Wikienfk5 - User contributions [en]

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-07-18T14:35:47Z

Yiting Wei: /* References */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: 2003-2007''. Third Phase: not started
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.
[[Image:Gic3005737.jpg‎ |none]]
[[Image:Gic3007339.jpg‎ |none]]

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town, locates at the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

The criss-cross of adjacent land and water, parallelled streets and rivers, makes up a pattern look like two sets of chessboard overlapping together. (The image below shows the main rivers, while the streets are usually attached with them.)
[[Image:Site_map.jpg‎ |Originted by Google map and illustrated by Adobe]]

And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

''The users:'' For thousand years, Wuzhen has been a town for local residants living, working, gathering, and have trading with the outside. The town was also used by merchants from outside who came to the town for trading.

''The change:'' Since inhabitants moved and tourists come, the users of the town became those tourists. Although some original inhabitans are hired and working in the town, they are indeed working for tourists.

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Cultural changes.jpg | Changes on cultural dimension
</gallery>

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]
Wuzhen town, with numerous historical monuments and close-set ancient houses , has historic neighborhood buildings of about 16 million square meters. In 1999, on the basis of the construction of "Culture City" requirements, the local government launched the complete protection and development to the ancient town.
Afterwards, the Improvement Projects of East gate Scenic Area and the west gate Scenic Area were run .In different emphasis, the former focused on the protection of the heritage value and promotion of the historic town’s value of tourism, while the latter focused on the function of the issues in the preservation of residential patterns and function. With the project in progress, the ancient town is no longer a mere "tourist museum" to become a living community in complete function and perfect combination of modern and ancient life

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

Development of Wuzhen mode: With the respect for the history and culture, and the top priority of the protection, protection and tourism development combine with each other harmoniously in the Marketization way.

Protection of Wuzhen mode: In the protection of Wuzhen Town, government have provided an effective exploration in the development of the ancient town, using advanced management, launching efforts such as undergrounding the pipeline, dredging the channel, repairing the old objects as before, and controlling the excessive commercialization.

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

1.A balance between development and conservation: How to preserve the culture during development process? And what kind of development can be made to inspire the town's self-improving?

2.A definition of the vernacular landscape: Find out what identities exactly make the town's existing landscape, then appreciate and promote them.

3.An administration and management system: To provide leading and far-sighted guidance for the town's developement and renovation.

4.A fair use of public cultural and natural resources: To perfect the public participation system, which involving not only tourism-relating groups, but also local people or social associations. And keep a balance of economic benefit between inhabitants and other stakeholders.

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Wuzhen_Town_west_part.jpg | West part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_4.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_east_part.jpg‎ | East part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_3.htm
Image:Site_map.jpg| Site map. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_east_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished east part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_west_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished west part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Cultural changes.jpg| Changes on cultural dimention.
Image:Wuzhen_river_street_wall.jpg‎|http://www.gettyimages.cn/index/showmid/photoid/3005658.html
Image:Wuzhen_bridge.jpg‎ | http://www.gettyimages.cn/index/showmid/photoid/3006787.html
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...

* Ruan Yisan, 2002: Wu zhen, Zhejiang Photography Publisher, first edition, 24-56;90-104

* Li zhen & Lei Dongxia,2007: Scenario Recuring and Landscape Remoulding: Investigating the Cultural Space Conserving Methords, Architecural Journal, 2007.5, 1-4. (in pdf edition)

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...

* "Wu zhen" no data to know the year: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/wzgk/wzgk_bhkf.asp
* www.sina.com: 2010, key words: Wuzhen; Renovation (in Chinese, 乌镇，改造)
"Metamorphosis of Wuzhen: A Model of Historic Town Protective Exploiture"
http://news.dichan.sina.com.cn/2010/01/13/109982.html
* www.wuzhen.com.cn,no data to know the year:
"Mysteries in The Preserving of Wuzhen"
http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/xwdt/xwdt_news_jt.asp?mainid=706
* "Getty Image" http://www.gettyimages.cn/

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-07-18T10:56:17Z

Yiting Wei: /* Cultural landscape context */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: 2003-2007''. Third Phase: not started
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.
[[Image:Gic3005737.jpg‎ |none]]
[[Image:Gic3007339.jpg‎ |none]]

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town, locates at the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

The criss-cross of adjacent land and water, parallelled streets and rivers, makes up a pattern look like two sets of chessboard overlapping together. (The image below shows the main rivers, while the streets are usually attached with them.)
[[Image:Site_map.jpg‎ |Originted by Google map and illustrated by Adobe]]

And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

''The users:'' For thousand years, Wuzhen has been a town for local residants living, working, gathering, and have trading with the outside. The town was also used by merchants from outside who came to the town for trading.

''The change:'' Since inhabitants moved and tourists come, the users of the town became those tourists. Although some original inhabitans are hired and working in the town, they are indeed working for tourists.

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Cultural changes.jpg | Changes on cultural dimension
</gallery>

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]
Wuzhen town, with numerous historical monuments and close-set ancient houses , has historic neighborhood buildings of about 16 million square meters. In 1999, on the basis of the construction of "Culture City" requirements, the local government launched the complete protection and development to the ancient town.
Afterwards, the Improvement Projects of East gate Scenic Area and the west gate Scenic Area were run .In different emphasis, the former focused on the protection of the heritage value and promotion of the historic town’s value of tourism, while the latter focused on the function of the issues in the preservation of residential patterns and function. With the project in progress, the ancient town is no longer a mere "tourist museum" to become a living community in complete function and perfect combination of modern and ancient life

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

Development of Wuzhen mode: With the respect for the history and culture, and the top priority of the protection, protection and tourism development combine with each other harmoniously in the Marketization way.

Protection of Wuzhen mode: In the protection of Wuzhen Town, government have provided an effective exploration in the development of the ancient town, using advanced management, launching efforts such as undergrounding the pipeline, dredging the channel, repairing the old objects as before, and controlling the excessive commercialization.

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

1.A balance between development and conservation: How to preserve the culture during development process? And what kind of development can be made to inspire the town's self-improving?

2.A definition of the vernacular landscape: Find out what identities exactly make the town's existing landscape, then appreciate and promote them.

3.An administration and management system: To provide leading and far-sighted guidance for the town's developement and renovation.

4.A fair use of public cultural and natural resources: To perfect the public participation system, which involving not only tourism-relating groups, but also local people or social associations. And keep a balance of economic benefit between inhabitants and other stakeholders.

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Wuzhen_Town_west_part.jpg | West part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_4.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_east_part.jpg‎ | East part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_3.htm
Image:Site_map.jpg| Site map. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_east_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished east part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_west_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished west part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Cultural changes.jpg| Changes on cultural dimention.
Image:Wuzhen_river_street_wall.jpg‎|http://www.gettyimages.cn/index/showmid/photoid/3005658.html
Image:Wuzhen_bridge.jpg‎ | http://www.gettyimages.cn/index/showmid/photoid/3006787.html
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* Ruan Yisan, 2002: Wu zhen, Zhejiang Photography Publisher, first edition, 24-56;90-104

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* "Wu zhen" no data to know the year: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/wzgk/wzgk_bhkf.asp

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

File:Gic3007339.jpg

2010-07-18T10:53:59Z

Yiting Wei:

File:Gic3005737.jpg

2010-07-18T10:16:11Z

Yiting Wei:

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-07-18T10:06:56Z

Yiting Wei: /* Socio-political context */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: 2003-2007''. Third Phase: not started
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town, locates at the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

The criss-cross of adjacent land and water, parallelled streets and rivers, makes up a pattern look like two sets of chessboard overlapping together. (The image below shows the main rivers, while the streets are usually attached with them.)
[[Image:Site_map.jpg‎ |Originted by Google map and illustrated by Adobe]]

And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

''The users:'' For thousand years, Wuzhen has been a town for local residants living, working, gathering, and have trading with the outside. The town was also used by merchants from outside who came to the town for trading.

''The change:'' Since inhabitants moved and tourists come, the users of the town became those tourists. Although some original inhabitans are hired and working in the town, they are indeed working for tourists.

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Cultural changes.jpg | Changes on cultural dimension
</gallery>

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]
Wuzhen town, with numerous historical monuments and close-set ancient houses , has historic neighborhood buildings of about 16 million square meters. In 1999, on the basis of the construction of "Culture City" requirements, the local government launched the complete protection and development to the ancient town.
Afterwards, the Improvement Projects of East gate Scenic Area and the west gate Scenic Area were run .In different emphasis, the former focused on the protection of the heritage value and promotion of the historic town’s value of tourism, while the latter focused on the function of the issues in the preservation of residential patterns and function. With the project in progress, the ancient town is no longer a mere "tourist museum" to become a living community in complete function and perfect combination of modern and ancient life

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

Development of Wuzhen mode: With the respect for the history and culture, and the top priority of the protection, protection and tourism development combine with each other harmoniously in the Marketization way.

Protection of Wuzhen mode: In the protection of Wuzhen Town, government have provided an effective exploration in the development of the ancient town, using advanced management, launching efforts such as undergrounding the pipeline, dredging the channel, repairing the old objects as before, and controlling the excessive commercialization.

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

1.A balance between development and conservation: How to preserve the culture during development process? And what kind of development can be made to inspire the town's self-improving?

2.A definition of the vernacular landscape: Find out what identities exactly make the town's existing landscape, then appreciate and promote them.

3.An administration and management system: To provide leading and far-sighted guidance for the town's developement and renovation.

4.A fair use of public cultural and natural resources: To perfect the public participation system, which involving not only tourism-relating groups, but also local people or social associations. And keep a balance of economic benefit between inhabitants and other stakeholders.

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Wuzhen_Town_west_part.jpg | West part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_4.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_east_part.jpg‎ | East part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_3.htm
Image:Site_map.jpg| Site map. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_east_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished east part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_west_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished west part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Cultural changes.jpg| Changes on cultural dimention.
Image:Wuzhen_river_street_wall.jpg‎|http://www.gettyimages.cn/index/showmid/photoid/3005658.html
Image:Wuzhen_bridge.jpg‎ | http://www.gettyimages.cn/index/showmid/photoid/3006787.html
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* Ruan Yisan, 2002: Wu zhen, Zhejiang Photography Publisher, first edition, 24-56;90-104

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* "Wu zhen" no data to know the year: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/wzgk/wzgk_bhkf.asp

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-07-18T10:02:08Z

Yiting Wei: /* Spatial analysis of area/project */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: 2003-2007''. Third Phase: not started
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

The criss-cross of adjacent land and water, parallelled streets and rivers, makes up a pattern look like two sets of chessboard overlapping together. (The image below shows the main rivers, while the streets are usually attached with them.)
[[Image:Site_map.jpg‎ |Originted by Google map and illustrated by Adobe]]

And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

''The users:'' For thousand years, Wuzhen has been a town for local residants living, working, gathering, and have trading with the outside. The town was also used by merchants from outside who came to the town for trading.

''The change:'' Since inhabitants moved and tourists come, the users of the town became those tourists. Although some original inhabitans are hired and working in the town, they are indeed working for tourists.

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Cultural changes.jpg | Changes on cultural dimension
</gallery>

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]
Wuzhen town, with numerous historical monuments and close-set ancient houses , has historic neighborhood buildings of about 16 million square meters. In 1999, on the basis of the construction of "Culture City" requirements, the local government launched the complete protection and development to the ancient town.
Afterwards, the Improvement Projects of East gate Scenic Area and the west gate Scenic Area were run .In different emphasis, the former focused on the protection of the heritage value and promotion of the historic town’s value of tourism, while the latter focused on the function of the issues in the preservation of residential patterns and function. With the project in progress, the ancient town is no longer a mere "tourist museum" to become a living community in complete function and perfect combination of modern and ancient life

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

Development of Wuzhen mode: With the respect for the history and culture, and the top priority of the protection, protection and tourism development combine with each other harmoniously in the Marketization way.

Protection of Wuzhen mode: In the protection of Wuzhen Town, government have provided an effective exploration in the development of the ancient town, using advanced management, launching efforts such as undergrounding the pipeline, dredging the channel, repairing the old objects as before, and controlling the excessive commercialization.

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

1.A balance between development and conservation: How to preserve the culture during development process? And what kind of development can be made to inspire the town's self-improving?

2.A definition of the vernacular landscape: Find out what identities exactly make the town's existing landscape, then appreciate and promote them.

3.An administration and management system: To provide leading and far-sighted guidance for the town's developement and renovation.

4.A fair use of public cultural and natural resources: To perfect the public participation system, which involving not only tourism-relating groups, but also local people or social associations. And keep a balance of economic benefit between inhabitants and other stakeholders.

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Wuzhen_Town_west_part.jpg | West part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_4.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_east_part.jpg‎ | East part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_3.htm
Image:Site_map.jpg| Site map. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_east_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished east part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_west_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished west part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Cultural changes.jpg| Changes on cultural dimention.
Image:Wuzhen_river_street_wall.jpg‎|http://www.gettyimages.cn/index/showmid/photoid/3005658.html
Image:Wuzhen_bridge.jpg‎ | http://www.gettyimages.cn/index/showmid/photoid/3006787.html
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* Ruan Yisan, 2002: Wu zhen, Zhejiang Photography Publisher, first edition, 24-56;90-104

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* "Wu zhen" no data to know the year: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/wzgk/wzgk_bhkf.asp

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-07-18T09:49:10Z

Yiting Wei: /* Image Gallery */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: 2003-2007''. Third Phase: not started
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

''The users:'' For thousand years, Wuzhen has been a town for local residants living, working, gathering, and have trading with the outside. The town was also used by merchants from outside who came to the town for trading.

''The change:'' Since inhabitants moved and tourists come, the users of the town became those tourists. Although some original inhabitans are hired and working in the town, they are indeed working for tourists.

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Cultural changes.jpg | Changes on cultural dimension
</gallery>

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]
Wuzhen town, with numerous historical monuments and close-set ancient houses , has historic neighborhood buildings of about 16 million square meters. In 1999, on the basis of the construction of "Culture City" requirements, the local government launched the complete protection and development to the ancient town.
Afterwards, the Improvement Projects of East gate Scenic Area and the west gate Scenic Area were run .In different emphasis, the former focused on the protection of the heritage value and promotion of the historic town’s value of tourism, while the latter focused on the function of the issues in the preservation of residential patterns and function. With the project in progress, the ancient town is no longer a mere "tourist museum" to become a living community in complete function and perfect combination of modern and ancient life

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

Development of Wuzhen mode: With the respect for the history and culture, and the top priority of the protection, protection and tourism development combine with each other harmoniously in the Marketization way.

Protection of Wuzhen mode: In the protection of Wuzhen Town, government have provided an effective exploration in the development of the ancient town, using advanced management, launching efforts such as undergrounding the pipeline, dredging the channel, repairing the old objects as before, and controlling the excessive commercialization.

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

1.A balance between development and conservation: How to preserve the culture during development process? And what kind of development can be made to inspire the town's self-improving?

2.A definition of the vernacular landscape: Find out what identities exactly make the town's existing landscape, then appreciate and promote them.

3.An administration and management system: To provide leading and far-sighted guidance for the town's developement and renovation.

4.A fair use of public cultural and natural resources: To perfect the public participation system, which involving not only tourism-relating groups, but also local people or social associations. And keep a balance of economic benefit between inhabitants and other stakeholders.

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Wuzhen_Town_west_part.jpg | West part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_4.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_east_part.jpg‎ | East part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_3.htm
Image:Site_map.jpg| Site map. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_east_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished east part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_west_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished west part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Cultural changes.jpg| Changes on cultural dimention.
Image:Wuzhen_river_street_wall.jpg‎|http://www.gettyimages.cn/index/showmid/photoid/3005658.html
Image:Wuzhen_bridge.jpg‎ | http://www.gettyimages.cn/index/showmid/photoid/3006787.html
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* Ruan Yisan, 2002: Wu zhen, Zhejiang Photography Publisher, first edition, 24-56;90-104

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* "Wu zhen" no data to know the year: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/wzgk/wzgk_bhkf.asp

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

File:Wuzhen bridge.jpg

2010-07-18T09:47:32Z

Yiting Wei:

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-07-18T09:43:52Z

Yiting Wei: /* Image Gallery */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: 2003-2007''. Third Phase: not started
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

''The users:'' For thousand years, Wuzhen has been a town for local residants living, working, gathering, and have trading with the outside. The town was also used by merchants from outside who came to the town for trading.

''The change:'' Since inhabitants moved and tourists come, the users of the town became those tourists. Although some original inhabitans are hired and working in the town, they are indeed working for tourists.

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Cultural changes.jpg | Changes on cultural dimension
</gallery>

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]
Wuzhen town, with numerous historical monuments and close-set ancient houses , has historic neighborhood buildings of about 16 million square meters. In 1999, on the basis of the construction of "Culture City" requirements, the local government launched the complete protection and development to the ancient town.
Afterwards, the Improvement Projects of East gate Scenic Area and the west gate Scenic Area were run .In different emphasis, the former focused on the protection of the heritage value and promotion of the historic town’s value of tourism, while the latter focused on the function of the issues in the preservation of residential patterns and function. With the project in progress, the ancient town is no longer a mere "tourist museum" to become a living community in complete function and perfect combination of modern and ancient life

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

Development of Wuzhen mode: With the respect for the history and culture, and the top priority of the protection, protection and tourism development combine with each other harmoniously in the Marketization way.

Protection of Wuzhen mode: In the protection of Wuzhen Town, government have provided an effective exploration in the development of the ancient town, using advanced management, launching efforts such as undergrounding the pipeline, dredging the channel, repairing the old objects as before, and controlling the excessive commercialization.

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

1.A balance between development and conservation: How to preserve the culture during development process? And what kind of development can be made to inspire the town's self-improving?

2.A definition of the vernacular landscape: Find out what identities exactly make the town's existing landscape, then appreciate and promote them.

3.An administration and management system: To provide leading and far-sighted guidance for the town's developement and renovation.

4.A fair use of public cultural and natural resources: To perfect the public participation system, which involving not only tourism-relating groups, but also local people or social associations. And keep a balance of economic benefit between inhabitants and other stakeholders.

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Wuzhen_Town_west_part.jpg | West part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_4.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_east_part.jpg‎ | East part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_3.htm
Image:Site_map.jpg| Site map. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_east_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished east part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_west_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished west part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Cultural changes.jpg| Changes on cultural dimention.
Image:Wuzhen_river_street_wall.jpg‎ | River, street, and walls.
Source: http://www.gettyimages.cn/index/showmid/photoid/3005658.html
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* Ruan Yisan, 2002: Wu zhen, Zhejiang Photography Publisher, first edition, 24-56;90-104

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* "Wu zhen" no data to know the year: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/wzgk/wzgk_bhkf.asp

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

File:Wuzhen river street wall.jpg

2010-07-18T09:41:56Z

Yiting Wei:

Expert Case Studies Seminar Cultural Landscapes 2010

2010-07-15T10:01:38Z

Yiting Wei: /* Responses of cultural landscapes to changing natural processes */

File:RUHR.2010 Detrmar illustrated by yiting.jpg

2010-07-15T09:54:32Z

Yiting Wei:

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-07-07T14:28:47Z

Yiting Wei: /* References */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: 2003-2007''. Third Phase: not started
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

''The users:'' For thousand years, Wuzhen has been a town for local residants living, working, gathering, and have trading with the outside. The town was also used by merchants from outside who came to the town for trading.

''The change:'' Since inhabitants moved and tourists come, the users of the town became those tourists. Although some original inhabitans are hired and working in the town, they are indeed working for tourists.

Changes on cultural dimension
[[Image:Cultural changes.jpg]]

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]
Wuzhen town, with numerous historical monuments and close-set ancient houses , has historic neighborhood buildings of about 16 million square meters. In 1999, on the basis of the construction of "Culture City" requirements, the local government launched the complete protection and development to the ancient town.
Afterwards, the Improvement Projects of East gate Scenic Area and the west gate Scenic Area were run .In different emphasis, the former focused on the protection of the heritage value and promotion of the historic town’s value of tourism, while the latter focused on the function of the issues in the preservation of residential patterns and function. With the project in progress, the ancient town is no longer a mere "tourist museum" to become a living community in complete function and perfect combination of modern and ancient life

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

Development of Wuzhen mode: With the respect for the history and culture, and the top priority of the protection, protection and tourism development combine with each other harmoniously in the Marketization way.

Protection of Wuzhen mode: In the protection of Wuzhen Town, government have provided an effective exploration in the development of the ancient town, using advanced management, launching efforts such as undergrounding the pipeline, dredging the channel, repairing the old objects as before, and controlling the excessive commercialization.

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

1.A balance between development and conservation: How to preserve the culture during development process? And what kind of development can be made to inspire the town's self-improving?

2.A definition of the vernacular landscape: Find out what identities exactly make the town's existing landscape, then appreciate and promote them.

3.An administration and management system: To provide leading and far-sighted guidance for the town's developement and renovation.

4.A fair use of public cultural and natural resources: To perfect the public participation system, which involving not only tourism-relating groups, but also local people or social associations. And keep a balance of economic benefit between inhabitants and other stakeholders.

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Wuzhen_Town_west_part.jpg | West part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_4.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_east_part.jpg‎ | East part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_3.htm
Image:Site_map.jpg| Site map. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_east_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished east part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_west_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished west part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Cultural changes.jpg| Changes on cultural dimention.
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* Ruan Yisan, 2002: Wu zhen, Zhejiang Photography Publisher, first edition, 24-56;90-104

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* "Wu zhen" no data to know the year: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/wzgk/wzgk_bhkf.asp

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-07-07T14:18:10Z

Yiting Wei: /* Analysis of use/users */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: 2003-2007''. Third Phase: not started
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

''The users:'' For thousand years, Wuzhen has been a town for local residants living, working, gathering, and have trading with the outside. The town was also used by merchants from outside who came to the town for trading.

''The change:'' Since inhabitants moved and tourists come, the users of the town became those tourists. Although some original inhabitans are hired and working in the town, they are indeed working for tourists.

Changes on cultural dimension
[[Image:Cultural changes.jpg]]

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]
Wuzhen town, with numerous historical monuments and close-set ancient houses , has historic neighborhood buildings of about 16 million square meters. In 1999, on the basis of the construction of "Culture City" requirements, the local government launched the complete protection and development to the ancient town.
Afterwards, the Improvement Projects of East gate Scenic Area and the west gate Scenic Area were run .In different emphasis, the former focused on the protection of the heritage value and promotion of the historic town’s value of tourism, while the latter focused on the function of the issues in the preservation of residential patterns and function. With the project in progress, the ancient town is no longer a mere "tourist museum" to become a living community in complete function and perfect combination of modern and ancient life

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

Development of Wuzhen mode: With the respect for the history and culture, and the top priority of the protection, protection and tourism development combine with each other harmoniously in the Marketization way.

Protection of Wuzhen mode: In the protection of Wuzhen Town, government have provided an effective exploration in the development of the ancient town, using advanced management, launching efforts such as undergrounding the pipeline, dredging the channel, repairing the old objects as before, and controlling the excessive commercialization.

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

1.A balance between development and conservation: How to preserve the culture during development process? And what kind of development can be made to inspire the town's self-improving?

2.A definition of the vernacular landscape: Find out what identities exactly make the town's existing landscape, then appreciate and promote them.

3.An administration and management system: To provide leading and far-sighted guidance for the town's developement and renovation.

4.A fair use of public cultural and natural resources: To perfect the public participation system, which involving not only tourism-relating groups, but also local people or social associations. And keep a balance of economic benefit between inhabitants and other stakeholders.

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Wuzhen_Town_west_part.jpg | West part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_4.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_east_part.jpg‎ | East part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_3.htm
Image:Site_map.jpg| Site map. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_east_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished east part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_west_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished west part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Cultural changes.jpg| Changes on cultural dimention.
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* etc.

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* etc.

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-07-07T14:14:21Z

Yiting Wei: /* Image Gallery */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: 2003-2007''. Third Phase: not started
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

''The users:'' For thousand years, Wuzhen has been a town for local residants living, working, gathering, and have trading with the outside. The town was also used by merchants from outside who came to the town for trading.

''The change:'' Since inhabitants moved and tourists come, the users of the town became those tourists. Although some original inhabitans are hired and working in the town, they are indeed working for tourists.

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]
Wuzhen town, with numerous historical monuments and close-set ancient houses , has historic neighborhood buildings of about 16 million square meters. In 1999, on the basis of the construction of "Culture City" requirements, the local government launched the complete protection and development to the ancient town.
Afterwards, the Improvement Projects of East gate Scenic Area and the west gate Scenic Area were run .In different emphasis, the former focused on the protection of the heritage value and promotion of the historic town’s value of tourism, while the latter focused on the function of the issues in the preservation of residential patterns and function. With the project in progress, the ancient town is no longer a mere "tourist museum" to become a living community in complete function and perfect combination of modern and ancient life

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

Development of Wuzhen mode: With the respect for the history and culture, and the top priority of the protection, protection and tourism development combine with each other harmoniously in the Marketization way.

Protection of Wuzhen mode: In the protection of Wuzhen Town, government have provided an effective exploration in the development of the ancient town, using advanced management, launching efforts such as undergrounding the pipeline, dredging the channel, repairing the old objects as before, and controlling the excessive commercialization.

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

1.A balance between development and conservation: How to preserve the culture during development process? And what kind of development can be made to inspire the town's self-improving?

2.A definition of the vernacular landscape: Find out what identities exactly make the town's existing landscape, then appreciate and promote them.

3.An administration and management system: To provide leading and far-sighted guidance for the town's developement and renovation.

4.A fair use of public cultural and natural resources: To perfect the public participation system, which involving not only tourism-relating groups, but also local people or social associations. And keep a balance of economic benefit between inhabitants and other stakeholders.

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Wuzhen_Town_west_part.jpg | West part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_4.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_east_part.jpg‎ | East part of Wuzhen Town. Source: http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_3.htm
Image:Site_map.jpg| Site map. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_east_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished east part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Site_map_west_part.jpg| Site map of accomplished west part. Original source: Google Earth.
Image:Cultural changes.jpg| Changes on cultural dimention.
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* etc.

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* etc.

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

File:Site map west part.jpg

2010-07-07T14:06:25Z

Yiting Wei:

File:Site map east part.jpg

2010-07-07T14:05:24Z

Yiting Wei:

File:Site map.jpg

2010-07-07T14:04:10Z

Yiting Wei:

File:Cultural changes.jpg

2010-07-07T13:58:42Z

Yiting Wei:

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-07-07T13:48:48Z

Yiting Wei:

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: 2003-2007''. Third Phase: not started
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

''The users:'' For thousand years, Wuzhen has been a town for local residants living, working, gathering, and have trading with the outside. The town was also used by merchants from outside who came to the town for trading.

''The change:'' Since inhabitants moved and tourists come, the users of the town became those tourists. Although some original inhabitans are hired and working in the town, they are indeed working for tourists.

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]
Wuzhen town, with numerous historical monuments and close-set ancient houses , has historic neighborhood buildings of about 16 million square meters. In 1999, on the basis of the construction of "Culture City" requirements, the local government launched the complete protection and development to the ancient town.
Afterwards, the Improvement Projects of East gate Scenic Area and the west gate Scenic Area were run .In different emphasis, the former focused on the protection of the heritage value and promotion of the historic town’s value of tourism, while the latter focused on the function of the issues in the preservation of residential patterns and function. With the project in progress, the ancient town is no longer a mere "tourist museum" to become a living community in complete function and perfect combination of modern and ancient life

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

Development of Wuzhen mode: With the respect for the history and culture, and the top priority of the protection, protection and tourism development combine with each other harmoniously in the Marketization way.

Protection of Wuzhen mode: In the protection of Wuzhen Town, government have provided an effective exploration in the development of the ancient town, using advanced management, launching efforts such as undergrounding the pipeline, dredging the channel, repairing the old objects as before, and controlling the excessive commercialization.

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

1.A balance between development and conservation: How to preserve the culture during development process? And what kind of development can be made to inspire the town's self-improving?

2.A definition of the vernacular landscape: Find out what identities exactly make the town's existing landscape, then appreciate and promote them.

3.An administration and management system: To provide leading and far-sighted guidance for the town's developement and renovation.

4.A fair use of public cultural and natural resources: To perfect the public participation system, which involving not only tourism-relating groups, but also local people or social associations. And keep a balance of economic benefit between inhabitants and other stakeholders.

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Wuzhen_Town_west_part.jpg | West part of Wuzhen Town. Source_http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_4.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_east_part.jpg‎ | East part of Wuzhen Town. Source_http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_3.htm
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* etc.

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* etc.

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

Student Case Studies Seminar Cultural Landscapes 2010

2010-07-06T10:20:19Z

Yiting Wei: /* Comparative Analyses: Technology as a driver of cultural landscape change */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Seminar Outline]'''

* Dear students, please follow the given structure and add '''your name''' and a short but significant '''title of your case study''' to the respective section of this list of the '''ECLAS thematic fields''' via "edit".
* If your project relates to more than one theme, please copy the title to any appropriate section.
* If you think that some '''important subthemes''' are missing, feel free to add your particular subtheme to the appropriate section of the list.
* Your case study will be linked with the '''[[Case Study Template_Cultural Landscapes 2010]]''' as a neutral starting point after May 11, 2010, and then you can start editing your '''online documentation (publishing exercise)'''

== Thematic fields according to the 2010 ECLAS conference "Cultural Landscapes" ==
[[Image:100410 cultural landscapes mind map.jpeg|thumb|1050px|Thematic map "Cultural Landscapes"|none]]

==Cultural Landscapes: Education, research methods and approaches==

=== Profession-based education ===
* Ege Kaska,Serdal Cosgun,Yalçın Yildirim: [[The Ataturk Forest Farm near Ankara, Turkey]]

=== Multi-disciplinary education ===
* Wendy-Laura Cînţa: [[Bánffy Castle in Bonţida, România]] /// [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/03_Student_Case_Studies/Romania_Banffy_Castle.pdf Presentation + Comparative analysis]

=== Interdisciplinary education ===
* Roya Sabri: [[Rebuilding a Sustainable Image in a Cultural Landscape, Iran]] /// [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/03_Student_Case_Studies/Iran_Bam.pdf Presentation + Comparative analysis]

=== Comparative Analyses: Education, research methods and approaches ===
<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:100622 cultural landscapes 9 Seite 27.jpg|by Wendy-Laura Cinta
Image:100622 cultural landscapes 9 Seite 31.jpg|by Roya Sabri
</gallery>

==Responses of cultural landscapes to changing natural processes==

=== Climate change ===
* John Sun,Hua Shu,Ya Li: [[Transformation and reconstruction of BaiHua Park: Alternative planning for complex objectives, China]] /// [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/03_Student_Case_Studies/China_Baihua_Park.pdf Presentation + Comparative analysis]

=== Re-colonization of abandoned lands ===
* Ieva Kiesnere: [[Restorating the history - Transformation of the city of Jelgava, Latvia]]

=== Impact of emerging need for sustainability ===
* Derya Yazgi, Damla Tas [[Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia, Turkey]] /// [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/03_Student_Case_Studies/Turkey_Goreme_National_Park.pdf Presentation + Comparative Analysis]

=== Comparative Analyses: Responses of cultural landscapes to changing natural processes ===
<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:100622 cultural landscapes 9 Seite 45.jpg| by John Sun
Image:100622 cultural landscapes 9 Seite 46.jpg| by John Sun
Image:100622 cultural landscapes 9 Seite 46.jpg| by John Sun
Image:100629 cultural landscapes 10 Seite 10.jpg| by Damla Tas & Derya Yazgi

</gallery>

==Landscapes as a reflection of changing cultural processes==

=== Globalization ===

* Andreia V. Quintas: [[Historic Center of Porto: a landscape of transformation, Portugal]] /// [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/03_Student_Case_Studies/Portugal_Porto.pdf Presentation + Comparative Analysis]

=== Multiculturalism ===
* Yan Hu, Lei Li, Runzi Luo: [[Forbidden City, Beijing, China]] /// [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/03_Student_Case_Studies/China_Forbidden_City.pdf Presentation + Comparative Analysis]

=== Merging awareness to sustainability ===
* Isin Barut: [[Transformation of the Meles Delta, Izmir, under the eco-city concept]] /// [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/03_Student_Case_Studies/Turkey_Meles_Delta.pdf Presentation + Comparative Analysis]

=== Comparative Analyses: Landscapes as a reflection of changing cultural processes ===
<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:100629 cultural landscapes 10 Seite 16.jpg| by Andreia V. Quintas
Image:100629 cultural landscapes 10 Seite 20.jpg| by Yan Hu, Lei Li & Runzi Luo
Image:100629 cultural landscapes 10 Seite 21.jpg| by Yan Hu, Lei Li & Runzi Luo
Image:100629 cultural landscapes 10 Seite 25.jpg| by Isin Barut
</gallery>

==Technology as a driver of cultural landscape change==

=== International styles ===
* Jovana Kovacevic, Mirjana Jovanovic, Nada Jadzic :[[(re)Quest for the cultural landscape of Belgrade, Serbia]] /// [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/03_Student_Case_Studies/Serbia_Belgrade.pdf Presentation + Comparative Analysis]

=== Dissappearing vernacular styles ===
* ChengkangYe, YitingWei: [[Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China]]

=== Comparative Analyses: Technology as a driver of cultural landscape change ===
<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:100629 cultural landscapes 10 Seite 31.jpg|by Jovana Kovacevic, Mirjana Jovanovic & Nada Jadzic

</gallery><gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Comparative_analysis_yitingwei_changkangye.jpg|by Yiting Wei & Chengkang Ye
</gallery>

==Tutor's Kassel page==

=== A page to try and practice ===
* Nils Stanik: [[Some information and impressions from Kassel for all participants who haven't visted Kassel yet]]

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Seminar Outline]'''

Student Case Studies Seminar Cultural Landscapes 2010

2010-07-06T10:19:06Z

Yiting Wei: /* Comparative Analyses: Technology as a driver of cultural landscape change */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Seminar Outline]'''

* Dear students, please follow the given structure and add '''your name''' and a short but significant '''title of your case study''' to the respective section of this list of the '''ECLAS thematic fields''' via "edit".
* If your project relates to more than one theme, please copy the title to any appropriate section.
* If you think that some '''important subthemes''' are missing, feel free to add your particular subtheme to the appropriate section of the list.
* Your case study will be linked with the '''[[Case Study Template_Cultural Landscapes 2010]]''' as a neutral starting point after May 11, 2010, and then you can start editing your '''online documentation (publishing exercise)'''

== Thematic fields according to the 2010 ECLAS conference "Cultural Landscapes" ==
[[Image:100410 cultural landscapes mind map.jpeg|thumb|1050px|Thematic map "Cultural Landscapes"|none]]

==Cultural Landscapes: Education, research methods and approaches==

=== Profession-based education ===
* Ege Kaska,Serdal Cosgun,Yalçın Yildirim: [[The Ataturk Forest Farm near Ankara, Turkey]]

=== Multi-disciplinary education ===
* Wendy-Laura Cînţa: [[Bánffy Castle in Bonţida, România]] /// [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/03_Student_Case_Studies/Romania_Banffy_Castle.pdf Presentation + Comparative analysis]

=== Interdisciplinary education ===
* Roya Sabri: [[Rebuilding a Sustainable Image in a Cultural Landscape, Iran]] /// [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/03_Student_Case_Studies/Iran_Bam.pdf Presentation + Comparative analysis]

=== Comparative Analyses: Education, research methods and approaches ===
<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:100622 cultural landscapes 9 Seite 27.jpg|by Wendy-Laura Cinta
Image:100622 cultural landscapes 9 Seite 31.jpg|by Roya Sabri
</gallery>

==Responses of cultural landscapes to changing natural processes==

=== Climate change ===
* John Sun,Hua Shu,Ya Li: [[Transformation and reconstruction of BaiHua Park: Alternative planning for complex objectives, China]] /// [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/03_Student_Case_Studies/China_Baihua_Park.pdf Presentation + Comparative analysis]

=== Re-colonization of abandoned lands ===
* Ieva Kiesnere: [[Restorating the history - Transformation of the city of Jelgava, Latvia]]

=== Impact of emerging need for sustainability ===
* Derya Yazgi, Damla Tas [[Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia, Turkey]] /// [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/03_Student_Case_Studies/Turkey_Goreme_National_Park.pdf Presentation + Comparative Analysis]

=== Comparative Analyses: Responses of cultural landscapes to changing natural processes ===
<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:100622 cultural landscapes 9 Seite 45.jpg| by John Sun
Image:100622 cultural landscapes 9 Seite 46.jpg| by John Sun
Image:100622 cultural landscapes 9 Seite 46.jpg| by John Sun
Image:100629 cultural landscapes 10 Seite 10.jpg| by Damla Tas & Derya Yazgi

</gallery>

==Landscapes as a reflection of changing cultural processes==

=== Globalization ===

* Andreia V. Quintas: [[Historic Center of Porto: a landscape of transformation, Portugal]] /// [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/03_Student_Case_Studies/Portugal_Porto.pdf Presentation + Comparative Analysis]

=== Multiculturalism ===
* Yan Hu, Lei Li, Runzi Luo: [[Forbidden City, Beijing, China]] /// [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/03_Student_Case_Studies/China_Forbidden_City.pdf Presentation + Comparative Analysis]

=== Merging awareness to sustainability ===
* Isin Barut: [[Transformation of the Meles Delta, Izmir, under the eco-city concept]] /// [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/03_Student_Case_Studies/Turkey_Meles_Delta.pdf Presentation + Comparative Analysis]

=== Comparative Analyses: Landscapes as a reflection of changing cultural processes ===
<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:100629 cultural landscapes 10 Seite 16.jpg| by Andreia V. Quintas
Image:100629 cultural landscapes 10 Seite 20.jpg| by Yan Hu, Lei Li & Runzi Luo
Image:100629 cultural landscapes 10 Seite 21.jpg| by Yan Hu, Lei Li & Runzi Luo
Image:100629 cultural landscapes 10 Seite 25.jpg| by Isin Barut
</gallery>

==Technology as a driver of cultural landscape change==

=== International styles ===
* Jovana Kovacevic, Mirjana Jovanovic, Nada Jadzic :[[(re)Quest for the cultural landscape of Belgrade, Serbia]] /// [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/03_Student_Case_Studies/Serbia_Belgrade.pdf Presentation + Comparative Analysis]

=== Dissappearing vernacular styles ===
* ChengkangYe, YitingWei: [[Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China]]

=== Comparative Analyses: Technology as a driver of cultural landscape change ===
<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:100629 cultural landscapes 10 Seite 31.jpg|by Jovana Kovacevic, Mirjana Jovanovic & Nada Jadzic

</gallery>

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Comparative_analysis_yitingwei_changkangye.jpg|by Yiting Wei, Chengkang Ye

</gallery>

==Tutor's Kassel page==

=== A page to try and practice ===
* Nils Stanik: [[Some information and impressions from Kassel for all participants who haven't visted Kassel yet]]

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Seminar Outline]'''

File:Comparative analysis yitingwei changkangye.jpg

2010-07-06T10:14:54Z

Yiting Wei:

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-07-05T07:53:16Z

Yiting Wei: /* Analysis of use/users */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: under construction''
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

''The users:'' For thousand years, Wuzhen has been a town for local residants living, working, gathering, and have trading with the outside. The town was also used by merchants from outside who came to the town for trading.

''The change:'' Since inhabitants moved and tourists come, the users of the town became those tourists. Although some original inhabitans are hired and working in the town, they are indeed working for tourists.

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]
Wuzhen town, with numerous historical monuments and close-set ancient houses , has historic neighborhood buildings of about 16 million square meters. In 1999, on the basis of the construction of "Culture City" requirements, the local government launched the complete protection and development to the ancient town.
Afterwards, the Improvement Projects of East gate Scenic Area and the west gate Scenic Area were run .In different emphasis, the former focused on the protection of the heritage value and promotion of the historic town’s value of tourism, while the latter focused on the function of the issues in the preservation of residential patterns and function. With the project in progress, the ancient town is no longer a mere "tourist museum" to become a living community in complete function and perfect combination of modern and ancient life

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

Development of Wuzhen mode: With the respect for the history and culture, and the top priority of the protection, protection and tourism development combine with each other harmoniously in the Marketization way.

Protection of Wuzhen mode: In the protection of Wuzhen Town, government have provided an effective exploration in the development of the ancient town, using advanced management, launching efforts such as undergrounding the pipeline, dredging the channel, repairing the old objects as before, and controlling the excessive commercialization.

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

1.A balance between development and conservation: How to preserve the culture during development process? And what kind of development can be made to inspire the town's self-improving?

2.A definition of the vernacular landscape: Find out what identities exactly make the town's existing landscape, then appreciate and promote them.

3.An administration and management system: To provide leading and far-sighted guidance for the town's developement and renovation.

4.A fair use of public cultural and natural resources: To perfect the public participation system, which involving not only tourism-relating groups, but also local people or social associations. And keep a balance of economic benefit between inhabitants and other stakeholders.

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Wuzhen_Town_west_part.jpg | West part of Wuzhen Town. Source_http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_4.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_east_part.jpg‎ | East part of Wuzhen Town. Source_http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_3.htm
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* etc.

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* etc.

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-07-05T07:40:41Z

Yiting Wei: /* What research questions does it generate? */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: under construction''
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]
Wuzhen town, with numerous historical monuments and close-set ancient houses , has historic neighborhood buildings of about 16 million square meters. In 1999, on the basis of the construction of "Culture City" requirements, the local government launched the complete protection and development to the ancient town.
Afterwards, the Improvement Projects of East gate Scenic Area and the west gate Scenic Area were run .In different emphasis, the former focused on the protection of the heritage value and promotion of the historic town’s value of tourism, while the latter focused on the function of the issues in the preservation of residential patterns and function. With the project in progress, the ancient town is no longer a mere "tourist museum" to become a living community in complete function and perfect combination of modern and ancient life

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

Development of Wuzhen mode: With the respect for the history and culture, and the top priority of the protection, protection and tourism development combine with each other harmoniously in the Marketization way.

Protection of Wuzhen mode: In the protection of Wuzhen Town, government have provided an effective exploration in the development of the ancient town, using advanced management, launching efforts such as undergrounding the pipeline, dredging the channel, repairing the old objects as before, and controlling the excessive commercialization.

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

1.A balance between development and conservation: How to preserve the culture during development process? And what kind of development can be made to inspire the town's self-improving?

2.A definition of the vernacular landscape: Find out what identities exactly make the town's existing landscape, then appreciate and promote them.

3.An administration and management system: To provide leading and far-sighted guidance for the town's developement and renovation.

4.A fair use of public cultural and natural resources: To perfect the public participation system, which involving not only tourism-relating groups, but also local people or social associations. And keep a balance of economic benefit between inhabitants and other stakeholders.

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Wuzhen_Town_west_part.jpg | West part of Wuzhen Town. Source_http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_4.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_east_part.jpg‎ | East part of Wuzhen Town. Source_http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_3.htm
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* etc.

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* etc.

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-06-02T03:13:14Z

Yiting Wei: /* What can be generalized from this case study? */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: under construction''
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]
Wuzhen town, with numerous historical monuments and close-set ancient houses , has historic neighborhood buildings of about 16 million square meters. In 1999, on the basis of the construction of "Culture City" requirements, the local government launched the complete protection and development to the ancient town.
Afterwards, the Improvement Projects of East gate Scenic Area and the west gate Scenic Area were run .In different emphasis, the former focused on the protection of the heritage value and promotion of the historic town’s value of tourism, while the latter focused on the function of the issues in the preservation of residential patterns and function. With the project in progress, the ancient town is no longer a mere "tourist museum" to become a living community in complete function and perfect combination of modern and ancient life

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

Development of Wuzhen mode: With the respect for the history and culture, and the top priority of the protection, protection and tourism development combine with each other harmoniously in the Marketization way.

Protection of Wuzhen mode: In the protection of Wuzhen Town, government have provided an effective exploration in the development of the ancient town, using advanced management, launching efforts such as undergrounding the pipeline, dredging the channel, repairing the old objects as before, and controlling the excessive commercialization.

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Wuzhen_Town_west_part.jpg | West part of Wuzhen Town. Source_http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_4.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_east_part.jpg‎ | East part of Wuzhen Town. Source_http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_3.htm
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* etc.

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* etc.

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-06-02T03:11:31Z

Yiting Wei: /* Future development directions */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: under construction''
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]
Wuzhen town, with numerous historical monuments and close-set ancient houses , has historic neighborhood buildings of about 16 million square meters. In 1999, on the basis of the construction of "Culture City" requirements, the local government launched the complete protection and development to the ancient town.
Afterwards, the Improvement Projects of East gate Scenic Area and the west gate Scenic Area were run .In different emphasis, the former focused on the protection of the heritage value and promotion of the historic town’s value of tourism, while the latter focused on the function of the issues in the preservation of residential patterns and function. With the project in progress, the ancient town is no longer a mere "tourist museum" to become a living community in complete function and perfect combination of modern and ancient life

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Wuzhen_Town_west_part.jpg | West part of Wuzhen Town. Source_http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_4.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_east_part.jpg‎ | East part of Wuzhen Town. Source_http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_3.htm
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* etc.

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* etc.

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-06-01T14:51:28Z

Yiting Wei: /* Image Gallery */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: under construction''
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Wuzhen_Town_west_part.jpg | West part of Wuzhen Town. Source_http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_4.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_east_part.jpg‎ | East part of Wuzhen Town. Source_http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_3.htm
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* etc.

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* etc.

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-06-01T14:49:54Z

Yiting Wei: /* Image Gallery */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: under construction''
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:Wuzhen_Town_west_part.jpg | West part of Wuzhen Town. Source_http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_4.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_east_part.jpg‎ | East part of Wuzhen Town. Source_http://www.wuzhen.com.cn/jqjs/jqjs_yldt_3.htm
Image:Wuzhen_Town_by_night.jpg | Wuzhen Town by night.
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* etc.

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* etc.

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

File:Wuzhen Town east part.jpg

2010-06-01T14:26:03Z

Yiting Wei:

File:Wuzhen Town by night.jpg

2010-06-01T13:52:13Z

Yiting Wei:

File:Wuzhen Town west part.jpg

2010-06-01T13:50:20Z

Yiting Wei: West part of Wuzhen Town, the second phase of the whole program.

West part of Wuzhen Town, the second phase of the whole program.

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-06-01T13:40:17Z

Yiting Wei: /* Successes and limitations */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: under construction''
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

[[Image:Wuzhen_success_and_limitations.jpg]]

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* etc.

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* etc.

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

File:Wuzhen success and limitations.jpg

2010-06-01T13:37:33Z

Yiting Wei: uploaded a new version of "Image:Wuzhen success and limitations.jpg"

File:Wuzhen success and limitations.jpg

2010-06-01T13:34:16Z

Yiting Wei:

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-06-01T13:29:18Z

Yiting Wei:

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: under construction''
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 1 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* etc.

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* etc.

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-05-25T12:30:12Z

Yiting Wei: /* Peer reviews or critique */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: under construction''
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 10 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

*After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
*Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
*On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* etc.

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* etc.

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-05-25T12:29:15Z

Yiting Wei:

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''1999''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:2001. Second Phase: under construction''
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''First Phase:unknown. Second Phase: 10 billion''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

Please add references, quotes...

After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* etc.

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* etc.

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-05-25T12:24:08Z

Yiting Wei: /* Peer reviews or critique */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Student_Case_Studies_Seminar_Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Student Case Studies]'''

{| align="right" width="400pt" style="background:Gainsboro; color:black"

|-
| '''Name''' ||style="background:Lavender"|''Transformation of the historical town''
|-
| '''Place''' || style="background:Lavender"|''WuZhen''
|-
| '''Country''' || style="background:Lavender"|''China''
|-
| '''Author(s)''' || style="background:Lavender"|''Chengkang Ye, Yiting Wei''
|-
| '''Project start''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the date of the project start''
|-
| '''Completion''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the date of completion''
|-
| '''World Heritage''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the year of listing''
|-
| '''Client''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the client''
|-
| '''Project costs''' || style="background:Lavender"|''enter the costs (if known)''
|-
| colspan="3" align="center" style="background:silver"|

[[Image:Wuzhen.jpg|400px]]

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="30.768979" lon="120.486374" type="map" zoom="9" width="400" height="300" controls="small">30.734163, 120.495987The historical town of WUZHEN</googlemap>
|-
| ||style="background:Lavender"|
|-
|}

=== Rationale: Why is the case study interesting? ===
*''An experimental approach to preserving a historical town in East China.

Though the preservation of this traditional water town scenery was not only a simple desire to remain and improve a regional landscape, it was with an aspiration to achieve economic profits, the program did improve the visual scenery , and did help to raise the awareness of cultural landscape. By the mean time, problems produced by the whole program make us to rethink the planning method, e.g. the inadequate concern of the balance of inhabitants’ daily life and the tourism.
''

=== Author's perspective ===
*''What theoretical or professional perspective do you bring to the case study? Please make a short note on your personal background ''
We hope we can learn following issues from this case study: one of possible approaches to preserve a historical town; thinking about how to improve the function for this town, and at the same time, to preserve a traditonal view of the fansy street scape and the attractive building-street-river space.

=== Cultural landscape context ===
*''Biogeography, cultural features, overall landscape character, history and dynamics''

Biogeography:
The Wuzhen Town is in subtropical monsoon climate, and geologically lies on a alluvial plain, with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the west side of the town.

Cultural features:
Wuzhen presents a typical format of water-town citizen life, which involves vivid daily life in the streets, on the bridges, and with the boats and rivers.

Overall landscape:
As the key element, water organizes the highly featured local landscape system: interlaced rivers form the basic texture of an area landscape; and streets which are connected with rivers encourage unique commercial activities, inhabitation and transportation.

History and dynamics:
The name of the town “Wu” means a dark color, presenting the ooze produced by this alluvial plain.
The first civilization on this alluvial plan can be dated back to Neolithic age. During the long history of feudalism, the town of Wuzhen and QingZhen were separately governed. Until 1950, Wuzhen and QingZhen were merged as one town, using the name “Wuzhen Town”.
From 1999, Wuzhen Town has undergone a series of changes: repaired streets and houses, wandering visitors, newly occurred jobs inspired by tourism, and inhabitants moving outside. Now the town is still on its way to the transformation, hoping to be more attractive and less controversial in next process.
Wuzhen Town has been included by UNESCO in the reserve list of world cultural heritages, and in 2003, gained the “2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award”.

=== Socio-political context===
*''Brief explanation of political economy, legal framework''

Illustration:
Bullet points, image, background notes

Wuzhen Town is in the vigorous economic region of east china. However, before 1998,Wuzhen Town was still a declining and unknown town. Young people had left their hometown, with the town's old house in ruins. In the protection and development of this ancient town, there exist various problems, such as illegal structures, chaotic overhead line, indiscriminate discharge of sewage. Luckily, most of the ancient building and living facilities are maintained the antique style, as the cultural wealth of Wuzhen Town.

In 1998, the local authority of Wuzhen Town committed Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute to finish the “Preservation and Planning of Wuzhen Historical Town”. In the planning, it pointed out the general orientation of preserving program and tourism exploitation. According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

In 1999, after considerate research on the east part, “The First Phase of General Plan for Wuzhen Town” was issued, as well as detailed plans for improvement and rectification. In the same year, the protecting project of the east part started its way to implementation. The achievement of the first phase protection was obvious. It successfully preserved a historic view and precious legacy, and simultaneously brought vitality to Wuzhen Town’s economy. Though the success was quite remarkable, the area that the first phase of the program covered was only a quarter of the whole town. There were still needs to repair large amount of historic buildings, and to offer better service for tourists. So from 2003, Wuzhen Town had started the second phase of the protecting program, concentrating on the west part of the town, involving a billion investment.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Spatial analysis of area/project ===
*''What are the main structural features?''
*''How has it been shaped? Were there any critical decisions?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

Currently the cross of “十” shape by the East, West, South, North streets, constitute the pattern of adjacent land and water, parallel street of river ,with double chessboard style. And this successful experience has been called “Wuzhen mode”by the UNESCO.
With the Overall concept of “repairing the old by the old, and maintaining their character”, the master planning of Wuzhen Town, effectively preserve the architectural characteristics of southern Chinese riverside town and folk cultures , respect the history and cultural connotation.

=== Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective")===
* ''What are the main functional characteristics?''
* ''How have they been expressed or incorporated?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

According to the planning, the town should be compartmentalized by four protecting levels, ranging from regulatory protecting to absolute protecting, and thus brought different protecting measures. The result of the protecting program is an area of preserving zone and buffer zone covering 198 hectares.

=== Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") ===
* ''How was the area/project formulated and implemented?''
* ''Who initiated the project and why?''
* ''Which stakeholders have been involved?''
* ''Who made the major decisions and when?''
* ''Were there any important consultations/collaborations?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

In 1999, the planning was accomplished by Historic and Cultural City Institute of Tongji University . According to the planning, Wuzhen would have a series of preservation and repair projects in 3 to 5 years, divided in 3 periods. In the year 2001, the first phase was implemented, covering over 0.46 square kilometers. The first phase proved to be a huge attraction for tourists. Due to the success of previous projects, the second phase of the planning pursued a more perfect and deep planning for the west part of the town. Since the year 2003, the second phase has been under construction, involving 10 billion RMB, covering an area of 3 square kilometers.

It is the authority of Tongxiang City, which Wuzhen Town belonged to, that initiated the project. Two factors encouraged the idea of preservation and renewal. One is that the city authority hoped to be acknowledged in both economic and cultural dimension, so a renewal of the historic town became appropriate. The other factor came to the current situation of Wuzhen Town. Wuzhen had the worst performance in economy in all of 13 towns in Tongxiang city, however it was rather prosperous in the past. So the authority started to think about the possibility to stimulate local economy of Wuzhen by tourism. These two factors induced Wuzhen on its way to the significant project.

Skateholders:
*The city authority, who initiated the whole project.
*Administrative Committee of Wuzhen Town Preservation and Tourism, who was in charge of the whole planning program.
*Tourism corporations, who showed their interested investment items and provided their advice to planners according to their previous experience in tourism.
*Professional planners, who combined opinions from other skateholders and made the planning.
*The inhabitants were not well involved.

The public participation degree in this project was at low level.
Part of the original residents had to move from their old house to a new residential area out of the preservation area. Besides, residents are not allowed to run their own business in the town. Instead, if they want to earn profit from tourism, the only possible way is working for Tourism corporations. These rather aroused a controversy, but Wuzhen Town insisted.

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Analysis of use/users ===
* ''How is the area/project used and by whom?''
* ''Is the use changing? Are there any issues?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

=== Future development directions ===
* ''How is the area/project evolving?''
* ''Are there any future goals?''

Illustration: Map/diagram/sketches photos and background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Peer reviews or critique ===
* ''Has the area/project been reviewed by academic or professional reviewers?''
* ''What were their main evaluations? ''

Please add references, quotes...

After the first phase of the project finished, Wuzhen town started to welcome visitors, including professional reviewers in different academic fields, such as historical relic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture and tourism planning. It has also attracted UNESCO officials.
Many academic thesis and articles have viewed Wuzhen Town as a new model for historical town preservation and tourism development. In those articles, people acknowledged positive effects brought by a so-called “Wuzhen Mode”, which referred to a combination of government leadership and corporation involvement. This mode, unlike other development molds in other historical town in china, had successfully avoided Wuzhen being an exceedingly commercial place.
On the other hand, in this mode of Wuzhen, residents were seldom involved in the project, they were not allowed to run their own business,“which produced a suspicion of corporation monolopy”（''Mystery in Wuzhen Preservation,Sichuan Daily''). Besides, many of the inhabitants had to move out from the ancient town, where they and their ancestors had lived. The low degree of inhabitants involvement was and is a controversy in “Wuzhen mode”. Critiques said that the town without its residents is not a vividly living town, but only an imaginary beauty for visitors.

=== Successes and limitations ===
*''What do you see as the main successes and limitations of the area/project?''

Illustration: Summary table

=== What can be generalized from this case study? ===
*''Are there any important theoretical insights? ''

Short statement plus background notes

=== What research questions does it generate? ===

Short statement plus background notes

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== Image Gallery ===

<gallery caption=" " widths="200px" heights="150px" perrow="4">
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
Image:yourimage.jpg | your image text and source
</gallery>

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

=== References ===

* Author Year: Title, publisher, edition, page, ...
* etc.

* Website Year: Link, keyword, ...
* etc.

----

[[Category:Case Study]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:WuZhen]]

[[#toc|'''Back to top''']]

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-05-24T13:33:00Z

Yiting Wei: /* Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") */

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-05-24T13:31:43Z

Yiting Wei: /* Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") */

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-05-24T13:28:53Z

Yiting Wei: /* Analysis of design/planning process ("Process Biography") */

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-05-24T13:18:04Z

Yiting Wei: /* Analysis of idea/program/function ("Planning Objective") */

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-05-24T13:17:36Z

Yiting Wei: /* Spatial analysis of area/project */

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-05-24T13:17:06Z

Yiting Wei: /* Spatial analysis of area/project */

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-05-23T05:54:00Z

Yiting Wei: /* Socio-political context */

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-05-23T05:46:50Z

Yiting Wei: /* Author's perspective */

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-05-23T03:58:10Z

Yiting Wei: /* Socio-political context */

Transformation of the historical town of WuZhen, China

2010-05-23T03:57:00Z

Yiting Wei: /* Cultural landscape context */

Literature and Resources Cultural Landscapes 2010

2010-05-20T14:20:27Z

Yiting Wei: /* Landscapes as a reflection of changing cultural processes */

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Seminar Outline]'''

== Thematic fields according to the 2010 ECLAS conference "Cultural Landscapes" ==
[[Image:100410 cultural landscapes mind map.jpeg|thumb|1050px|Thematic map "Cultural Landscapes"|none]]

== Reading exercise ==

* Dear students, please choose your favourite article and write your name(s) behind it.
* Then create a concept map until '''Tuesday, May 11, 2010''', with one of the recommended programs (VUE, Cmap etc.) and make sure it has a suitable resolution for this WIKI and the contents are readible on the Vitero screen (Din A4 horizontal if possible).
* In addition, please copy the '''article details (author, moodle link, title)''' and paste it according to the given example and the respective '''ECLAS thematic field''' that you think might fit best.
* If your article relates to more than one theme, please copy the title also to any other thematic field.
* In a last step, you '''upload your concept map illustration (jpg)''' with an appropriate title to the WIKI and add it together with your name to your article (as shown in the example).

=== Example ===

*'''Author: ''[moodle link Title] Topos issue'''''
** Student name: [[Title - concept map]]

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Seminar Outline]'''

== Articles with concept maps according to the ECLAS themes ==

=== Cultural Landscapes: Education, research methods and approaches ===
''such as profession based education, multi-disciplinary education, interdisciplinary education etc.''

*'''Latz, Peter: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_33_2000/02_time_visible.pdf The idea of making time visible] Topos 33/2000'''''
** Roya Sabri: [[The idea of making time visible - concept map]]

=== Responses of cultural landscapes to changing natural processes ===
''such as climate change, re-colonization of abandoned lands, impact of emerging need for sustainability etc.''

*'''Latz, Peter: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_33_2000/02_time_visible.pdf The idea of making time visible] Topos 33/2000'''''
** Roya Sabri: [[The idea of making time visible - concept map]]

*'''Yu, Kongjian: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_56_2006/14_china.pdf Positioning Contemporary Landscape Architecture in China] Topos 56/2006'''''
** Hua Shu,Lu Sun,Ya Li: [[Landscape Architecture in China - concept map]]

*'''Shannon, Kelly: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_56_2006/09_drosscape.pdf Drosscape ] Topos 56/2006'''''
** Ieva Kiesnere: [[Drosscape - concept map]]

=== Landscapes as a reflection of changing cultural processes ===
''such as globalization, multiculturalism, emerging awareness to sustainability, etc.''

*'''Playdon, Dennis: ''[http://www.topos.de/media/Heftthema/c9811c28_Acoma.pdf Acoma - A Landscape of Settlement] Topos 56/2006'''''
** Jovana Kovacevic: [[Concept map Acoma - Landscape of Settlement.jpg]]

*'''Ruff, Stefanie and Dong, Nannan: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_58_2007/03_shanghai02.pdf Managing Urban Growth in Shanghai] Topos 58/2007'''''
** Runzi Luo: [[Managing Urban Growth in Shanghai - concept map]]

*'''Briand, Gilles and Mousquet, François-Xavier: ''[http://www.topos.de/media/Heftthema/d26ec62d_Basin.pdf Reversing the Image of a Coal Basin] Topos 56/2006'''''
** Andreia V. Quintas [[Reversing Image Coal Basin - Conceptual Map.jpg]]

*'''van Oers, Ron: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?inpopup=true&id=1481 Safeguarding the Historic Urban Landscape]'''Topos 58/2007'''''
** Mirjana Jovanovic, Nada Jadzic [[Safeguarding urban historic landcape - concept map.jpg]]

*'''Schwarze-Rodrian, Michael: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_26_1999/06_iba_emscher_park.pdf Intercommunal co-operation in the Emscher Landscape Park]Topos 26/1999'''''
**Isin Barut [[Emscher_Landscape_Park_concept_map.jpg]]

*'''Kögel, Eduard: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_58_2007/02_shanghai01.pdf Metropolitan Region Shanghai] Topos 58/2007'''''
** Yan Hu and Lei li [[Metropolitan Region Shanghai - concept map]]

*'''Lindke, Lybra:'' [http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_58_2007/08_chicago01.pdf Chicago's Green Strategies] '''Topos 58/2007'''''
** Derya Yazgi,Damla Tas [[Concept Map.jpg]]

*'''Poblotzki, Ursula: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_26_1999/05_iba_emscher_park.pdf Transformation of a landscape] Topos 26/1999'''''
** Chengkang Ye and Yiting Wei[[Transformation of a landscape concept map.jpg]]

=== Technology as a driver of cultural landscape change ===
''such as international styles, disappearing vernacular styles as a result of increased visual images through internet as well as advanced technology to enable new construction methods and techniques and capability to use new materials or recycled materials, etc.''

*'''Latz, Peter: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_33_2000/02_time_visible.pdf The idea of making time visible] Topos 33/2000'''''
** Roya Sabri: [[The idea of making time visible - concept map]]

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Seminar Outline]'''

== Articles for reading exercise ==

=== '''Topos 26/1999 ''IBA - a renewal concept for a region ''''' ===

''The focus of Topos 26 is on one region in one country: the Emscher region in North Rhine-Westphalia, a part of the Ruhr district. Once the industrial heart of Europe, the site of ruthless industrialization, it had overslept structural change. Now it is the home of the IBA (International Building Exhibition) Emscher Park.

*'''Schäfer, Robert: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_26_1999/01_iba_emscher_park.pdf Emscher Park Building Exhibition: a motor of structural change]''''' In 1999, the IBA presents the outcome of projects and plans concerned with the regeneration of an old industrial region.

*'''Pehnt, Wolfgang: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_26_1999/02_iba_emscher_park.pdf Changes have to take place in people's heads first]''''' The IBA Emscher Park has provided the Ruhr with a new identity and opened up new paths, both in the outside world and in people's minds.

*'''Dettmar, Jörg: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_26_1999/04_iba_emscher_park.pdf Wilderness or park?]''''' The Leftover Land Project taking place as part of the Emscher Park IBA introduces the concept of "industrial nature".

*'''Poblotzki, Ursula: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_26_1999/05_iba_emscher_park.pdf Transformation of a landscape]''''' The Ruhr is witnessing the application of urban green planning principles to a whole region as a motor of structural change.('''Yiting Wei,Chengkang Ye''')

*'''Schwarze-Rodrian, Michael: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_26_1999/06_iba_emscher_park.pdf Intercommunal co-operation in the Emscher Landscape Park]''''' The new regional park in the Ruhr area could only have been planned and built by going across all borders. A concept and its strategies. '''(Isin Barut)'''

*'''Weilacher, Udo: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_26_1999/07_iba_emscher_park.pdf Rusty-brown and Phacelia blue – landmark art by the IBA]''''' Mountains, rivers, churches or castles often lend character to landscapes. In the Ruhr, artistic landmarks help perform this role.

*'''Diedrich, Lisa: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_26_1999/08_iba_emscher_park.pdf No politics, no park: the Duisburg-Nord model]''''' The Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park exemplifies the close co-operation between IBA managers and designers.

*'''Wachten, Kunibert: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_26_1999/11_iba_emscher_park.pdf Housing developments in integrated sites]''''' The revived culture of the Ruhr area housing estates features new construction with moderate densities and makes use of historic capital.

=== '''Topos 33/2000 ''Intention and Reality''''' ===

''The urban future will be happening in the periphery because the core is usually occupied by history. Only Berlin had the unique opportunity to build the future right in the centre of town.''

*'''Isman, Fabio: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_33_2000/01_cultural_assets.pdf Landscape as cultural assets]''''' Half of Italy is protected from development, yet the danger of famous landscapes being covered up with concrete still remains.

*'''Latz, Peter: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_33_2000/02_time_visible.pdf The idea of making time visible]''''' Landscape architecture shows ecology as art that realises abstract ideas interpreting spatial patterns. '''(Roya Sabri)'''

=== '''Topos 44/2003 ''Conversion''''' ===

''Perforations, shrinkage, intermediate city – we know the terms for these processes but are not so sure about solutions for the problems caused by this landscape change. In any case, landscape is always involved.''

*'''Christiaanse, Kees: ''[http://www.topos.de/media/Heftthema/b6eea36d_H__fen.pdf New urbanism in former harbours] ''''' Colourful archipelago districts are appearing in harbour areas. Radically mixed uses provide an example for the whole city. '''(Koesler Barbara, Kazubski Sebastian)'''

*'''Leppert, Stefan: ''[http://www.topos.de/media/Heftthema/fb572c9b_Westpark.pdf Westpark Bochum, Germany]''''' Mainly involving provision of access to existing elements, the concept for the park at a former steelworks is a simple one.

*'''Weilacher, Udo and Dettmar, Jörg: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_44_2003/01_process.pdf Landscape as a process]''''' The city is wherever an urban lifestyle is. That means it is almost everywhere. What role does that give landscape?

*'''Prominski, Martin: ''[http://www.topos.de/media/Heftthema/bb305df8_Surplus.pdf Surplus land - Perspectives for the cultural landscape]''''' Farmers are going; new settlers are coming. Students at TU Berlin developed ideas for a different land use.

=== '''Topos 53/2005 ''Traffic''''' ===

''Bridges, roads, airports, boulevards, bicycle paths or railway tracks ? the range of traffic structures that should not only be well planned but also attractively designed in the context of their urban or rural surroundings is very broad.''

*'''Pachnicke, Peter: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_53_2005/01_ruhr_area.pdf The Bridge Landscape of Emscher Park]''''' Rehabilitating the River Emscher, misused as a wastewater canal, forms the foundation for redesigning the industrial landscape in the Ruhr district. The artistic bridges in the network of hiking and cycling trails are symbols of the new landscape.

*'''Suwanarit, Asan: ''[http://www.topos.de/media/Heftthema/c12884f6_Bangkok.pdf The Skytrain in Bangkok]''''' The enormous elevated structure of the Bangkok Transit System, commonly known as the Skytrain, has radically changed the means of experiencing passing through the heart of Bangkok's downtown. Today, this structure is continuing its transformation as a complex dynamic across this metropolitan landscape.

*'''Becker, Carlo W.: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_53_2005/02_leipzig.pdf Across the Periphery – Leipzig North]''''' In response to the strong transformation processes of past decades, the City of Leipzig commissioned a spatial concept for its periphery. bgmr Landscape Architects developed an urban cultural landscape.

*'''Detzlhofer, Anna: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_53_2005/03_vienna.pdf Landscape Becomes Established]''''' Large-scale modelling of the terrain integrates a new motorway on the south periphery of Vienna with the landscape. Geometrically shaped landmarks facilitate orientation for drivers and local residents.

=== '''Topos 56/2006 ''Cultural Landscapes''''' ===

''All over the world, the economic activities of mankind leave their mark on the landscape. Depending on land use, topography and climate, cultural landscapes differ greatly. Besides covering the preservation and rehabilitation of particular cultural landscapes, this issue of Topos focuses mainly on the transformations of landscapes and the challenges for planners involved. Examples range from an Italian wind farm to Bangkok's aquacultural landscape.''

*'''Moderini, Daniela and Selano, Giovanni: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_56_2006/01_windscapes.pdf Windscapes]''''' The experimental wind farms of San Chirico and Spina combine renewable energy and information technologies with the region's distinguished culture to create an innovative strategy for communicating the landscape's inherent complexity. '''(Lukas Spriestersbach)'''

*'''Briand, Gilles and Mousquet, François-Xavier: ''[http://www.topos.de/media/Heftthema/d26ec62d_Basin.pdf Reversing the Image of a Coal Basin]''''' Long regarded as a serious handicap, the coal basin's brownfield sites in the French Nord Pas de Calais region, heritage of a glorious industrial past, constitute an experimental laboratory for the regeneration of derelict post-industrial land. '''(Andreia V. Quintas)'''

*'''Bokern, Anneke: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_56_2006/03_westergasfabriek.pdf Westergasfabriek Cultural Park]''''' The interim cultural uses of the former gasworks in Amsterdam led to converting the grounds into a "cultural park". The design intends to demonstrate transformations in the relationship between humans and nature over the last century.

*'''McGrath, Brian and Thaitakoo, Danai: ''[http://www.topos.de/media/Heftthema/f2dd7b91_Agri.pdf Bangkok`s Agri- and Aquacultural Fringe]''''' Bangkok's contemporary transportation system reflects ancient layers of waterborne urbanism overlaid with a modern automobile-driven metropolis. Between these conditions, a fresh opportunity arises to re-assess the composite cultural landscape for future bio-energy production.

*'''Dailami, Ahmed and Doherty, Gareth: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_56_2006/05_bahrain.pdf Cultural Continuums in Bahrain]''''' Bahrain is experiencing a tumultuous period of restructuring and expansion with an architectural language rooted in a silently salient binary of traditional versus contemporary. Transition and change are not new to Bahrain, having formed an assortment of landscapes that speak of a far more varied and complex place.

*'''Akerlund, Ulrika : ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_56_2006/06_russian_country.pdf Russian Coutnry Estates]''''' Primarily a country base for the bourgeois, the usadba had a significant social role in pre-revolutionary Russia. Although many are now in ruins, and the needs and structure of society have changed, the agency of the usadba as a cultural hub and focus for rural communities is being rediscovered.

*'''O'Donnell, Patricia M.: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_56_2006/07_designed_landscapes.pdf Preserving Designed Cultural Landscapes]''''' There is a broad legacy of cultural landscapes as designed, evolved, relic and associative properties in the USA. While cultural landscapes of all types hold interest for the planning professions, understanding the designed landscape and intervening to further its preservation is most readily taken up by design professionals.

*'''Playdon, Dennis: ''[http://www.topos.de/media/Heftthema/c9811c28_Acoma.pdf Acoma - A Landscape of Settlement]''''' There is a broad legacy of cultural landscapes as designed, evolved, relic and associative properties in the USA. While cultural landscapes of all types hold interest for the planning professions, understanding the designed landscape and intervening to further its preservation is most readily taken up by design professionals.'''(Jovana Kovacevic)'''

*'''Shannon, Kelly: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_56_2006/09_drosscape.pdf Drosscape]''''' New landscapes are continuously created while others are destroyed. The cultural landscapes of the 21st century include the globe's vast post-industrial landscapes, and territories simply consumed by sprawling development. '''(Ieva Kiesnere)'''

*'''Krebs, Stefanie: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_56_2006/10_land_art.pdf Art and Landscape]''''' Artscape Nordland presents 33 works of art in the Norwegian fjord landscape. Different positions on art and landscape range from staging elementary forces and creating spaces for social interaction to re-romanticization and the sublime.

*'''Schmitz, Martin: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_56_2006/11_lucius_burckhardt.pdf The Strollology of Lucius Burckhardt]''''' The political economist, sociologist, art historian and planning theorist Lucius Burckhardt founded "strollology" in the 1980s at the University of Kassel, Germany. It deals with human perception and its feedback into planning and building.

*'''Ranatunga, Priyanka: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_56_2006/12_tsunami.pdf Cultural Landscape and Tsunami Resettlement]''''' Following the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka, landscape architects re-interpreted ancient human settlement patterns in order to re-locate affected peoples into culturally and ecological sensitive communities.

*'''Adams, Ann: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_56_2006/13_holistic_landscape.pdf Dimbangombe Project – A Holistic Landscape Approach]''''' Over the past decade there has been increasing interest in natural capitalism and a holistic approach to resource management. The Dimbangombe Project in Zimbabwe focuses on creating a healthy landscape.

*'''Yu, Kongjian: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_56_2006/14_china.pdf Positioning Contemporary Landscape Architecture in China]''''' In an era of multiple unprecedented challenges imposed by the processes of industrialization and urbanization, landscape architecture is now on the verge of change in China. It is time for this profession to take the great opportunity to position itself to play the key role in rebuilding the Land of Peach Blossoms for a new society of urbanized, globalized and inter-connected people. '''(Hua Shu,Lu Sun,Ya Li)'''

=== '''Topos 58/2007 ''City Strategies''''' ===

''Cities are responsible for accommodating most of the world population. Cities grow; big ones get even bigger; new satellite towns are supposed to ease the strain on city centres. Urban planners therefore face major tasks in creating liveable urban environments for millions of people. Topos presents examples of urban design strategies, in Sydney, Shanghai, Dubai, London, Madrid, Chicago, Vancouver and Bogotá.''

*'''Hawken, Scott: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_58_2007/01_sydney.pdf Sydney – City of Landscapes]''''' Since the 2000 Olympics, and in light of an ongoing explosion in population, the need for a drastic overhaul of Sydney's urban system has become clear. A series of new landscape projects provide physical models that respond to diverse planning challenges.

*'''Kögel, Eduard: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_58_2007/02_shanghai01.pdf Metropolitan Region Shanghai]''''' The town planning history of Shanghai has taken many turns with political change in the past century. A consistent planning strategy could not be implemented until the 1990s when development really took off. The achievements will be presented to an international audience at the World Expo 2010. '''(Yan Hu, Lei li)'''

*'''Ruff, Stefanie and Dong, Nannan: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_58_2007/03_shanghai02.pdf Managing Urban Growth in Shanghai]''''' The targeted urbanisation of Shanghai's suburbs leads to a decentralized growth that forms a polycentric regional network. New Towns take various Western urban developments as their models.'''(John Sun)''' '''(Runzi Luo)'''

*'''Woodman, Ellis: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_58_2007/04_london.pdf Livingstone's London]''''' Mayor Ken Livingstone has already had considerable impact on London's built environment, but in the coming years his policies are set to transform the city to an unprecedented degree.

*'''Ng, Waikeen and Vegara, Alfonso: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_58_2007/05_madrid.pdf Spain's Growing Capital City]''''' Large infrastructure projects represent a major step forward for Madrid's transport planning, preparing the city for the future – and the next Olympic bid.

*'''Davis, Mike : ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_58_2007/06_dubai.pdf Fear and Money in Dubai]''''' Some may consider Dubai the prototype of the 21st century metropolis. Mike Davis describes the luxury urban enclave as the apotheosis of neo-liberalism. Petrodollars are invested in fantasy worlds and architectural landmarks to establish the city as a brand on the world market.

*'''Burger, Don, Roehr, Daniel and Soules, Matthew: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_58_2007/07_vancouver.pdf Mirage Metropolis]''''' Vancouver has become such a global model for urbanism that Vancouverism refers to the twin ideals of increased residential density and liveability in the city core. The article critically reflects on this approach which, despite its many failings, nevertheless creates new possibilities for landscape.

*'''Lindke, Lybra: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_58_2007/08_chicago01.pdf Chicago's Green Strategies]''''' Long since considered an industrial and economic workhorse within the United States, Chicago's approach to redefining its greenscape has changed its reputation from a city laden with underutilized and vacant manufacturing and industrial sites to a city striving to become a model for comprehensive green urbanism. '''(Derya Yazgi-Damla Tas)'''

*'''Chappell, Jim: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_58_2007/09_chicago02.pdf Chicago Central Area Plan]''''' Subtitled "Preparing the Central City for the 21st Century", the Chicago Central Area Plan is nothing less than the next step in Chicago's hundred-year quest to build the world's greatest city, and build it according to a plan.

*'''Fajardo, Martha Cecilia and Kawashima, Noboru: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/file.php/75/Topos_58_2007/10_bogota.pdf Bogotá Transformations]''''' Implementation of a series of masterplans in recent years has turned Bogotá from a chaotic, unsafe city into a capital with a progressive transport system, public parks, pedestrian and cycle networks.

*'''van Oers, Ron: ''[http://moodle.hfwu.de/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?inpopup=true&id=1481 Safeguarding the Historic Urban Landscape]''''' More and more historic cities adopt strategies and policies that assign an important role to heritage in the city's social and economic development. A well-managed historic urban landscape is a strong competitive tool as it attracts not only tourists, but capital and residents as well. It is essential to establish an active partnership between conservation and development. ('''Mirjana Jovanovic''', '''Nada Jadzic''')

'''[http://draco.hfwu.de/~wikienfk5/index.php/Cultural_Landscapes_2010 Back to Seminar Outline]'''