Shan-shui myth and history: the locally planned process of combining the ancient city and West Lake in Hangzhou, 1896–1927

Abstract

In early modern China, several modern construction plans were carried out in Hangzhou's ancient city centre and West Lake, leading to the formation of a lake-city combined urban form, which is now valued for its uniqueness and characteristically Chinese cityscape aesthetic. The catalyst for this process of combining the ancient city and West Lake was a plan titled ‘Building a New Market’ (1914), developed on the basis of a draft presented in the Zhejiang provincial assembly during the late Qing Dynasty, striving for urban renewal by promoting West Lake. After the Xinhai Revolution, seizing the opportunity of physical and temporal changes, local officials successfully implemented this plan by using pioneering planning methods to strengthen the link between the ancient city and West Lake. The steps of this plan's implementation, namely ‘pull down the city wall – build roads – construct new market’, widely influenced other cities in the early 1920s. Also, this plan led to two subsequent projects, the Circling Road plan (1920) and West Lake Expo (1922/1927), furthering the urbanization reform of West Lake aimed at making it part of the city.