SUMMARY
This article is aimed to describe the issues of historic preservation and ethnic community redevelopment with the case of the Drum-Tower Muslim quarter. Special attentions are paid on how the local residents preserve and re-develop their own traditional houses by ways of people's participation and self-construction. It is crucial importantly, I believe, for us to learn through the case that local people is the last one to decide what are the genuine heritage from the past and how to preserve and, even more important, to refunction them. What they did and doing in this quarter are parts of the work to preserve the city's cultural heritage as a whole.
Modernization continues to be a major concern in virtually all parts of China. Since the 1970's, its form has shown sings of great change in all aspects of the society. It is evident that the urbanization has brought China's cities a significant development and, at the same time, a lot of problems, such as the crucial contradiction between development and preservation. To exchange ideas and find ways to recognize and solve these problems may be the main purpose of the seminar.
1, The Main Points of Study
The following points are what I feel important in the study of the subject:
A, What is urban ethnic community, how it formed, and how it maintains its cultural identity in today's rapid urbanization?
B, In the historical section of the city, how to balance the task of preservation and the needs of development?
C, What is the role the residents played in the above processes?
D, What is the meaning, if it has any, of the Xi'an case for other historic cities and historic parts of the cities?
All the above, I believe, are related directly to the key issue of the urban transition from the tradition to the modern, and of the socio-cultural and economical system transformation of the society. It seems that ours is a time of change, thus not only China, but most of Asian countries are facing a heavy task of development. Therefore, it makes us have to find ways to reach for a better future.
It seems that in Xi'an Drum-Tower Muslim Quarter, an new urbanism which has been created by the residents themselves appears in front of us. In corresponding to a changing society, the Hui people at there, a group of the biggest Muslim minority of China, have started to redevelopment their private houses for many years in Xi'an city. I think that what they did / doing have a great value for us to learn from if we, as professionals, want to understand deeply how the common people thinking about and need from the cultural heritage they possessed, and what they want from the changing of the society. This is because that a better living environment can only be created under the support by residents. The development of Xi'an Drum-Tower Muslim Quarter shows us a truth that, it is the common people, but not officers or developers, have the last word in deciding what is true or false, useful or useless for their society, as well as for their cultural heritage.
2, The Socio-Cultural Background:
Xi'an is an ancient city more than 3000 years old. During the history it was capital of thirteen dynasties, including great West Zhou (11th cent-771 B. C), Qin (221 - 206 B. C), West Han (206 B. C-25), Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) Dynasties.
The city is the starting point of the famous Silk Road that initiated as early as the beginning of the West Han Dynasty and opened China to the outside world. Through the Silk Road China gotten not only the Buddhism, but also the Islam and many other cultural fruits.
From the West Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, Xi'an(then called Chang'an, meaning 'city of long peace') became one of the major international cultural and commercial exchanging centers in China. Many traders and students came here from West and Central Asian countries, Korean, Japan and other places to make business or study. Some of they then married with Chinese and been localized.
From the Mongols Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), the Silk Road became an internal East-West highway of the grand Mongol Empire, and hundreds of thousands Muslim people from West and Central Asia were driven into China, most of them permanently lived in China after the Dynasty. They believed to be the ancestor of the late Hui ethnic minority, which is now the largest one of the ten Chinese Muslim minorities with 8.6 million populations.
Xi'an is one of the most important historic settlements for the Hui people. In the Tang time, there are special quarters within the Chang'an city for those who come from the foreign countries, and it is believed that some of them are Muslims. At the last days of the Tang, Chang'an was destroyed heavily by wars, and then it became a provincial city. The area of the present Xi'an city was once the royal city of the Tang, and it is after the end of the Dynasty a general named Han Jian established a new town based upon the formal royal city, and then the common people can move into the new town.
The Drum-Tower Muslim quarter was originally established between the 11th and 12th century. A stela in the Daxuexi Xiang Mosque gives us the earliest historic record about the Muslim quarter: '... The Western religion (meaning Islam) came into China during the Tang Dynasty. The believers followed it devotedly and carefully, and in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) they built the Qinxiu mosque (now called the Great Mosque) at the northwest side of the Drum Tower...'. Since then seven mosques were established in the area before this century. Around them the Huis settled mainly within thirteen Jiefangs (meaning street-blocks). The term "seven mosques and thirteen blocks" were a popular saying in the Hui's society to describe the territory of the community. Today there are totally sixteen mosques and 50,000 Hui residents in the city, and ten of these mosques are in this quarter, the newest of which was built up in 1994.
As one of the most important traditional residential areas of Xi'an, the Drum-Tower Muslim Quarter is located at the west part of the inner (walled) city. There are 20,000 Hui Muslims live in the area large as 68 ha.. Together with 36,500 Han majorities (according to 1994 statistics). Although within the quarter the Hui people represent only 33.93% of the total population, they play an important part in the social, cultural and economic activities. Among them 90% have private houses, many of which are now under change rapidly because of the economic boom of the area and the city.
3, Features and Problems
This quarter is such an ethnic neighborhood that it is characterized by following major features:
- A multi-culture urban quarter. In the Muslim quarter there lives both the Han majority and the Hui people, and the Han's Tao temples and Buddhist temples co-existed with the Hui's mosques. Today we can see Taoism is still active in the area. Therefore, a bilateral cultural exchange benefited both the Hui and the Han residents to keep them understanding from each other. A series resident's investigation since 1989 shows that more than 80% of the Huis hope to keep their living style and stay within the area continuously with their Han neighbors.
- A special traditional quarter preserved by the government. In the last 18 years, more and more traditional quarters of the city have been demolished and replaced by the new concrete or brick multistory blocks. To preserve the cultural heritage of the city, a new master plan (1995-2010) was issued in 1995 on which part of the Muslim quarter becomes one of two "traditional dwelling preservation area" of the city.
- The area which under rapid commercialization. The Hui people are traditionally fond of making business. In the past, many of them are peddling on the streets, and very few fixed shop can be found within the area. Encouraged by the state's economic reform policies since 1978, specially due to the re-open of the Great Mosque from 1986, more and more streets are commercialized during the last decade because of the tourist boom. Today, the Muslim area has been transformed intensively from pure residential to the mixture of residential and condensed business. By the end of 1994, there are more than 670 shops and restaurants within the area, and around 80% of them are of the Muslims. There are 843 families doing various kinds of private business. The Muslim quarter, as it said, has become 'a dinning room of the city,' because that its delicious ethnic food serves not only the local people but also the tourists as well.
- Housing regeneration by way of self-construction. There are totally 6900 Hui households live within about 1200 traditional courtyard houses. With rapid economic development, many traditional timber-structure courtyard houses have been re-developed to be the brick and concrete structured block houses by residents themselves.
There also exist some major problems during the process of self-construction. Of them the most important one is the housing property dividing due to the change of family structure. According to the governments of the two sub-districts, Beiyuanmen and Miaohoujie, where most Huis are concentrated, since 1990 there are 150 - 200 new houses built each year in average, which is about two times more than that during the 1980's. During the process, traditional courtyard houses for the compound families or the relative families are separated into pieces. Instead, small houses are the aim for the nuclear families to seek for.
This is the process of a pattern shift. Once integrated, one-family-owned courtyard houses are splitting by different families. A serial interview shows that, of all the case the newly built houses, few still kept the original courtyard as public space. People are prefer to have a private open space instead of sharing it With others, even the former is very small.
There are deferent ways for housing redevelopment:
a. Dividing the housing property and rebuilding the new ones coodinatively. The families who sharing one courtyard house divide the property equally, and then re-arrange the space and re-build the new houses together.
b. Dividing the property and renewing the house separately. Each family within the old courtyard house shares one piece of the plot and builds the new house upon it according to the family's need and capacity without discussion with neighbors. The property dividing is based on the present situation of land and space occupation, so there exists quite a lot of contradictions among the related families because some of them think that the property dividing is unjust.
c. Dividing the property of a traditional courtyard house but maintaining the present situation without obvious change. This situation is suitable for those families have enough space to use or lack of fund to renew the building. Each family simply identifies its own property and uses it as it was.
It is clearly that for the families with larger numbers the first is the best way to renew their houses. There are many cases showing that after renewal by this way a good relationship is still kept among them. While in the cases of the category b, quarreling and conflicting are common among the relative families. According to the local police offices, in 1991 more than 70% of the cases they dealt with arc due to the property dividing among these families.
The category c is not in a static state and sooner or later it will to be changed because that most of' the residents, specially the young generation, prefer to have a 'modern' house rather than the traditional one. For instance, the elders usually prefer to stay in a traditional courtyard house. And if so, the children would renew the houses after their parents pass away.
4, To Search for a Local Approach of Preservation and Redevelopment
Same as other traditional dwelling areas in Xi'an, the Muslim quarter is also facing a dilemma that to let people continue to live in the traditional but poor courtyard house, or allow them to improve their living conditions and change the traditional courtyard houses to be someone else. Dose preservation and development are always in contradiction?
To explain this, we must go a bit farther into the history to understand the traditional idea between the relation of changing and constant. Generally speaking, in the past, when someone become rich, the first thing one would like to do is to have a new house at one's home-village to show his honor to the ancestors. To be new here means to be better, this understanding has been deep-rooted in the traditional Chinese society. Before this century, there is no serious problem when people following this tradition to redevelop their houses. Because that, with the same material, technique and pattern, whatever they did they follow a general framework of building pattern. The deference can only be seen on styles of building decoration.
However, when time changed, the old general framework is gone, especially considering that the traditional housing system is of timber-earth structure with one or two stories. It is very difficult for people of today continuously following the old system. Even in the past time such a building can not last longer and has to be renewed regularly.
Two thousand and five hundred years ago, a Chinese sage said: there is no construction without destruction. What he means is that the nature is always in changing, the new must substitute for the old. But that dose not means that both of them are mutual exclusive. On the contrary, the new is born within the old. That is the key issue in Chinese philosophy that there is nothing constant but changing. From which we can understand why every generation hope to have its own new house, and a new dynasty needs a new palace.
Today, the situation that generating the traditional courtyard houses dose not exist. The clan family-group and compound family that once the basis of traditional society are substituted by the small nuclear families. These are important background the traditional pattern shifting to be a modern one. The new houses satisfy with the new family structure and the new needs of life.
However, the way to regenerate the houses by the residents themselves is a living tradition and it usually dose not noticed by us. Even though in formal aspects what they built today is totally different from that of the past, people still keep the traditional ideas of self construction. This is what happened in the Muslim area. The whole area is now on the very point of structural shift. The old pattern is out of date, while the new one is at its primary phase and not yet been developed maturely. Therefore, we should not assess the new with the aesthetic criteria of the old.
After the investigation on the site for years, we find that the process of environment re-generation is always follows the rule from inside to outside. That is, it is difficult for common people devout to the public interest before they have a constant living condition. That is same as a Chinese philosopher Mo Di once said in two thousand and five hundred years ago: 'Food must be ample enough before seeking the beauty; Clothes must be warm enough before considering its gorgeousness; Dwelling must be peaceful and safe enough before pursuing the pleasure.' For common people, to preserve a traditional house as a historical heritage is same as to have a better public space and street environment, all these can only be realized after the basic needs of life are satisfied. At first, many residents want to occupied the public space as much as possible for private use, and when they realize its great value for tourism and their business, they begin to improve its quality, so as to preserve the traditional houses with historical values positively. For this purpose, they are now like to cooperate with the government on the issues, while it is almost impossible some years ago.
This is what we found in the Muslim quarter. Considering which, a set of preservation method is designated for this area as:
- Self-construction is an important intangible cultural heritage and must be maintained. In the past, by this way the courtyard house is been built, repaired, and redeveloped according to varied needs of each family. And today the residents do the same under the changed situations to create their own dwellings. Even if the physical features of the new buildings are totally deferent with that of the past, they are also a folk art full of the nature of popularity as the traditional courtyard houses did.
- Some of the traditional courtyard houses must be protected strictly by law. These houses, together with the mosques, temples and other historical buildings, are the evidence of cultural continuity of the area.
- The local socio-cultural structure should be protected. Although today's socio-cultural structure is deferent from that of the past, it still full of the marks of tradition. For instance, this area has been an ethnic community shared by both the Huis and the Hans, so deferent cultural activities can be seen there. This is special in the city and should be maintained.
All of these works should be done under the closed cooperation between the residents, governments, city planners and architects. Anyhow, the residents should be included into the procedure of decision-make on the issues of building construction and preservation. While the others are responsible on infrastructure renewal, environmental improvement, building code's readjustment, and teaching. The late is important in historical preservation, in such a process the professional knowledge and the residents' understanding on the heritage can be exchanged in between the different parts.
There exists an idea that since the Muslim quarter is designated as 'traditional dwelling preservation section,' all the new constructions must have a proper relation with the old. Therefore, the new additions should look like the old. In fact this idea had been practiced in some projects in Xi'an years ago and now is popular in China. We agree that the new should have a proper relation with the old in aspects such as scale and color, but not necessarily in housing pattern, building form and technique, etc. If they are all look like the copies of the past, a problem of historical authenticity would be raised. The fact is that every vernacular architecture is a creation of its users, and the elegant form of the courtyard house we see today dose not designed by one person, but experienced and rectified constantly by generations. Today's dynamic activities of housing construction by residents themselves are the continuity of tradition. The most important thing we should keep in mind is that, in the work of preservation and redevelopment of the Muslim quarter, the resident is the main part of form-giver, but not officers or architects.
Conclusion
In the Drum-Tower Muslim quarter, we can not artificially separate the preservation from the development, because they are two sides of one thing. In some cases the historical values must be protected, while in some others the residents should focus on the housing redevelopment. When people have rights to decide what they can do or not to do, the dynamic local life can be maintained in this traditional community, and at the same time the traditional courtyard houses be protected easily through the cooperation among the residents and the architects without loose the local cultural identities.
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