Chinese cities, contextualism provides a useful concept for discussing the preservation of traditional landscapes. Contextualism in urban planning implies the sustainability of landscape meaning. It is regarded as an approach counter to modernized landscape design. Contextualism in urban planning emphasizes the link between a new architecture and its background, and emphasizes an architecture link between the past and present. Contextualism is not sufficient in itself to guide urban planning and design. Many critics and debates of contextualism discuss that scholars need to seriously consider using other spatial ethics to evaluate the merits of urban regeneration. Cultural geography offers a spatial perspective on the background scale in study contextualism
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