Conservation and Innovation of the Traditional Mountain Village in Southwest of China: the study case of Tangdu Village Conservazione e Innovazione del Villaggio Tradizionale Montano nella Cina Sud Occidentale: Il caso di studio del Tangdu Villaggio

Protecting traditional villages and vernacular architecture is a worldwide issue but more urgent for developing countries. In China, modernization and urbanization are bringing tremendous changes to traditional villages and accelerating their disappearance. This thesis takes a traditional village in a mountainous area of southwest China as its study case. Based on field investigation, the thesis discusses the village’s formation process in the past and transformation in a contemporary era. The research object, Tangdu Village, is located in the Huangping County of Guizhou Province. As a typical mountain village, Tangdu situates at altitudes varying from 750-950 meters above sea level. It is a moderate size village compared with surrounding villages, with 3.2 square kilometres administrative area and 371 households. The aborigine, Ethnic Ge, a minority without official recognition, is still continuing traditional crafts, such as silver jewellery making, batik, embroidery, etc. Modernization is changing the landscape of the village in recent years. This can be seen as modern concrete brick multi-floor buildings are gradually replacing traditional wooden houses. Until now there is no protective measure for traditional wooden buildings in the village. Neither external force for tourism nor commercial exploitation are affecting this change; all the construction activities are ‘internally motivated. This series of facts makes Tangdu village an ideal object for study. It epitomizes an autarchy village’s evolution process from pre-industrial productivity and economy to contemporary urbanization and modernization. The purpose is to understand the inherent factors underline the symptoms. Based on this idea, a non-discriminatory inventory was compiled for all buildings and other structures. This database offers further information for future research. Regarding the landscape formation process, as a mountain village, the construction of terraces is the first intervention by inhabitants to shape the environment. There is a closed connection between terracing of paddy fields and terracing buildings. The homogeneous form of the traditional building is derived from the compatibility between the architecture and the mountain. Additionally, a distinct feature is the morphology of the settlement – high density construction of the residences and irregular form of the courtyard, which connotes the previous agricultural structure. Furthermore, the construction of a traditional house shows some degree of feasibility; the wooden houses can be dismantles, relocated, and reassembled, along with the transplantation and recyclability of building material inside or even outside the village. Meaning, if the terrace is immovable, the vernacular architecture can be described as “movable” property. The formation of the landscape of this village can be seen as a long-term unconscious collective construction. Accidental, short-term or pure individual behaviour cannot achieve the quality and quantity of the village landscape. Thus the synergy of the collective expressed by the landscape is more significant than the individual effect. However the spontaneity of the individual construction activity during this process causes the villagers failure to recognize the landscape is a kind of community resource. The habitants are unaware of the preciousness and the particularity of the landscape they possess in a contemporary era. With limited experience, the villagers compare their own house with that of the neighbours' or surrounding towns. Driven by community psychology and following, the construction of modern houses is becoming a competition of the rich. The traditional wooden house is treated as the symbol of poverty. The strong conflict between the modern and tradition breaks the previous harmony. The villagers do not realize that they have been contributors to the former landscape and do not realize they are the potential beneficiaries of the landscape, not just the custodians of it in the future. The most noticeable transformation of the vertical landscape in the village is the increase of building height, mainly caused by modern concrete brick housing, flat roofs, and the construction of private courtyards surrounded by cement walls. Behind this is the degradation of the invisible social landscape, which is the inherent cause of devastation of the traditional landscape. In order to rehabilitate the landscape, what is needed is not only to preserve the cultural heritage, but also to rebuild the community. But the actual circumstance is that planning “invisible landscape” is usually beyond the capabilities of architects, who require the involvement of professionals from other disciplines in the village planning process, as well as the community’s participation. Fostering “vernacular architects” and stimulating the community’s cognition to landscape and cultural heritage may be the solutions