Preservation Practice between Identity and Social Issues: The Case of Gayantou Ethnic Village in Yongzhou, China

Abstract

Ganyantou village is located in the southern part of the Hunan Province in China. The village is located between Jingshui river and Xianshui river, not casually, Ganyantou means “village positioned between two rivers”. The Black Gate House, the studied site, is one of the six ancient rural residential complexes of the village. It was built in 1638, during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), and belonged to the Zhou family. In the last decades the Hunan Province Administration has been facing the decline of the cities’ quality of life, being overcrowding-related problems one of the main social issues in big cities. As an attempt to solve the problem the Administration in collaboration with Hunan University, is trying to encourage rural village residents to remain in the countryside by building new villages – with appealing urban standards – or in the best cases, by restoring the existing buildings. The aim of the research was also to investigate the site regarding its materials, its construction techniques and, above all, the problems and causes of its deterioration and its structural instability, resulting in a conservation and reuse draft project afterwards. The specificity of the survey was its limited use of technology, in order to give students a replicable methodology for any similar case study. The geometric, material and deterioration survey in fact, was carried out on a simple and traditional way, with precise and scientifically correct techniques. Students were able to learn a fast and low-cost, yet correct methodology concerning direct data acquisition, an essential phase prior a conservation and reuse project proposal.