Digital Reconstruction of Medieval Chinese Cities

The study and teaching of Chinese urban planning particularly of the earlier periods is heavily handicapped by the lack of pictorial or physical evidence. This is mainly due to the perishable nature of Chinese traditional construction which depended heavily on timber for both its structure and infill. Large architectural complexes were torched during wars and entire cities destroyed during dynastic upheavals. The Tang (618-906) capital of Chang'an is a classic example. Perhaps the foremost city in the world during the seventh and eighth centuries, it was reduced to wasteland by the beginning of the tenth century. The city now lies a little below the modem city of Xi'an, which occupies only a fraction of the Tang capital. The Northern Song (961-1127) capital, Kaifeng, also suffered similar fate when warfare and natural disasters eradicated the Song city. The ruins are buried five to twelve meters beneath present day Kaifeng. The earliest surviving imperial city is Ming (1368-1644) Beijing. By comparison, there are still substantial ruins from Athens and Rome in the Western world. The study of Chinese urban planning and the understanding of past urban structures are important as the influence of these urban structures are still discernible in historic Chinese cities today. While traditional Chinese architecture is perishable, traditional urban planning principles leaves their imprints much longer despite the frequent replacement of the physical urban fabric