AbstractsSociology

The diversity of urban life and form: an historical study of the urban transformation in Tang-Song China and nineteenth-century England

by Jing Xie




Institution: University of New South Wales
Department: Architecture
Year: 2012
Keywords: Urban; Mixed-use; Segregation
Record ID: 1059805
Full text PDF: http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/52209


Abstract

This research is a historical study of urban life and the urban fabric of Tang-Song China and nineteenth-century England. The urban patterns of these two historical cases show opposite transformations: from zoning to mixed-use, and vice versa. The inquiry and analysis are structured into three key aspects— urban fabric, legibility of architecture, and people’s living trajectories, which are all centered on the research question: whether physical, land-use variety is inherently connected to social diversity? Each of the three pairs of chapters examines one aspect in detail and the paired chapters are presented as comparative case studies. Firstly, the development of the urban fabric is a process of social and cultural production. Inhabitants are the prime agent in creating urban forms. Determined by strong social, political, economic and cultural forces, urban forms in Song-era China and Victorian England exhibits different patterns, but, as this historical inquiry validates, both of them were uniquely fitted into their social and cultural contexts. Secondly, the efficacy of urban forms is circumstantial. The development of architectural forms in pre-modern China was static, while that of nineteenth-century England was diverse. The role of architecture in articulating social hierarchy and relationship has been well performed since ancient times. However, further extending the role of architecture as a social apparatus in instructing human perception and behaviour requires social acceptance and cultural capacity to assure its efficacy. Thirdly, people’s living patterns, evidenced as their spatial experience, vary individually while at the same time they demonstrate certain affinity among similar social members. For social interaction, it should not be understood as a merely observable phenomenon at a certain physical locus. Social coherence too, is structured by social, economic, cultural, religious, and political forces, rather than by physical planning. If the modern planning discourse essentially lies in the struggle of finding a perfect balance between laissez faire and political control, then such effort can only be achievable through a profound understanding of human nature animated by social and cultural circumstances. My research is to evoke our awareness of the social and cultural constitutions of individuals and groups, as they primarily determine our attitudes toward and understanding of the built environment.