2009—Establish "Stilt-House-Style Modern Architecture" as the City's Main Architectural Style to Rapidly Elevate Its Image (Part 1)
Establish "stilt-house-style modern architecture" as the city's main architectural style to rapidly elevate its image. 1. Establishing it as the main architectural style is a key measure in guiding urban construction with the Scientific Outlook on Development. Urban architecture is a city's face and the main content of its visual image. People's...
This article has been compiled from historical materials in the "Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Network" (33519.com · City Overview section). Some administrative divisions, population, socioeconomic data, and policy information may be outdated and are for reference only; for the latest situation, please refer to official releases by the local government and scenic areas.
Establishing 'Stilted-House-Style Modern Architecture' as the Main Architectural Style of the City to Achieve Rapid Enhancement of the City's Image
I. Establishing 'stilted-house-style modern architecture' as the main architectural style of the city is a key measure for applying the scientific development concept to guide urban construction.
Urban architecture is a city's face and the main content of a city's visual image. People's impressions of the individuality of different cities are often formed through distinctive urban architectural images. The central urban area of Zhangjiajie was originally a small mountain county town 20 years ago, with a low starting point; coupled with the influence of the 'a thousand cities with one face' phenomenon in today's Chinese cities, its urban buildings are mostly matchboxes with facing tiles. During Premier Zhu Rongji's inspection visit to Zhangjiajie in 2001, he criticized Zhangjiajie's urban buildings as 'like sheep droppings' and 'lacking craftsmanship.' In 2007, Provincial Party Secretary Zhang Chunxian pointed out at the Zhangjiajie World Tourism Quality Products Construction Situation Report Meeting: 'There are indeed still many constraining factors in urban construction that cannot meet the needs of building world tourism quality products. For example, the planning starting point is not high; construction is rather chaotic and uncoordinated... the city lacks a distinctive main tone.' He also provided guiding opinions on the main tone and main color tone of Zhangjiajie's urban architecture. He said, 'It can probably be reflected in two ways: first, Tujia symbols, such as stilted houses; second, the main color tone of Tujia residential buildings, such as gray tiles and white walls. Both aspects are worth studying, and once determined, the whole city should be unified. After re-planning the city, the basic tone of the city should be set, so that when tourists come, they can feel the soul of this city. A city must have a soul and must have distinctive features.'
Since the shift of work focus toward the city, the municipal Party committee and municipal government have done a great deal of fruitful work on how to build the central urban area well. In October 2007, Municipal Party Secretary Hu Bojun explicitly proposed in his signed article 'Deeply Study and Implement the Spirit of the 17th Party Congress, Solidly Advance the Construction of World Tourism Quality Products and the Building of a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects' to 'strive to enhance local ethnic cultural characteristics' and 'strive to enhance cultural soft power' in order to 'achieve rapid enhancement of the city's image.' Mayor Zhao Xiaoming also proposed in this year's government work report to 'highlight the unique ecological environment and cultural traits.' These views, commanding from a high vantage point, are undoubtedly important strategies for applying the scientific development concept to guide our city's urban construction and world tourism quality products construction, with strong strategic significance. As is well known, the urgent task for Zhangjiajie's tourism upgrading is to mobilize the entire city's efforts to build the central urban area well, in order to resolve the contradiction of the large disparity between the urban area and the scenic area. But without the participation of 'culture with Zhangjiajie characteristics and traits,' it can be asserted that it will be difficult to achieve the expected goals. The reason is simple: competition between cities is ultimately cultural competition, and the key to cultural competitiveness lies in highlighting a city's cultural individuality, characteristics, and traits. And architecture is the basic element and main carrier for highlighting a city's cultural individuality, characteristics, and traits. Lijiang in Yunnan, Pingyao in Shanxi, and Fenghuang in our own province—in terms of urban infrastructure and basic functions, they certainly have a considerable gap compared to developed cities, yet they are well-known tourism destinations. The reason, first and foremost, is that their architectural features are pleasing to tourists.
Zhangjiajie's urban construction, not to mention being unable to compare with developed cities at home and abroad right now, will take many years just to catch up with Changde, which is close at hand. Moreover, even if it takes many years and great effort to catch up, if what is built is still one high-rise after another that can be found in any city, then it will still be difficult to achieve the original intention of building world tourism quality products and an international tourism city. Too many examples tell people that relying solely on modern high-rises with a thousand cities and one face makes it very difficult to achieve urban tourism and become a tourism destination. Just as Huangshan highlights Huizhou-style architecture, Jiuzhaigou highlights Tibetan-Qiang architecture, Dali highlights the Bai people's 'three rooms and one screen wall,' and Inner Mongolia highlights the yurt style, and just as many beautiful small cities in Europe with red tiles and white walls, Zhangjiajie can only blaze a new trail by establishing the modern architecture of Tujia stilted houses as the main tone of urban architecture, thereby highlighting individuality and characteristics, in order to hope to surpass others and make people sit up and take notice.
In response to the situation where commercial behavior in real estate development gradually leads to the disappearance of regional characteristics and the 'great unity of all under heaven' in urban architecture, the thematic report of the 1999 June International Architects' Congress proposed the view that 'the 21st century should promote the revival of regional cultural spirit,' emphasizing that architectural form depends more on the characteristics of the locality, 'creating architecture with regional form rather than product form.' The Beijing Charter adopted by the congress predicted: 'The regionalization of modern architecture and the modernization of vernacular architecture will converge by different routes to the same destination.' Highlighting and showcasing the Tujia stilted-house style is highlighting the characteristics of the locality where our city is situated, and is the concrete embodiment of 'the regionalization of modern architecture and the modernization of vernacular architecture will converge by different routes to the same destination.' The Tujia stilted house, as Zhangjiajie's most distinctive local ethnic architectural culture, can connect with urban construction in the new era and serve a great purpose for Zhangjiajie's distinctive city construction—this is truly a matter of destiny. Because this is precisely the need for 'building a tourism city oriented toward the international community' (in the words of Provincial Party Secretary Zhang Chunxian), the need for 'rapidly enhancing the city's image' (in the words of Municipal Party Secretary Hu Bojun), and the need for 'highlighting the unique ecological environment and cultural traits' (in the words of Mayor Zhao Xiaoming).
In this sense, we have sufficient reason to affirm and commend the currently ongoing 'Four Roads Renovation Dressing-Up Project.' First, as a government action, it demonstrates a stance and orientation: our city's architectural style will choose the path of localized and ethnicized individuality and characteristics. In fact, as long as one is not prejudiced, one will find that in the 'dressing up,' wherever local stilted-house element symbols have been successfully applied, the results are as beautiful as can be, incomparable to the original 'matchboxes.' Second, the practice of the 'dressing up' project shows that it will not only become the highlight of our city's 'visible changes in three years, great transformation in five years,' but has also accumulated extremely valuable experience in experimenting and exploring the application of stilted-house style element symbols in urban architecture. The combination of stilted-house element symbols with modern architectural methods is, in essence, the concrete embodiment in the field of urban architecture of the important urban construction strategy of 'striving to enhance local ethnic cultural characteristics, striving to enhance cultural soft power to rapidly enhance the city's image' and 'highlighting the unique ecological environment and cultural traits.' It can be said thus: if this move regarding the tone of urban architectural appearance is made well, the entire chess game of central urban area construction is won; if urban architectural appearance still follows the old path of a thousand cities with one face, it can be asserted that the result will be 'sowing dragon seeds and harvesting fleas.' Therefore, saying that establishing 'stilted-house-style modern architecture' as the main architectural style of the city is a major key measure for applying the scientific development concept to guide urban construction is not an exaggeration at all.