1

Assessment and Proposals to Historical

Preservation and Regional Planning in “Chinese

Baroque” Heritage Area, Harbin, China

Wenjiao Wu

Instructor: Marcia Kees

Figure I - Map metadata: Google Maps; Sketch: Wenjiao Wu

Old City Area Chinese Baroque Renewal Project Area

Urbanization Expansion

2

Background

In late 1890s, Tsarist Russia expanded its power and began to build the Middle East

Rail in the Northeast of China. Then along Songhua River and the Railway rose the

city of Harbin.

Area A and C (see Figure I) were dominated mainly by Tsarist Russia that time, the

style of Beaux Arts/Baroque/Classical Revival/Renaissance Revival/Eclectic were

flourishing. However, a new style called “Chinese Baroque” appeared on a large scale

in Area B which lies to the east of the Middle East Rail.

The dominance of Tsarist Russia was quite weak in this area that time. Chinese

businessmen gathered here in this new city, and made contribute to national industry

and commerce. In the pre-industrial order in Chinese cities, the buildings themselves

were mostly mixed-used, “store in the front, factory/workshop in the backyard” or

“store in the downstairs, bedrooms in the upstairs” pattern were quite common.

Designers and craftsmen met the clients’ need, invented a new style that combine

Western style and Chinese traditional style together – Chinese Baroque.

Those architectures had remarkable Baroque facade, the belt course and the cornice

divided the building into three levels – ground floor, second floor and parapet wall. It

focused more on the main entrance and made a remarkable corner – it faced right to

the street corner with a higher and more ornamented parapet wall if the building lied

3

there. And the second floor was emphasized by different types of balconies. (Figure

II)

Figure II – Photo by Wenjiao Wu, 2013

On the other hand, the ornaments on the façade were usually those indicated lucky,

moral character and wealthy in ancient China, like bat, bamboo and peony. Behind

Baroque façade was also Chinese traditional courtyard. Usually several buildings

formed an individual courtyard, if you walk through the doorway you will enter the

“interior” space that strengthened the communication of different families.

All Baroque facades composed a continuous “rhyme”, seemed gorgeous, well-aligned

and various. The streets in this area was generally like a fishbone, groups of side

streets extended from several main streets, formed intensive grids, which were

convenient to get to the neighborhood area, according with the function of the

commercial-and-residential place in pre-industrial order.

4

Needs and Goals

After the Communist Party’s state-individual cooperation movement in the 1950s, the

“store in the front, factory/workshop in the backyard” and “store in the downstairs,

bedrooms in the upstairs” pattern had declined rapidly, and finally almost disappear

after the reform and opening-up policy after the 1980s. The place was no longer

needed in the wave of globalization and industrialization. Additionally, as Area A and

C became more and more developed and a new bridge across Songhua River was

constructed, the place had been long forgotten in the urban expansion (Figure I).

The once well-ornamented courtyards and facades became dilapidated, only some old

people and the bottom of the society lived there (Figure III). Some buildings were not

used anymore. They stood in the street corners with glasses on the windows gone

long ago, even cannot be a shelter for vagrants in the extremely cold winter. Lots of

fires had occurred. The place once achieved “firmness, commodity, and delight”

(Vitruvius’ three old axioms) had faded.

If an architecture is no longer functional, the exterior form will also extinct. It is

imperative to repair those buildings and give them new meaning.

The heritage area planning are facing two problems besides the architecture itself: one

is traffic congestion: people, cars, and even some three-wheeled vehicles drawn by

man go in the narrow streets at the same time, there are no space for walking and

5

parking. Sidewalks are occupied by vendors, food markets and even wastes. The other

one is public space must be improved:

almost no greening, no place for leisure or

entertainment, poor-quality environment,

and lacking of municipal infrastructure.

To solve these problems, Harbin municipal government planned to implement the

renewal project and designated the project area (Figure I). The aim should be

“keeping the basic form of the historical courtyard and features of the architectures,

inherit the original commercial/cultural/folk-custom characteristics; expanding the

space for historical culture and modern commerce through protection and

development of the architectures; improving traffic capacity and developing public

space through rational zoning.” The final goal is to change the “messy and disordered

situation” and renew the place into folkways-commerce-tourism district. (Wan et al.

2011)

Assessment of the First Phase of the Renewal Project

The first phase of the renewal project has completed (Figure IV). It is hard to say that

the project is successful. First, the traffic is still a critical problem, the sidewalks ought

Figure III - Thanks to Tianhua, Zhao

6

to be improved are completely gone. Pedestrians, cars, and three-wheeled vehicles are

still mixed together, which may be a serious potential safety hazard.

Second, to remember the old customs and the history, some symbols are added such

as lanterns and signboards in an old style trying to reproduce the city view in pre-

PRC era. Actually the stores are “fake” and empty, without any functions. Revival

does not mean simple replication of the symbols of the past, and when symbols have

exceeded everything, the heritage area will represent nothing but a fleeting image for

those tourists who seek for superficial novelty. Native citizens hardly go there for

leisure or entertainment.

The first phase of the project only covers several side streets, the other streets/blocks

in this projected area are still in poor condition (Figure V), which makes a strong

sense of incoherence. A more integrated planning of this area must be put forward

and carried out.

Figure IV – Thanks to: Google Image

7

Figure V - Photo by Wenjiao Wu, 2013

Proposals

New Meanings of the Heritage Area

While the old city district A and C have developed flourishing private economy and

have their own successful commercial areas (Figure I), the commerce of “Chinese-

Baroque” historical heritage area cannot escape from the shadows of state-operation

era. History is not the ruins of the past, and the best way to protection is well

planning and to make it alive.

However it does not mean that the importance of understanding the past can be

ignored. Narrative publicity board can be set in the streets of this area, museum(s) can

be built in this area or another part of the city to provide some educational programs

to the public.

8

Removal and Illegal Removal Issue

The removal work of the second phase of the Renewal Project has already began. The

planning removal area is more than 150,000 square meters, or to say, more than 3,000

households. It is common sense that “removal” is not an appropriate way in historical

preservation. Citizens want to see “reconstruction” or “renew”, let alone the home, or

to say, shelter of some people in low-income social group will surely be deprived in

this process, which will cause more critical social issues.

The existing planning reflects the totally wrong ideology of the local government.

The “Great Leap Forward” ideology is still taking its control even after half a century.

A banner can be seen in the construction site: “The earlier the better, spare no efforts

to make the projection speed up greatly”. Such utilitarianism value orientation will do

irreversible harm to the historical buildings, and also not beneficial for the further

development of the heritage area for the deprivation of historical, cultural and

aesthetic values.

It is happening every day and everywhere in China. Therefore it is not surprising that

plenty of illegal removal also occurred (Figure VI). Chinese central and local

governments has built lists of historical preservation buildings similar to the National

Register and Local Register in the USA, and cultural relics have come under

increasing legal protection, however, a lot more historical buildings not included in

the lists are facing the danger of being damaged or demolished. Illegal construction

9

team hired by real estate developers demolish the old buildings and build new dull

commercial or residential buildings. Under existing government-leading management

mode in China, to avoid these problems, unless the government agency certificate or

qualify every renter of the land to ensure that they have the ability to protect

historical sites and to employ certificated construction team and carry on the

supervision during the whole construction process. It is apparently impossible,

though.

There are many individuals who engaged

themselves to historical preservation, but there is

still not a powerful citizen conservation

organization to give pressure to the government and

educate other citizens such as National Land Trust

in the USA. In consideration of the long-term (and

still continuing) suppression exerted by Chinese

government to all non-profit citizen organizations, there is still a long way to go.

Integrate Land Layout and Improving Public Spaces

Because of the high population density and unclear commercial mode of this area, the

land layout has to be modified and integrated in a progressive way to improve the

environment quality and land utilization rate of the old streets.

Figure VI - Thanks to: Google Image

10

Residential lots: to decrease single-function residential lots and emigrate some

residents through ways like government-funding replacement, to manage private

scrap purchase industry prevailing in this area to improve environment quality and

street view, and to increase public service facility lots like commercial, recreational

and leisure.

Mixed-used lots: to meet the market demand and leave some flexibility to attract

some potential profitable private economy entities, tax credits can be applied.

An example: a food market had blocked the streets, even hard for pedestrians

to get through, while the buildings right by their side were totally abandoned,

no renter or owner, with carved balconies hanging above (Figure VII).

Figure VII - Photo by Wenjiao Wu, 2013

Government agencies should take the responsibilities of renew the interior

space and façade of the building to make it functional again, and move the

11

street market to an appropriate commercial place nearby, or even, to

encourage the stall owners to move into the interior space of the building.

Improving public service facilities and infrastructure construction: to build

elementary and secondary school lots, to improve open public cultural spaces, and to

increase public parking lots. (See “Transportation” below)

Characteristic landscape: to activate the “accelerant” of the city view, such as a

representative Chinese-Baroque architecture, a time-honored brand store; or to build

a brand-new accelerant points, such as commercial pedestrian street and cultural

exhibition square.

City greening: to take the advantage of existing architecture and neighborhood

structure to build “axis-nodes” greening landscape. Consider the extremely-cold-

winter regional characteristics, the greening belts and squared can be used as ice

sculpture exhibition area, just like the other districts of Harbin city.

Transportation

As it is inappropriate to broaden the old streets or to build overpasses for they will

damage the traditional city view, the potential transportation ability of surrounding

area must be explored to ease the traffic pressure of the heritage area. First take the

advantage of existing “fish bone” neighborhood structure to improve the road

12

network structure; second to build auxiliary lane on the two flanks of the heritage

area to diverge traffic volume; third to take the common transportation management

measures such as one-way street, limiting the types of vehicles, and stipulating the

passing time of automobiles; and last to imitate the measurement of other commercial

areas – to carry out limit-time walking plan according to the pedestrian traffic

volume.

For the static traffic, to build parking garage, off-street parking lot, and especially

underground parking lots on the basis of preserving existing parking lots.

In conclusion, what makes the history, how we can create the new story, how to give

new meanings to the old form without destroying it – should be the core of the

renewal project.

References

WAN, N., PAN, W., & LU, H. (2011). Protection and Renovation Program of Chinese-Baroque

Historic Block in Harbin. City Planning Review, 6, 018.

ZHOU, X., TANG, J. (2009). A Study on Commercial Development Pattern and Planning Method

of Historic District: Taking Jinli, Kuanzhai Lane and Wenshu District as Example [J]. In Urban

Planning Forum (Vol. 5).