Development of cultural heritage conservation planning in China

Abstract

ABSTRACT The range of global concepts of cultural heritage conservation has provided inspiration for China's cultural heritage conservation. China's approach to cultural heritage conservation has evolved from a focus on cultural relics conservation within urban planning to the formulation of specialized and multiple conservation planning. Furthermore, China is actively seeking ways to combine conservation planning and urban planning in order to achieve integrated conservation goals. However, the current practice indicates that ‘multiple-planning integration’ still needs to be improved to ensure the integrity of cultural heritage. This paper examines the influence of international organizations on the formation and development of China's multiple conservation planning. It also explores how heritage discourse has impacted the multiple-planning integration through a case study. International exchanges have a twofold impact: they improve the conceptual and technical development of China's cultural heritage conservation planning, and they guide its transition from cultural relics to historic city conservation. The primary effect of heritage discourse is that the demolition-and-reconstruction-oriented discourse has compromised the practice’s integrity through multiple-planning integration. In the context of the localization of cultural heritage protection, it analyses the process and problems of the localization of cultural heritage conservation planning in China to draw wider attention to it.