Most of the villages in the Yangtze River Delta were once as
beautiful as any on UNESCO's World Heritage list.
That was before the wave of modernization crashed on the delta,
sweeping away valued parts of its past.
As it sailed into the 21st century, the delta found itself
transformed into China's richest region. Only recently have local
people come to realize what they lost. And they have decided they
cannot afford to lose more.
A group of about 200 conservationists from around the world
yesterday called for the protection of traditional, or so-called
vernacular architecture in the delta's rural communities. They were
gathered at a forum in Wuxi, a 2,200-year-old riverfront city in
the delta.
"Many areas have taken the central government's call for the
building of a new countryside to mean they should build new houses
and villages. Traditional architecture is being dismantled at a
terrifying speed and villages around the nation are all starting to
look the same," Shan Jixiang, minister of the State Administration
of Cultural Heritage, said at the Wuxi Forum, which the
administration hosted.
He noted that traditional architecture in rural areas was the
focus of a national survey on cultural heritage that kicked off at
the beginning of this year. The survey is the third of its kind
since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Some
of rural architecture styles are to be listed as immovable cultural
heritage.
The same forces eating away at traditional rural architecture
are also a threat in other parts of the globe.
"Due to the homogenization of culture and of global
socio-economic transformation, vernacular structures all around the
world are extremely vulnerable," Valeria Prieto, secretary-general
of the International Committee of Vernacular Architecture under the
International Council on Monuments and Sites, said.
"Vernacular architecture is the world's most fragile and
endangered cultural heritage," she said.
In China, vernacular architecture in rural areas is "the last
battlefield left for preserving really intact cultural heritage,
especially since so much cultural heritage in cities has been
damaged by rampant construction," said Shan.
Only after much of its cultural heritage had been damaged did
Wuxi come to understand the importance of its past, said Yang
Weize, the local Party secretary.
He pledged that his city "will always maintain the
characteristic of a waterfront town" by preserving its riverside
alleys, old villages and neighbourhoods built by famous
entrepreneurs like the Rong family in the 19th and 20th
centuries.
Vernacular architecture is the third kind of cultural heritage
to be placed on the administration's list of conservation
priorities.
(China Daily April 12, 2007)