Thesis_ MAHUE_Bartlett school of architecture_ YANG XUE by Yang Xue

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A Study of Memory Representation in Museumification of Cultural Heritage From Shijia Hutong Museum to Beijing Hutongs

fig.0 a dismantling site of hutong courtyard house - W. G. SEBALD, Austerlitz, p.24 quote in the book of Present Pasts, p.xii ANDREAS HUYSSEN(2003),

XUE YANG DISSERTATION OF MASTER DEGREE Architecture and Historic Urban Environments Tutor: EVA BRANSCOME The Bartlett School of Architecture SN: 16095690 09.18.2017 2

Even now, when I try to rememberâ&#x20AC;Ś the darkness does not lift but becomes yet heavier as I think how little we can hold in mind, how everything is constantly lasping into oblivion with every extinguished life, how the world is, as it were, draining itself, in that the history of countless places and objects which themselves have no power of memory is never heard, never described or passed on.

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Abstract

Introduction

Site of Memory

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Representation of Memory

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A ' Site - Specific ' Memory

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Reference

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Credits

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This project involves discovering of how the cultural memory of Beijing Hutong Courtyard House is remembered by reading different sites of Hutong memory. Through analysis of a newly built museum of Hutong Courtyard House â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the Shi Jia Hutong Museum, the goal is to show that the public consciousness of values in cultural heritage of Hutongs was incoordinate with the heritage-scape of the current Hutongs. This has been done by examining of different memory archives, different architectural schemes and construction of the museumification process on the site of Shi Jia Hutong Museum. Through showing that the current cultural memories of Hutong Courtyard house is biased and might negatively influence the development of its heritage-scape to a living cultural heritage, this research highlights the importance of representations of ordinary individualsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; memory in shaping cultural memory, and values of the living cultural heritage of Hutong Courtyard House.

ecif te-s p

collective memory

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Representation of Memory

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monuments

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individual memory

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remains/ ruins

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C U LT U R A L HERITAGE

fig.1 Relationships between related issues

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RUINS the physical destruction or disintegration of something or the state of disintegrating or being destroyed.

- Oxford Dictionary

MEMORY Memory is the faculty of the mind by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved.

- Oxford Dictionary

SHIJIA HUTONG MUSEUM â&#x20AC;&#x153; Hutongs teach us the essence of Chinese civilisation, cities and life. Out of desire for traditional culture and responsibility bestowed upon us through generations, we increasingly feel the necessity for a place to present and display its essence. That is exactly why the Shijia Hutong Museum - an actively living and changing museum that accompanies this entirely street - was founded... â&#x20AC;?

- Preface exhibited in the Shijia Hutong Museum

fig.2 Aerial photography Beijing, 2017

UNESCO estimates that 88% of Beijingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s courtyard houses have been destroyed, while the Global Heritage Fund estimates that only about 600,000 of Beijingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more than 20 million residents live in Hutongs today.

fig.3 Aerial photography Shijia Hutong , 1957

Located between the Forbidden City and the second ring, right in the most central and therefore most expensive area of Beijing today, the Shijia Hutong embodies more than 700 years of history and its physical environment has survived the transformation and modernization of Beijing in the past 60 years. 15

Cultural memory works by reconstructing, that is, it always relates its knowledge to an actual and contemporary frame of reference. It existed in two modes: first in the mode of potentiality of the archive, whose accumulated texts, images, and rules of conduct act as a total horizon, and second in the mode of actuality, whereby each contemporary context puts the objectivized meaning into its own perspective, giving its own relevance.

JAN ASSMAN(1995), Collective Memory and Cultural Identity, p. 9-19

Situated in the No. 24 Shijia hutong in Beijing, the newly established Shijia Hutong museum represents the cultural memory of the Beijing Hutong (since 2013). In 2010, the Prince â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s Foundation (PFBE), an educational charity founded by the British Prince of Wales, spotted this courtyard and took it as a potential site for building a pilot project to protect the building type of the Beijing Hutong Courtyard-house. Different from other house museums based in hutongs that only focus on retelling the memory of the specific courtyard site, the Shijia Hutong museum attempts to recall the collective memory of Beijing Hutongs, through the representation of cultural memory on this individual hutong site and within the process of turning the house into a museum. As a museum of the Beijing Hutong courtyard-house that is built on a specific courtyard site, this museum is tasked to highlight the individual memory of No.24 Shijia hutong, and the cultural memory of Beijing Hutongs.

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ULTURAL EMORY

Cultural Heritage is an expressi oped by a community and passe eration, including customs, pra expressions and values.

ICOMOS(2002), International Cultural Tourism Charter

ion of the ways of living develed on from generation to genactices, places, objects, artistic

For decades Beijing has struggled with the conflict between developing modern life and preserving the ancient city. As the most common unit of the ancient city, the Beijing Hutong Courtyard-house is understood as the best representative of this conflict. Owing to the rising awareness of preserving ancient buildings as cultural heritage, many historic buildings have been renovated and turned into memorial museums, which is taken as a way of freezing the memory in time and protecting the cultural values of the site. During the museumification process of cultural heritage, both the selection of museum artifacts and the strategy regarding the siteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s renovation become an important system of cultural values, determining and differentiating cultural memories. (JAN ASSMAN, 1988) Based on the research of the Shijia Hutong useum, this dissertation will investigate the relationship between hutong memories and the hutong heritage-scape.

The first chapter travels from the individual memory of No.24 Shijiahutong to the collective memories of Beijing ancient city in order to trace the history of the Hutong Courtyard-house through the sites of memory. In the second chapter, the architectural representation of cultural memory and cultural values within Hutong Couryard-housesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; is analyzed. Here different design proposals are compared and their architectural languages are also interpreted. Drawing on a summary of the issues identified in the previous two chapters, the last chapter proposes alternative strategies of representing a heritage-scape of the Hutong Courtyard-house. Inspired by the concept of site-specific art, it will be suggested that allowing for different individual memories to speak can be an effective way of recalling collective memory. This will acknowledge a more complex cultural heritage to emerge from the fabric of the building.

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In ancient Greece, memory referred to the precondition of human thought. The ‘art of memory’, as it was practiced in the ancient world, was a pictorial art, focusing on images rather than words. It treated signs as primary. (Raphael Samuel, 1988), which is also the way that museums represent and tell the history to audiences today - based on the physical remains which we can perceive visually. This chapter is a reading of different “artefacts”. The first such reading is the ‘formation of the hutong memory’, which involves the objectification or crystallization of collectively shared knowledge of Hutong culture. The second is the ‘ruin of the hutong memory’, by addressing the actual condition of the hutong heritage-scape behind that memory illusion. By reading different sites of memories, we can rethink the relationships between the formation of cultural memory and the value of a heritage-scape.

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Site of Memory

SITE OF MEMORY ‘Lieux de mémoire arise out of a sense that there is no such thing as spontaneous memory, hence that we must create archives, mark anniversaries, organise celebrations, pronounce eulogies, and authenticate documents because such things no longer happen as a matter of course... ... When certain minorities create protected enclaves as preserves of memory to be jealously safeguarded, they reveal what is true for all lieux de mémoire: that without commemorative vigilance, history would soon sweep them away.

- PIERRE NORA(1989), Between memory and history Les Lieux de Memoire, Representations, No.26 p. 7 - 24 23

We read specific urban phenonmena, artworks, and literary texts that function as media of critical cultural memory... Today, memory and temporality have invaded spaces and media that seemed among the most stable and fixed, cities, monuments, architecture, and sculptures.

“ Looking down from atop the Jingshan Hill, the commanding height of central Beijing… one had a clear, prosodic view of those neatly arranged Siheyuan (Courtyard house) in the ancient city. Dating from some 700 years ago, these courtyards, distinguished by walls built with bluish bricks and roofs covered by gray tiles, has trees growing from inside, forming a vast expanse of green...“ Wang Jun depict a view of Beijing hutongs in his book called Beijing Record(2003), a book about urban transformation of Beijing in the last fifty years. This view had gone with the urban transformation. Beijing is a city text has always been written and rewritten, that piece of testimony describing a great view of ancient city becomes more like an imaginary memory rather than a cultural memory. And the ‘ ruins ‘ of that ancient city – the leftover of the city wall, the dismantling sites of hutongs, are the physical remains of that cultural memory which can be traced today.

ANDREAS HUYSSEN(2003), Present Pasts, Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory p. 2-7

Just as Andreas Huyssen wrote about Berlin, the city has become a prism, through which we can focus issues of contemporary urbanism and architecture, national identity and statehood, historic memory and forgetting(Andreas Huyssen, 2009). Perhaps the memory left on the built world can tell us more about the cultural memory and the cultural heritage we should protect and develope.

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MEMORIES IN NO. 24. SHIJIA HUTONG The oldedst archive founded shows â&#x20AC;&#x153;Shijiaâ&#x20AC;&#x153; as the name of the Hutong

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The PFBC started to research the context of the house and proposed renovation plans

The Shijia Hutong museum opened

19 The courtyardhouse became a community centre for disabled residents

The courtyardhouse became a kindergarten

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The house was taken by the government

Shuhua LING left the house to London

Shuhua LING got married and two courtyards were given to her as a wedding gift.

Shuhua LING and her family moved to the house.

Shuhua LING has borned in Beijing

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The ancient neighborhood unit- SichengFang, where Shijia Hutong belongs today was within the layout of Dadu.

The management of the museum was entrusted to Beijing Planning Research Institute

HISTORY OF BEIJING OLD CITY The Qing Dynasty has founded

The Great Capital (Dadu) of Kublai Khan was developed.

The new city was rebuilt on the basis of Yuan Dadu

The emperor of Qing restored and renovated the city

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The emperor of Ming Dynasty has moved the capital to Beijing

The Yuan Dynasty has founded

The Second The Republic Burning of Old of China Summer founded Palace

WWII broke out in China

The People ‘s Republic of China founded

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The Second Burning of Old Summer Palace

The Cultural Revolution

The Tentative Master Plan of Beijing’s Urban Construction in 1957 set the goal to regenerate the old city in about 10 years

The inner city walls started to be demolished when a subway line was built.

In the Beijing City Master Plan(20042020), the concept of “Protecting Beijing’s Traditional Hutongquartyardhouse “ was included.

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The outer city wallswere pulled down

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OF NAMES

The process of getting to know something, usually start with its name: term we use to identify a person, a place, or a thing. For example, Hutong is the name of the alley-ways in Beijing old city and when we talk about hutong today it can also refer to the neighbourhood reached by such an alley-way(mostly West-East oriented). As the name of the Museum, “Shijia Hutong“ also indicates its location. In fact, most names of hutongs have social or cultural connotations. For example, “Shi” is often used as a family name, while “Jia“ in the Chinese language means family. It is said that the hutong was named after a famous family named “Shi” at the time. The first archive that has been discovered to record the name of “Shijia Hutong” is The Record of Hutongs in the Capital which was finished about 500 years ago in the Ming Dynasty (reign.1521-1567AD).

fig.4 Content Page, Record of Hutongs in the Capital, 1922 Jue ZHANG Ming Dynasty

As an essential element in Chinese ancient cities, hutong can be traced back to its precedent of “Li“’, an ancient residential unit dating from the Western Zhou period (1046-771BC)(Shijia Hutong Museum, 2013). Beijing served as the capital city of two succeeding dynasties, the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and the Qing dynasty (1644-1912). The residues of ancient city fabric in the city today, can be traced back to the “Dadu(1341-1368)”, the “Grand Capital” of the Yuan Dynasty (JUN WANG, 2003) and was developed according to the ideal city layout described in the Rites of the Zhou period. As a result, residential neighbourhoods of “Fangs” were established along the main streets, within which hutongs, or the alleyways were designed at regular distances for pedestrians(Shijia Hutong Museum, 2013).

fig.5 Original image Map of Dadu(1341-1368), Beijing Atlas 1994

The names of hutongs are not just remembered by their respective words, rather, they are also defined as geographical positions on maps. For example, the map of Beijing in 1800(Qing Dynasty) shows that the Shijia Hutong is a location in the ancient Beijing city, which was situated approximately two blocks east of the imperial wall within the inner city wall, implying the high social status of the inhabitants at the time.

fig.6 Original image Map of Inner and Outer City of Beijing(1800) Qing Dynasty

Names of Hutongs

Further analysis of this map of ancient Beijing city in 1800 suggests that there are distinct contrasts of the level of detail in recording the Forbidden City, where the royal family lived, the city wall as the boundary of the inner and the outer cities, as well as the ordinary residential areas. The differentiations might be the result of the less developed surveying and mapping technology at the time while it probably also is representative of the politics at the time with the emphasis of the royal family. 34

Illustration of the City Wall and City Gates

The collective memory of a nation is represented in part by the memorials it chooses to erect. Whatever a nation chooses to memorialize in physical monument, or perhaps more significantly, what not to memorialize, is an indicator of the collective memory. The name of a hutong is the memory bond between an individual site and the city, the people who lived in the neighbourhood and their society, different generations, as well as the present and the past. Looking at the map of Beijing today, apart from hutong names like Shijia Hutong, many other names of the ancient city can also be identified, relating us to the past, reminding us of their memory and warning us also of the lost heritage behind these names. fig.7 Map of Beijing Subway Lines

Edited by HELMUT K ANHELER, YUDHISHTHIR RAJ ISAR (2011) Cultures and Globalization: Heritage, memory and Identity P. 6

The second ring road, which is the highway today surrounding central Beijing, in the 1950s replaced the inner city wall that had been built around 600 years ago. Today, the city retains the ancient names of its gates, as different geographic locations, such as the names of subway stations, although the gates themselves have long disappeared. It is interesting that as names they have embedded themselves as cultural memory and help to recall the ruins of the old city.

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OF OLD CITY

By 1980, the inner and outer city walls, had been almost completely erased from the urban fabric. These grand structures of fortification, which once had been the symbol of power. As daily scenery they represented the feudal age and were considered an impediment to modern development. They were subsequently demolished. Other remains of the ‘old culture‘, such as the Pailous (decorated archways) and Hutongs were also successively erased for the sake of modernization and allowing for the creation of ‘new cultures’. Accessing the remaining ruins of the old city contributes to the understanding of the cultural memory that has been discarded by the nation. This will also allow for different views on the value of cultural heritage to engage with each other.

fig.8 Aerial photography of Beijing old city, Google Map, 2017

fig. 9 Original image Transition of the old Beijing city

Yuan Dynasty (1341-1368)

Early Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1553)

By the 1560s, the city had gradually developed an urban spatial pattern with four walls sepa-rately surrounding the Forbidden City, the Imperial City, the Inner City and the Outer City. These were maintained for 400 years until the 1950s, with only small sections demolished or altered. Today, Beijing is expanding, with old city as the centre and the newly urbanized areas spread-ing out from this core. This old Beijing city has played a significant role as the business, admin-istrative and tourist centre of the metropolis. (WANG JUN, 2003)

Late Ming Dynasty (1553 - 1644)

Modern Beijing

It(city wall) used to play a role of promoting city construction and protecting the city, but it has obviously become an obstacle to city development. Cultural relics need protection and we must see the size of their values. No matter what, they should not affect the current development.

WANG QIXIAN City Walls that Bind the City Development, Aug 1958, People’s Daily, 42

Beijing has undergone huge transformation in 1950s. “The Great Leap Forward” movement, which was driven by the political agenda of proceeding socialist construction as fast as possible, had exerted great impact on the public altitudes toward the old cityscape. Chairman Mao Zedong expressed his dissatisfaction with the old cityscape: “ To cry over dismantling of archways and drilling holes in city gates in Beijing is a matter of political in nature.” He gave the instruction of changing Beijing’s cityscape thoroughly in the next few years. It was in the context that Beijing made major revisions to Tentative Master Plan of Beijing’s Urban Construction it put up in the spring of 1957, and set the goal to regenerate the old city in about 10 years. (WANG JUN, 2003) To regenerate the old city, the city walls and gates were the first to bear the brunt, as many critics indicated that the city wall obstructed the development of modern transportation infrastructure. There were different views about the values of city wall in the debates between the scholars, and they have different opinions on how to partially demolish and reuse the city wall. However, Mao gave clear instructions to Beijing to dismantle the city walls. So, during the Great Leap Forward, Beijing People’s Committee took the decision to dismantle the city walls, thus turning the dismantling actions here and there into a large-scale mass movement. (WANG JUN, 2003)

fig.10 Old City Gate of Chong Wen Gate fig.11 On the location of Chong Wen Gate today

Once the guard of feudal emperorsâ&#x20AC;Ś Who knows how many sufferings they have sustained. Today they have turned up and over, Marching to the forefront of the construction of the motherlandâ&#x20AC;Ś Use them to build small blast furnaces; Use them to build gas generating ovens; They jumped high with joy, Determined to play its due role in the new era... WANG DONG CEN My work at the Metropolitan Planning Committee, History of Planning, Beijing Record 44

It would be inevitable to reluctant you see new things that are bett should soon be replaced by pleasu as lies in â&#x20AC;Ś whether or not one ha break with the old tradition at th

This poem written by a university student at the time around the dismantling of the city wall serves as a typical example of the collective memory: overly obsessed with and in pursuit of modernization, with a strong determination to break away from the old culture by demolishing the ancient city walls, these signifiers of the past. The abandonment of cultural heritage which was part of the political agenda can today be read as a denial and active effacement of the cultural memory that was embodied within its fabric.

tly part with the old. But when ter than the old, such reluctance ureâ&#x20AC;Ś the key to such shift of ideas the courage to have a clean his crucial movement.

HAN FU, Demolition and New Construction July 1956, Peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Daily

fig. 12 The Relic Park of City Wall of Yuan Dynasty

Different sites of the ancient city have been associated with very different importance at different times. A relic park of the Yuan Dynasty which was built on the relic of north part of the city wall of Dadu (1206-1370AD) around 1988 was renovated in 2003 for 2008 Beijing Olympic games. The ten-meter high soil hill was appraised as an area to be protected as a Beijing Cultural relic in 1957, almost the same time as the demolition of the city wall. 46

fig. 13 Unearthing of He Yi Gate fig. 14 Reconstruction drawing of Dadu city wall

However, the He Yi gate of Dadu, the ancient city gate which was uncovered during the dismantling of the Xi Zhi gate of the city wall in 1969 received a vastly different treatment. Although the archaeological team that unearthed the He Yi gate reported the discovery to the president of Chinese Academy of Sciences, hoping that the site would be protected, the request received no response. The leading scholar could not take any further action as he could hardly protect himself during the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Cultural Revolutionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. As a result, the relic of gate of the Dadu was pulled down.(WANG JUN, 2003) 47

The vastly diverging evaluation of the ruins of the ancient city gates and the remains of the relic park suggest that heritage-scape is handled differently from other material heritage, which is often assessed mostly by its age, or its state of conservation. As city infrastructure and cultural symbol and also due to their huge size mass and public awareness, the assessment of such sites as cultural assets will draw greater public scrutiny and possibly have vast implications on economic development, and the politics of memory.

fig. 15 An blue and white porcelain conatainer from Yuan Dynasty sold at auction for 15million pounds at Christieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s London 2005

“ I s t h e re a n y e x p e r t available to provide you with guidance?” I asked the head of the team… “Some people came and looked around,” the man replied. “They pointed here and there and told us this and that should be kept. Then we started working.” … I found beyond the debris, here were a few wooden boards with decorative designs carved on them. “…They also asked us to keep some stone plates inserted on the wall. There are words inscribed on them.”

WANG JUN(2003), On dismantling site of Yue Dong Xin Guan Beijing Record 50

Following the movement of dismantling the city wall in the 1950s, hutong courtyard-houses in the city centre, were also erased from the city fabric in the 1990s. Unlike the citywall, many of them were seen as the witness of the modernization of China. For example, the Yue Dong Xin Guan was the place where the Wu Xu political reform had taken place [1898] and former residences of modern ideologists, writers, and architects, such as the former housings that of Cai Yuanpei, Liang Sicheng, witnessed the gathering of cultural elites to communicate and produce progressive ideas (1930s). These single floor dwellings housings had lost their invisible cultural values and were erased together with their embodied cultural memory to make way for the huge economic interests with new functions and architectural forms. This dilemma between urban development and heritage was partly a result of the urban planning strategy implemented in the 1950s. According to a controversial urban development model, the newly urbanized area spread out from the old city centre which inevitably increased the economic values of the centre --- where ancient Beijing city was located (WANG JUN, 2003).

fig.16 Dismantling site of Hutong Courtyard House in the 90s

In July 2000, the Beijing municipal government decided to allocate 330 million yuan for the renovation of cultural and historical sites in areas under its jurisdiction. Afterwards, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning compiled the Preservation Plan of 25 Historic And Cultural Preservation Areas In Old Beijing, targeting the selected 25 preservation areas in the ancient city. Though the plan was made for the purpose of recognizing and protecting the cultural values of hutong courtyard houses, it also suggested that other areas that were not under protection would be transformed or demolished. In December of the same year, the municipal authorities introduced a plan to demolish the residential buildings designated as too old or too dilapidated for repair. And so these buildings with their 164 neighborhoods and a combined floor area of 9.34 million square meters, were to be torn down (WANG JUN, 2003). The 25 historical and cultural preservation areas that were to be saved, occupied a total land area of 1038 ha, accounting for about 17% of that of the old city. Combined with sites that were previously designated for protection and the surrounding areas where construction was controlled, 37 percent of the area in old Beijingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s total would, in theory, be under protection(WANG JUN, 2003). Fourteen sites were within the old imperial city, seven in the inner city, and another four in the outer city. 52

fig. 17 The Preservation Plan of 25 Historic And Cultural Preservation Areas In Old Beijing

Selected words in description of characteristic of the protected Hutongs, The Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning, The Preservation Plan of 25 Historic And Cultural Preservation Areas In Old Beijing

“to retain the most complete tra “traditional cultural street”; “characteristics of the street”; “an important part of the traditi “ the important background for “integrate water scenery, palace, “the collection of temples and re “ the Western embassy district aft “the famous traditional commer “intensive north to south hutong

Based on the planning documents, it is not difficult to observe that the description of the 25 areas under protection share some common features. The reason for their protection is either that the area has ‘collections’ of hutongs that form a specific historic and cultural cityscape, or that the hutongs need to be protected as an integrated historic cityscape because their geographical positions are within the range of the ‘background area‘ of some other important listed cultural heritage. Except for few individual courtyard-houses, the sites assessed to be of ‘cultural memory’ are appraised as sharing regional cultural features, which probably indicates that these heritage-scape are identified to have more values. 54

aditional residential area”;

ional cityscape of the old imperial city “; r the Forbidden City, Zhongnanhai, Beihai, Jingshan”; , temple and folk culture in one area”; eligious buildings” ; fter 1900 ”; rcial district”; g traditional residential area”;

...These Lieux de memoire are fundamentally remains, the ultimate embodiments of a memorial consciousness that has barely survived in a historical age that calls out for memory because it has abandoned it...

In contrast, many courtyard-houses that are situated at other hutong regions, though they are in good condition, or of high architectural aesthetic values, were demolished, leaving with us only memories to be re-imagined in photographs taken by individuals who once valued them. As a result, the individual memory is replaced by the cultural memory, which takes root in the images and turns them into â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;sites of memory â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;. (PIRRE NORA, 1989) - PIERRE NORA(1989), Between memory and history Les Lieux de Memoire, Representations, No.26 p. 7 - 24 56

fig. 18 a view of 45 Meng Rui hutong before the demolishment fig.19 overlooking the 45 Meng Rui hutong after the demolishment

EMORY

OF HOUSE NUMBER

Even if we know the street name, we also need to recognize the house number to locate the courtyard housesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; site. The Shijia Hutong museum is situated at no. 24 Shijia hutong, which was previously the no.54 Shijia hutong. In 1965, the government renamed many hutongs and rearranged all the old hutong house numbers. In particular the Hutongs that had names related to religious locations were changed, for instance the West Dashilar street was originally called the Guanyin Temple street. The past history of a place could easily become untraceable if the previous road name and the previous house numbers were changed and these transitions were not recorded.

fig. 20 Old plates of Hutong house number, Shijia Hutong Museum

“I am determined to be a writer in the future... So I dare to ask you take me as your student. There are so few female writers in China,so the world does not know anything about Chinese women’s thoughts and lives. This is very unfair considering their contribution to humanity. ”

A letter from Ling Shuhua, ZHOU ZUO REN Recollection of A Few Leters 60

We don’t know when the original buildings on the site dated from, and the history of its residency is only traceable from around 1900 onward when it was occupied by the big family of Ling Fupeng. Ling Fupeng, born in Guangdong province, was the Jinshi (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations)of the late Qing dynasty. Once committed to be the mayor of Tianjin (Qing Dynasty) and the political consultant of the president (Republic of China), he had high political status in both Qing dynasty and later on in the Republic of China. Around 1900, he had bought a courtyard-house that connected two hutongs, from Ganmian hutong to Shijia hutong. Later when his 10th daughter Shuhua Ling was getting married, he divided the six courtyards and gave the last two to her as a wedding gift. These constitute the 24 Shijia hutong today. Being her father’s favorite daughter, Shuhua Ling grew up in an atmosphere of art and culture, and became one of the most well-known female painters and writers at the time. The famous Chinese modern writer Lu Xun said that her novel revealed the “elite soul of the noble family”. In 1947, Shuhua and her family left their house to move to London.

fig. 21 Ling Fupeng, his daughters, and his visitors in the garden fig. 22 Ling Shuhua in her studyroom

â&#x20AC;&#x153; No one can tell me how many rooms or courtyards it really contained, but I remember little children often lost their way when they walked out alone from their own courtyard. I always failed to find out exactly how many people lived in that house, because the births and deaths of my half-sisters and brothers and the number of new and old servants were never certain.â&#x20AC;?

LING SHU HUA(1953), Ancient Melodies

She published her English language autobiographic novel titled Ancient Melodies in London in 1953 (The Hogarth Press), under the encouragement of the British writer Virginia Wolf, when they wrote letters to each other as pen friends. This autobiographic novel recorded her childhood memory of life in the courtyard-house. Being republished many times, this novel has becoming one of the sites of memory by which people can access life in the courtyard-house of a noble family from a female perspective. In the museum, there is a whole big room of exhibitions dedicated to the memories of Shuhuaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life, her paintings, and the visits of her noble friends at the time.

fig. 23 Illustration painted by Shuhua in her autobiographical novel Ancient Melodies

“In Yiran ‘s memory, when entering the kindergarten, there was a slider in the north side of the first courtyard, and a pigeon house at the opposite side, right beside the main house. The floor was covered with artificial grass … He can still pointed out where the classroom was, “but the house of kindergarten was normal one-story building, not like the ancient-style grey-brick house today in the museum.”he recalled. ”

LIU JIAN PENG From Shijia Kindergarten to Hutong Museum Page 8, Feb 2014 Chao Yang Men News

In comparison, the memories of other residents of this site play a less important role in the museum’s exhibitions. One of these is the past memory of the Shijia hutong kindergarten, opened from 1958 to 2002, according to a display board and a small page in the local newspaper released after the museum‘s opening. There are only few photos of the children and the teachers’ life in this courtyard kindergarten, and a wall of children’s doodles also form part of the exhibition. There are no other sites of memory on public view. Another memory of the site can be gleaned from the few words mentioned in the small page of that local newspaper, explaining that it was a community centre for disabled residents lived in the Shijia hutong neighbourhood after the kindergarten closed. Called the ‘Warm Home’, the courtyard dwelling had for a duration around eight years become a place where disabled people could socialise and participate in community activities, yet nothing about that period of No.24 Shijia hutong is on display as part of the collective memory.

fig. 24 The wall exhibited of children â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s graffiti fig. 25 Group photo of teachers with some kids, 2011

The collective memory produced by different residents, through their very different experience of the building as memory archives, exert tremendous impact on the museumification of the Hutong Courtyard House and its representation as cultural heritage.

UINS

OF HUTONG FABRIC

Behind the change of the hutong house number is the change of the hutongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s urban fabric. When the individual site of 24 Shijia hutong were taken by the government and turned into the kindergarten for around eight years, the historical changes taking place from the 1966 - the Cultural Revolution, indirectly caused the destruction of traditional hutong fabric. The â&#x20AC;&#x153;new hutong fabricâ&#x20AC;? replaced as part of piecemeal repairs and adaptive reuse became a dilemma in the assessment of the cultural value of the Hutong Courtyard House today. This much newer layer of hutong fabric records the social memory that people are reluctant to reflect on.

fig. 26 Overlooking a Hutong site of today

“ This plan is a standard courtyard-house, the courtyard-house( on the site )matches this drawing. When we talk about protection of the building, it is same as the protection of property rights. The two are inseparable, because there are those rooms, So there are those people (who lived in them).”

HUA XIN MIN The Protection of Property Rights Interview of Hua Xinmin IFENG BLOG 2012 68

Huaxin Min, the Hutong preserver memorizes that at that time, not only did the persecuted people lose their property rights, but also the ordinary people living in hutongs were also required to pay to the housing management office for the property rights certificates. “Many people who were persecuted during the Cultural Revolution lived in the Beijing hutong courtyard-houses. During that period, the Red Guards rushed into the courtyard, violently forced the owners out and arranged a lot of people from other places to move in as the new residents. (With the increasing number of additional volumes and temporary housings built inside the courtyard-house), the hutong fabric gradually became densely populated ‘Big-messy courtyards’. “(Hua Xinmin ‘s interview) After the Cultural Revolution, some houses were returned to their original owners, but more of them were embroiled in an embarrassing situation, because of the complicated interests between the government, the current tenants, and the owners. For preservers like Huaxin Min, the protection of courtyard-house should be in line with that of property rights, holding that the “new hutong fabric” shall be removed, and the couryard-houses should be protected in the form of the “old hutong fabric” , as what are showed on the property rights certificates.

fig.27 Examples of old property rights certificates

fig. 28 Survey map of Shijia hutong neighborhood, 1957

Today, in Shijia Hutong Museum, a map of the neighborhood surveyed by the Beijing Municipal House Management Bureau in 1957 is displayed. On the map, the two parallel hutong roads, the Shijia hutong and the Ganmian hutong are clearly visible, , between which are row upon row of courtyard-houses. 70

fig. 29 The hutong fabric of 1957 in comparison with the aerial photography of Shijia Hutong of 2017

To compare the map of 1957 with todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s satellite map, we can clearly see the changes: A large piece of courtyard houses was transformed into a huge single building; the hutong texture once with various density has been densely filled with houses, forming a new hutong texture â&#x20AC;&#x201C; courtyards were occupied by temporary additional volumes, leaving only the narrow alleys for passing. 72

fig.30 The transitio from courtyard-house to Big-mass courtyard 73

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Modern memory is, above all, archival. It relies entirely on the materiality of the trace, the immediacy of the recording, the visibility of the image.â&#x20AC;?

- PIERRE NORA(1989), Between memory and history Les Lieux de Memoire, Representations, No.26 p. 7 - 24 74

Not only in the Shijia hutong, but almost all the hutong areas left today have been transformed. The infill of temporary constructions has completely changed the original texture of the hutong, and the unprofessional repair and reinforcement of the old buildings has also to a large extent damaged the original fabric of traditional courtyard-house building as cultural heritage. Because of its disordered growth, the formation of the new texture has also caused a very inhumane and squalid living environment . Still an investigation of these socalled illegal additions, looking for the architectural languages in the new texture, is worthwhile as it too constitutes cultural memory. But there are very few documents about the new textures produced as serious study, or collected within the archives of institutions such as museums. To record evenly such spaces is to locate their memory of the contemporary hutongs. The lack of recording them means that the memories are disregarded as not relevant to the official history of their place.

fig. 31 A view of the ‘Big-messy Courtyards‘ fig. 32 Overlooking the ‘Big-messy Courtyards‘

â&#x20AC;&#x153; Today, private enterprise and public administration keep everything, while professional archivists have learned that the essence of their trade is the art of controlled destruction.â&#x20AC;?

- PIERRE NORA(1989), Between memory and history Les Lieux de Memoire, Representations, No.26 p. 7 - 24 76

Unlike such institutions, private enterprises and individuals show more interests in recording and integrating the new hutong culture and texture. With the help of the internet and social platforms, memories are increasingly recorded and shared . The local architecture web media Gooood even has a special subject page for courtyard-house renovation projects and thus the creation of a new layer of history. In 2011, the Beijing Design Week first introduced the Dashilar hutong region as the context and stage for design and innovations, since when, many places in different hutong areas have opened up for the public. Artists, designers and businesses were gathered to show their ideas about hutongs or display their own works, utilizing the new hutong fabric as temporary exhibition spaces. This event not only raised public discussions and produced strategies of renovating these spaces that are still in such poor condition, but also brings outside visitors into the new hutongs, allowing the voices of the current residents to be heard by a larger public indirectly. This new access raises many critical questions: Do we need to keep the memories of the new hutongs? How should we treat the new hutong texture? Is the new hutong part of the cultural heritage? We need more individuals to answer these questions based on their own memory.

fig. 33 A Pilot Project of BJDW 2014 fig. 34 Pop-up Installation of BJDW

Pierre Nora wrote, â&#x20AC;&#x153;the passage from memory to history has required every social group to redefine its identity through the revitalization of its own history.â&#x20AC;?(PIERRE NORA, 1989 ) Perhaps if more memories of new hutongs are verbalized or materialized, and more platforms for archiving and discussing new hutong memories are created, there will be a more positive engagement with this layer of embedded history. 77

EMORY

OF COURYARDS

Once we identify the house number, we can then enter in the correct courtyard houses. We already know that the two courtyards of No.24 Shijia hutong were once part of the six-courtyards residence of the No.49 Ganmian hutong. However, there are no detailed architectural drawings of the courtyard plans and their surrounding buildings that could be studied. Perhaps they have not survived or perhaps they never existed in the first place. Based on the depiction of the courtyards in the autobiographical novel Ancient Melodies, the mapping survey of Beijing city in 1957, and the remains of the old buildings on the site, the museum has attempted to reconstruct this period of time within the imaginary memory, that is when traditional courtyard-house life took place.

fig. 35 Survey mapping of No.24 Shijia hutong neighborhood, 1957

“It was an old-fashioned house, divided by couryards, one beside the other, and each court was lined with rooms on each side. The house in the first court contained Father’s large drawing rooms; children were not allowed to play there. Father ,too, seldom went into these rooms except when entertaining important guests. The second court was Third Mother’s. I only went there once or twice with mother because I felt a little bit alarmed at seeing Third Mother… In the third courtyard lived...

LING SHU HUA(1953), Descriptions about life in the Courtyard House Ancient Melodies

fig.36 Imagined Drawing of No. 49 Gan Mian hutong (The previous whole housing of Ling’s family)

â&#x20AC;&#x153;After breakfast we went out to play in the courtyard. There were two apple-trees growing beside the steps of the main hall, and now they were loaded with pink and white blossoms, bathed in the golden sunshine. â&#x20AC;? 81

“There was another reason that made Mother believe firmly in fate. When I was a year old, she had unexpectedly had a five months baby boy(lost in the end)... ”Even a brave hero or a strong man cannot overcome his fate.” She always quoted this saying when she talked to Fifth Mother about her sorrow… I remember now how many times my tears flowed from sympathy while I saw Mother and Fifth Mother weeping over an unseen but powerful force. ”

LING SHU HUA(1953), Descriptions about life in the Courtyard House Ancient Melodies 82

One can still read Shuhua’s contradictory feelings of the past courtyard-house life between her words. ”Things in old days which one recalls all pitiful, all lovable!” Ancient Melodies observes the Chinese old-fashioned aristocratic family life from a child’s eye. From her narration, one can see both the richness of the family’s cultural life and the narrow lives of women in the old family within the wall of the courtyards. “Growing in the context of that transitional age of old and new, my mother is seeking to get rid of the traditional women’s path and rely on pursuit of her own success to earn recognition and gain respects in her whole life.” Shuhua ‘s daughter Chen Xiaoying wrote in a testimony remembering her mother.

fig. 37 Illustration painted by Shuhua in her autobiographical novel Ancient Melodies 83

At the art gathering, Shuhua Ling asked Tagore bluntly, “ We are here for an art gathering today, do you know how to draw?” Tagore didn’t mind, and he painted a Buddha and lotus leaves on the sandalwood film prepared. Tagore then said to Shuhua, “ One should travel abundantly, to look for truth, kindness, and beauty in the nature; to look for the meaning of life, and the secrets of the universe in the nature. Not only paper and text are books, life is a book, people are books, nature is a book. ”

LING SHU HUA(1924) My Ideal and the Real Mr. Tagore Shijia Hutong Museum 84

A critical memory of women‘s life inside the old courtyards seems not to be the cultural memory that the museum has tried to represent. The exhibitions of Shuhua’s family memory focus on the visits of her family’s noble friends from the cultural circle of modern China – writers, poets, painters, architects, all well-known names in modern history. Ling Shuhua received both traditional Chinese education and western education, and became a female writer and painter under the influence of the cultural atmosphere that her family had exposed her to throughout her upbringing. Her house was called ‘the lady’s parlour’, as there were so many celebrities that had once come to visit there including the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, and one of the greatest Chinese painters in history, Qi Baishi.

fig. 38 Illustration painted by Shuhua in her autobiographical novel Ancient Melodies 85

fig. 39 Panorama of the first courtyard of No. 24 Shijia hutong

This is the cultural memory chosen to be crystalized in the museumized courtyard-house, which many people today feverishly cherish --- the elegance of the noble family‘ s life, the life of cultural prosperity and freedom. The memory relevant to this ideal past can be found within so many displays in the museum. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why Shijia Hutong museum had made the decision to renovate its architectural form as the traditional style of the courtyard house, because it is the ‘idealized past memory’ instead of the ‘ruins of past memory’ is what they tried to represent. It seems to be of great cultural values to memorize and take pride in the lives of famous people, yet the realities of the kindergarten and the community centre has been sacrificed for this purpose, leaving few spatial traces of their memory-archives to the public. 86

UINS OF COURTYARD-HOUSE

”The act of remembering, after all, is always in and of the present, while its referent is of the past and thus absent.” The German literature critic Andreas Huyssen wrote in his book Present Pasts about the role of memory in urban development. He pointed out that“ the newly found obsessions with the past ” should not simply replace the twentieth century’s obsessions with the future. “We need both past and future to articulate our political, social, and cultural dissatisfactions with the present state of the world.” He insisted. Building a Hutong museum of traditional architectural style at the site of the No. 24 Shijia hutong, on the ruins of the traditional hutongs, is a sign of retrieving and revitalizing the cultural memory of traditional Hutong Courtyard House. However, this action at the same time sweeps away the changes that had been made to the building after the celebrated author left her residence in Beijing for London. How will this kind of preference in memory representation limit our understanding of the complexity of inhabitation patterns embedded in hutong courtyard house more generally? 88

fig. 40 Comparison of a same view in No. 24 Shijia hutong Top - before the museumification bottom - after the museumification 89

fig. 41 Survey map of Shijia hutong and Gan Mian hutong 1957

In fact, the hutong courtyard house has always undergone changes, even long before the transformation of Beijingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ancient city fabric in the last 60 years. The earliest architectural drawing of the location on No.24 Shijia hutong can be traced back to the Qing Dynasty in 1750, where it is recorded in the Qianlong map of Beijing. By comparing this map with the 1957 survey map, we can see the changes in the layouts of the courtyards in the Shijia neighborhood.

fig. 42 Drawing of Beijing in Emperor Qian Long Period(Qing dynasty) 1750

Yet no one has proposed to rebuilt the buildings according to the older map. If changes of courtyard-house from the Qianlong map to the mapping survey of 1957 are acceptable, then why should the Shijia hutong museum not represent more recent changes in its museum buildings? This question should be addressed to the preservation and development strategy of Hutong Courtyard-houses in future. How much of past memory embedded in the architectural form of Hutong Courtyard-houses is allowed to be changed by its present and future memory? 91

fig. 43 Courtyard Houses in the Drawing of Beijing in Emperor Qian Long Period (Qing dynasty) 1750

A courtyard-house is usually described with the number of “Jin”, which refers to the times of entering the different doors of the courtyards. Nevertheless, even with the same number of Jin, traditional courtyard-houses have different layouts. It is assumed that the materialization of living culture has no standard and only when the buildings become rare and forgotten and then needs to be summerized, selected and recorded as collective memory. As what the French historian Pirre Nora wrote: ”Memory is life, borne by living societies founded in its name. It remains in permanent evolution, open to the dialectic of remembering and forgetting, unconscious of its successive deformations, vulnerable to manipulation and appropriation, susceptible to being long dormant and periodically revived.”(PIERRE NORA,1989) 92

fig. 44 A classic Four “Jin“ Hutong Courtyard House showed in the book of Chinese Architectural History

10 7

9 8

5 4 6 2

3 1

1. The Gate of the Residence 2. The Screen Wall 3. The Dropped Flowers Gate 4. The main courtyard 5. The Eastern Wing Room 6. The Western Wing Room 7. The Principal Room 8. The Chao Shou Corridoor(Veranda) 9. The Left Ear Room 10. The Right Ear Room 93

“Many people came to me for protecing these hutong residences. They hope I can draw the restored images of their courtyard houses, which they can present to the developers that their residences were beautiful . If they won’t demolish them and restore them instead, it would be a huge heritage.”

ZHENG XICHENG (2009) Residential Houses In Ancient Beijing

In the illustrated book Residential Houses In Ancient Beijing, Zheng Xicheng, a retired craftsman, running between hutong areas which were going to be demolished in the 2000s, painted hundreds of courtyard houses before their transformation – that is without their more recent additional volumes, in order to help the residents convince the developers that their houses were valuable and should not be demolished. He used his pen to erase those new volumes that affect the courtyards’ sanitary image, trying in his drawings to restore the courtyard-houses to a state of more than half a century earlier . Even though he deliberately removed these specific ‘changes’, other traces of the change to the fabric of the courtyard-house have been recorded in his drawings – changes that happened 100 years ago or even earlier. By the time the door of Imperial China had been forced to open by foreign empires, people from these foreign countries started to live in the courtyards. In other instances, Chinese students who had studies abroad returned from other cultures, and they brought with them back to China a new and different way of life and aesthetics. And so, the Beijing Hutong Courtyard House started adapting to this new cultural context, and evolving from it many new architectural forms.

fig. 45 A Foriegn Family in a courtyard house fig. 46 A Foriegn Family was having tea in a hutong courtyard

fig. 47 ZHENG XICHENG(2009) Drawings of Beijing Courtyard Houses Residences In Ancient Beijing

“ …In the current history/memory debate is not only a disturbance of our notion of the past, but a fundamental crisis in our imagination of alternative futures… ”

Nowadays, in the wake of the obsession with the future in the last century, a new obsession with the past may start to emerge. According to the recently released policy, Beijing will remediate about 16,000 “opening wall” shops (by making changes to the front of the residential buildings, such as enlarging the windows, removing part of the wall, changing the windows to face the shop door etc.). As a result, many famous cultural and social spaces in hutongs will be affected, many of which have opened for more than ten years and have become a part of the citizen’s new hutong lives. According to the news report, hutong courtyard house remediation not only aims to solve the noise problem caused by the ‘new’ function of these buildings, and the removal of traditional hutong culture by the tourism culture, but also to release the high population pressure within the central city area. It is said to be an inevitable requirement to “ease the non-capital functions”. (YING ZHONG, 2017)

ANDREAS HUYSSEN(2003), Present Pasts, Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory p. 2-7 98

Leave aside the judgement about whether this new policy could solve the “problems“ in hutongs, this movement itself perhaps could be seen to constitute yet another round of selecting and abandoning another ‘unpopular’ urban cultural memory, that of the hutong’s current use within the culture industry. Will the next move be to return the hutong culture to the past? Is this how it will address the future?

fig. 48 The front of a Hutong Bar (No.34 Fangjia Hutong) fig. 49 After the renovation

记

忆

The cultural memory is represented in part by the memorials it chooses to erect( HELMUTK ANHELER, 2011). The materialization of Hutong memory within the Shijia Hutong Museum is also a process of selection and representation. It selects the “valuable” memory to keep and recall, which is evidenced by the material culture on display within the museum, that is researched, recorded, archived and preserved. As what Di Giovine says, “it (museumification) is a transition from a living city to that of an idealized re-presentation of itself, wherein everything is considered not for its use but for its value as a potential museum artefact (Di Giovine, 2009).” Therefore, the renovated museum building and the surrounding environment can understood as part of the museum as an artefact – it has become a mediator of the specific Hutong memory that it has chosen to re-enact.

重

ĺĄ&#x2018;

Representation of Memory

EREAD

Before looking at the memory formation of the museum space, the memory trace left on the original building requires to be read first. I have already mentioned in the previous chapter, that the site was known to be the garden of the Ling’s family, and later the residence of Ling Shuhua. After the establishment of the new regime of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the empty courtyard-house property was nationalized, and subsequently belonged to the Chao Yang Men Sub-district Office of Dong Cheng District.

fig. 50 A view in No. 24 Shijia hutong before the museumification 102

Around 1958, in order to accommodate the new functions of the buildings for the kindergarten, some additional buildings were constructed on the site. Except the survey map of Beijing in 1957 there exists no archive for these architectural changes. In 2010, when the British Prince‘s Foundation(PFBC) decided establish a hutong museum based on this courtyard-house, the site was photographically recorded and the layout of the courtyards was surveyed. The documents used in this chapter were obtained from Mr. Hu Xinyu, the former director of the foundation, who had taken charge of this project. These photographs, recorded and thereby made permanent traces of memory that were materialized in the architecture.

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fig. 51

Survey map of No. 24 Shijia hutong 1957

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fig. 52 survey map of No. 24 Shijia hutong 2011

Entering from the north entrance of the Shijia hutong, the rectangular site was divided into two courtyards by the oldest building in the middle â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the original Hua Ting (parlour) of Lingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s family. The rest of the buildings were built along the boundary.

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Pitched roof with blue plastic tile Pitched roof with grey cement tile Concrete flat roof

03 02

02 03

fig. 53 Overlooking the roofs of No. 24 Shijia hutong 2011 107

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fig. 54 Beyond the traditional roof of a courtyard house 2015 109

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fig. 55 The roofs of the courtyard houses, 2015

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Red wooden frame Dark green frame Light green Dado

03 02 01

fig. 56 The colors on the north facade of the ‘ Hua Ting(parlour)’, No. 24 Shijia hutong 2011

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fig. 57 A courtyard house with traditional red frames

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fig 58 A scene of the light green Dado from a Chinese movie of 1980s

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Red frame door with green frame window Green frame decorated Zhi Shan Faded frame modern window Green frame Zhai Shan Red frame door Green horizontal window

06 03

01- 06

fig. 59 Different doors and windows on the north facade of the ‘ Hua Ting(parlour)’ No. 24 Shijia hutong 2011 117

fig. 60 A traditional courtyard house with modern plastic -steel doors and windows

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fig. 61 A view of the windows in a courtyard-house

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01 02 03

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Faded red frame door (south facade) Faded red frame door (south facade) Bao Sha (additional room add on one side of the original building)

fig. 62 The torn wooden structures of the south facade of the ‘ Hua Ting(parlour)’ No. 24 Shijia hutong, 2011

01 02

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fig. 63 A torn concrete wall of a courtyard-house 2015

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fig. 64 A torn column of a courtyard-house 2015

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Flat roof with western cornice Red brick (introduced in 1900s, all grey brick before)

fig. 65 The north facade of the boiler room, No. 24 Shijia hutong, 2011

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fig. 66A dismantling site of a western style building in Mi Shi hutong

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fig. 67 A poorly built red brick addition added to a traditional courtyard-house

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White painted wall Graffitis of the kindergarten children

fig. 68 The north facade of a southern building No. 24 Shijia hutong 2011

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fig. 69 A wall with childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s graffiti in a hutong courtyard house school 2017

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fig. 70 Front view of a courtyard-house Cafe in Ban Chang hutong 2017

131

EINTERPRET

This research has been a process of investigating the characteristics in the original buildings by looking at photographs, studying documents and meeting records that were produced at the conceptual design phase of the Shijia Hutong Museum (provided by PFBC), as well conducting an interview with Mr Xinyu Hu. I have attempted to, understand the different attitudes toward the Hutong Heritage-scape from their different renovation strategies of the original building in the process of museumification.

fig. 71 Rendering of the museum scheme produced by PFBC

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Apply pitched roof for main buildings

Keep the old trees in the original courtyard Introduce the traditional architectural element of the classical Chinese garden - the Moon Gate

134

Redesign the north gate as a traditoinal Gatehouse(mostly built on the southern gate)

All buildings apply traditional grey-brick walls and grey-tiles

fig. 72 Waterdrawing of the vision of the museum produced by the consultant of PFBC 2010

In early 2010, the PFBC had proposed this watercolor rendering, following field research and the study of traditional courtyard-house architecture in Beijing. Although it was just an initial reference, this rendering subsequently played a decisive role in the progress of the scheme. While several design ideas were proposed from two architectural firms , the final proposal reverted almost completely to this watercolour, only refining it and adding more details. 135

fig. 73 collage made from renderings of the museum produced by PFBC 2010 01

136

All the buildings and veranda(porch) have pitched roofs except for the boiler room in the southwest corner.

Red-green-tinted wooden frames of all the doors and windows, which match the color of the original â&#x20AC;&#x153;Hua Parlourâ&#x20AC;? and the traditional Courtyard-house.

Apply the veranda elements into every building, in order to connect the rooms of courtyard-house.

Add a community vegetable garden in the back courtyard

fig. 74 Rendering of the museum produced by PFBC 2010

In June 2010, after several meetings with the local community and further historical research on the site context, PFBC made a conceptual design proposal. Mainly based on the program of the community centre for disabled neighbours, the new plan made improvements by adding a room for display, a library and a teahouse. Additionally, features with traditional architectural language were increased, for instance by adding the Chao Shou Veranda and the Screen Wall. 137

PFBC Design Guidance Of the Renovation Work of Shijia Hutong Museum 2011

| Retain the original floor area and ings; | Apply the building techniques of nese architecture, embody the tra and pay attention to the traditiona | During the construction, comply w and regulations, and focus on the local community; | Consider (replacing) some (traditio tails for modern functions such as ancinginclusive design and tradition | Consider the cost management, t materials, and the difficulty of ma

Later in March 2011, the foundation drew up design guidance after discussing the proposal with the Chao Yang Men sub district office (the house owner). After this discussion, the two sides jointly produced a document of design adjustments, from which consensus on the cultural value of this hutong courtyard-house property can be read. Some of the selected paragraphs are illustrated at below.

138

scale of the build-

f traditional Chi aditional details al regulations; with the local laws cooporation with

onal) building des the threshold. (balnal elements) ; the durability of aintenance;

fig. 75 First plan of the museum produced by PFBC 2010

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03 10 04

05 09

01. Forecourt(gravel) 02. Gallery 03. Men’s WC 04. Office 05. Women’s WC 06. Storage 07. Office 08. Ofiice

09. Arts & Crafts workshop 10. Office 11. Activities 12. Activities 13. Women’s WC 14. Men’s WC 15. Handicap Crafts 16. Handicap Crafts

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PFBC Design Adjustment Of the Renovation Work of Shijia Hutong Museum 2011

140

| “The “Hua Parlour” situated in th only building with historical valu completely. In the renovation of t ple of the ancient building reconst portant principle.” | “Considering that the north ro street, they could be designed as shop for both visitors and commu | “Considering that the east win most private place of the whole be the office and the museum VIP | “The original house located by t blocked the front view of the “Hu demolished and replaced by a pa attract visitors to pay attention to on the façade of the “Hua Parlou | “Move the old boiler room to the furthest corner of the whole cou

he centre of the courtyard is the ue, which should be preserved this part, the authenticity princitruction should be the most im-

ooms are facing the public the library and handcraft workunity residents to visit.” ng of the inner courtyard is the courtyard, it is recommended to reception room.” the east side of entrance has ua Parlour”, which should be avilion or veranda. This could o the decorated wooden frame ur”. e west end, which would be the urtyard. ”

141

There is a clear emphasis on buildings with socalled ‘historical value’. All other existing architectural forms were disregarded, and the functional requirements served as the primary principle. In reading this memory of the renovated building , we can clearly decipher that the memory of the Ling family is foregrounded while other memories have not been materialized within the building’s languages. Besides, if we say that the museumized architectural language was the representation of cultural memory, then there is only the “Hua Parlour” with its ancient traditional architecture, that is being recognized as Hutong cultural property. All other buildings built in the past 60 years were completely ignored. The value assessment of the Hutong Courtyard-house’s cultural property is biased to ignore the complexity of its history. 142

fig. 76 Collage of the architectural embodiment of Lingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s family memory

143

According to the documents, PFBC invited two architectural firms to propose design schemes on the basis of their previous research. Architecnique, once responsible for the renovation work of another ancient building, the Zhi Zhu Temple, had some experiences in “doing subtraction” for ancient building preservation. While the other company, Wen He Design, previously worked in renovations of old factory and rural residential buildings, prided itself on its approach to “creative renovation”. And so these two companies presented two completely different approaches: Architecnique basically defined the architectural language of every individual building on the basis of the early and schematic watercolour rendering. For instance, by differentiating the pitched roof buildings and that of flat roof according to their building orientation, the feature of traditional courtyard-house layout was more clearly defined. However, they made no attempt to introduce any other spatial language to this site. Conversely, Wen He Design proposed several new ideas in terms of the courtyard-house’s spatial experience, like separating the traditional courtyard and the new courtyard by adding a corridor in a modern architectural language, and redeveloping the existing flat roof buildings into roof gardens, which could rewrite the site memory of “Ling’s family garden” using a modern architectural languages. 144

fig.77 Rendering of the museum produced by Architecnique 2012

fig. 78 Diagram of the museum produced by Wen He Design. 2010

145

My analysis is not so much interested in judging which design is better, but much rather in the different representations of site memory behind their spatial design proposals, which reflect their understanding of cultural memory and cultural heritage within the Hutong Courtyard-house. Architecnique understood Hutong memory statically, positioning the cultural memory of the courtyard house firmly in the past. While they used some modern architectural language, such as the flat roofs, these elements were applied following the pattern of the traditional Hutong Courtyard-house. The design proposal can be seen as building a memorial of the past, rather than a representation of a living memory. As Pierre Nora explained, “the memory is a perpetually actual phenomenon, a bond tying us to the eternal present”. (PIRRE NORA, 1989) The idea of forming a “New Courtyard-house Culture” as presented by Wen he Design’s proposal is more intriguing. As mentioned before, the self-renewal of the Beijing Hutong Courtyard-house during the period of the Republic of China, and the changes of architectural languages made for functional or aesthetic requirements in order to adapt the old buildings to a contemporary Hutong life , are a possibly more honest and sustainable way to protect and develop the Beijing Hutong Courtyard House as a living cultural heritage. Should we develop the Hutong Courtyard House heritage-scape as a representation of their living cultural memory, or just as an expression of a highly selective past history? 146

“ What we need to repair is the modern value system of traditional architecture, but not the traditional architectural itself… For the last 50 years, the role, status, and even the function of Hutong Courtyard-house of this city have already changed. They are no longer alive. Thus, upgrading them is the only way to protect them. It is regretful that the traditional Chinese ancient architecture had not kept its vitality in the modern society, because people have not realized that the way to sustain it is not duplicating, on the contrary, is creating, based on the analysis of a new discovery about problems(the architecture has to solve).”

WEN HE DESIGN Materials from PFBC

147

EWRITTEN

The decision of the final design proposal of the Shijia Hutong Museum was made on the agreement of the Chao Yang Men subdistrict government and the Prince’s Foundation (PFBC). The main design direction of Architecnique was finally selected. After several adjustments in the following year, the last version of the schematic design drawings were confirmed in May 2013, including the masterplan, the facades and other drawings. Overall, the final architectural style of the buildings is a traditional courtyard-house, with only different levels of traditional architectural languages applied on different buildings according to their importance in mimicking the traditional layout. Chinese ancient architecture has a complex standard in terms of architectural language. From the symbols of status and cultural meaning, to the

fig. 79 Window pattern of the Shijia Hutong museum 148

construction and usage of materials, there are ‘rules’ and ‘standards’ which must be referred to . What we know today about this ancient architecture is mainly derived from three books: Ying Zao Fa Shi(1100), a book about building construction engineering written by the government officers of the Song Dynasty, ‘’Gong Cheng Zuo Fa Ze Li (1734) dating from the Qing dynasty and Ying Zao Fa Yuan (1935) written by a noble family in the construction business in southern China. For the purpose of my investigation I have compared the main architectural languages ‘written’ into the reconstruction of the buildings of the Shijia Hutong Museum, with the relevant standard language described in these ancient architectural ‘textbooks’. This will expose how the cultural memory of Hutong Courtyard House ‘s architecture has influenced this museum building, and how individual memory traces (as analyzed in the previous section) were ignored in the materialization of memory. And hopefully this will allow us to rethink the architectural language that could speculatively be written into represent a more complex memory of Hutong Courtyard House.

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fig. 80 A four “Jin“ courtyard house from A History of Chinese Architecture

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fig. 81 Masterplan and Programs of Shijia Hutong Museum

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13 17 12

01. Entrance 02. Control room 03. Corridor Pavillion 04. The front court 05. Exhibition Room1 History of Shijia Hutong 06. Exhibition Room2 Cradle of the Beijing Peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Art Theatre 07. Exhibition Room3 The Origin of Modern Education in China 08. Exhibition Room4 Lin Shuhua & Chen Xiying

09. Exhibition Room5 Famous Shijia hutong Residents 10. The innercourt 11. Exhibition Room6 Hutong memories 12. Exhibition Room7 Hutong lives in the old days 13. Exhibition Room8 Shijia hutong in the 21th Century 14. Toilet 15. Multifunction Room 16. Reading room 17. Office

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fig. 82 Categories of the Chinese traditional architecture

A. Wu Dian Building

i). 5 Lin Jian Shan B. Xie Shan Building

a. Juan Peng Roof

b. Jisn Shan Roof

ii). 6 Lin Jian Shan

C. Ying Shan Building

D. Xuan Shan Building

E. Cuan Jian Building

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iii). 7 Lin Jian Shan

fig. 83 Final section drawings of Shijia Hutong Museum

03 02

02 02

01. Structure Type 1

02. Structurel Type 2

03. Structure Type 3

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fig. 84 The categories of the grid of columns of Ying Shan, Xie shan buildings

A. One Room

B. Multiple Rooms

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Multiple Rooms with Front Corridor

Multiple Rooms with Corridors on 2 sides

fig. 85 Final plans of Shijia Hutong Museum

03 01

01 02

01. Grid Type 1

02. Grid Type 2

03. Grid Type 3

04. Grid Type 4

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fig. 86 The categories of front structures of Chinese traditional architecture

A. Structure of doors and Kan window (walls and window frames)

B. Structure of doors and partrition boards

C. Structure of doors, Kan windows and partrition boards

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fig. 87 Final plans of Shijia Hutong Museum

05 03

01/02

03 04

01. Facade Type 1

02. Facade Type 2

03. Facade Type 3

04. Facade Type 4

05. Facade Type 5

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EMOLD

“Archaized architecture” is a special contemporary Chinese architecture style. It refers to the buildings built to imitate or replace the ancient buildings, traditional religious temples, traditional landscapes, ancient villages, etc., in order to restore the historical cityscape and environment. (Baidu Encyclopedias) To design and construct the archaized building is to follow the traditional architectural forms and decorations, as well as the construction techniques of the past. Even when using modern technologies or building materials to replace some of the structures’ parts, this type of architecture still tries to maintain the historic appearance. The architecture of the Shijia Hutong museum can be called archaized architecture. The expertise needed to put up such archaized buildings, such as elaborate crafted wood structures, mortise and tenon joinery. fig. 88 Construction Site of Shijia Hutong Museum 158

Through an interview with Mr. Xinyu Hu, the former director of PFBC who was in charge of the museum project, I learned that it was actually the experienced construction team who did the traditional structural calculations, selected the tenon joinery and other materials, processed the wood material and constructed the building in a relatively traditional way. Therefore, the drawings produced by the architecture firm were only half of the design. Many adaptations needed to be made by these experts in traditional Chinese wood construction. Even much of the decoration had to be changed from those shown on the drawings, as specific elements were bought from the ancient building materials market (if not customized handmade). In this section, based on the site construction photos provided by PFBC, I will mainly analyse the reconstruction process of the previous ‘Hua Parlour’, and other elements to identify representations of cultural memory in Beijing Hutong Courtyard-houses.

159

160

fig. 89t Explosion diagram of reconstruction of the “Hua Parlour“ 161

fig. 90 Tenons and parts of the wooden structure used in the reconstruction of the ‘Hua Parlour‘, Chinese Ancient Architecture Mannual

JI GUA Column YAO ZI Tenon

JIAO BEI

THREE JIA Beam

GUA Column

FIVE JIA Beam

LIN

LIN Board

LIN FANG

JIA JIAO Tenon

YAN LIN WAN

DA TOU Tenon

YAN WEI Tenon MAN TOU Tenon

YAN Column

ZHU DING SHI

GUAN JIAO Tenon

162

fig. 91 Wooden structure of the reconstructed ‘Hua Parlour‘

fig. 92 YAN WEI Tenon

fig. 93 GUAN JIAOI Tenon

fig. 94 YAO ZI Tenon 163

fig. 95 Parts of the roof structure used in the reconstruction of the ‘Hua Parlour‘, Chinese Ancient Architecture Mannual

QING SHUI Roof Ridge CHA XIE ZI WEI Carving Pattern Brick YUAN HUN THE FIRST/SECOND Batten PAN ZI GUI JIAO Double-layer MENG TOU Tile TIAO TOU Brick WA QUAN DANG GOU

HE Tile Roof YANG Tile GAI Tile WA KOU Wood

Wooden Structure of Roof KU BEI WANG BAN NAO CHUAN HUA JIA CHUAN YAN CHUAN FEI CHUAN CHA DANG BAN DA LIAN YAN XIAO LIAN YAN

164

fig. 96 Roof structure of the reconstructed ‘Hua Parlour‘

fig. 97 Roof Structure

fig. 98 Construction of Tiles

fig. 99 Construction of Roof Ridge 165

fig. 100 Walls and wall parts used in the reconstruction of the ‘Hua Parlour‘, Chinese Ancient Architecture Mannual

SHAN Wall BO FENG Brick BA YAN Brick BA YAN Brick

FENG SHAN BING PAN YAN

KAN Wall SHI ZI Brickwork

LAN TU Wall SHI ZI Brickwork

166

fig. 101 Walls of the reconstructed ‘Hua Parlour‘

fig.102 KAN wall brickwork

fig.103 Grey brick surface with red brick inside

fig.104 BO FENG Brick 167

fig. 105 Traditional architectural elements and decorations of Shijia Hutong Museum

168

fig. 106 Architectural â&#x20AC;&#x153; artifacts â&#x20AC;&#x153; collected from different Hutong sites built in the Shijia Hutong Museum

169

场

Cultural memory has its fixed point; its horizon does not change with the passing of time. These fixed points are fateful events of the past, whose memory is maintained through cultural formation (texts, rites, monuments) and institutional communication (recitation, practice, observance). (Jan Assmann, 1995) The Shijia Hutong Museum is a formation of the Hutong Courtyard House cultural memory. Its ambition is not to just communicate the memory of the Shijia Hutong, but let the public understand the cultural value of the Hutong Courtyard House typology at large, so that more people will participate in the protection of the cultural heritage of the Beijing Hutong. I have used the Shijia Hutong Museum as an individual site of Hutong memory and representation of Hutong cultural heritage, a case study for rethinking and discussing heritage strategies of the Beijing Hutong Courtyard House. What is the value of its cultural heritage? What kind of heritage-scape should it be? Based on the analysis of the relationship between ‘individual memory’ and ‘collective memory’, ‘ruins’ and ‘memorials’ of the Hutong Courtyard-house in the first two chapters, I will now introduce a cross disciplinary discussion similar to those emerging in the art criticism of the 196070 , in order to summarize the understandings and proposed strategies.

所

记

忆

A ' Site - Specific ' Memory

“If the city is careful to preserve its most famous landmarks, like the Drum Tower and the Forbidden City, it doesn’t look upon the chaotic life of its alleyways(hutongs) as valuable heritage.”

Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore (2013), False Historical Consciousness, The New York Times Compan

172

The passing of cultural heritage is a dynamic process, it is not nostalgic for a certain glorious period of time. The current built environment of the Hutong Courtyard House is no longer traditional, as new individual memories have been materialised in the urban fabric. While this new fabric, may not look as refined and elegant as what was there a hundred years ago, it is nonetheless an authentic cultural manifestation, and there must be wisdoms and values from which a later generation might be able to learn. If the present memory of the Hutong Courtyard House is not recognized, then its values as a heritage-scape can never be fully understood. What we are exposed to is a sanitized pastiche of a selective fictitious past. And so the heritage keepers face the embarrassing condition of “recalling memories in the ruins”.

ERITAGE SCAPE

173

How do we confront the present ‘ruins of memory’? Perhaps instead of regarding today’s Hutong fabric as ‘ruins’ of the past, we could tap into its values as mediators of cultural memory and enlist it as part of the cultural heritage.

174

ON THE

UINS OF

EMORY

175

“Museums,archives,cemeteries,festivals,anniversaries,treaties,depositions, monuments, sanctuaries, fraternal orders – these are the boundary stones of another age, illusions of eternity. It is the nostalgic dimension of these devotional institutions that makes them seem beleaguered and cold --- they mark the rituals of a society without ritual; integral particularities in a society that levels particularity; signs of distinction and of group membership in a society that tends to recognize individuals only as identical and equal. ”

- PIERRE NORA(1989), Between memory and history Les Lieux de Memoire, Representations, No.26 p. 7 - 24 176

The Shijia Hutong Museum is the first museum to specialise in the collective memory of the Beijing Hutong Courtyard House. Although there are dozens of former courtyard-house valued as residences of ancient officials and intellectuals scattered around the old city, most of these have chosen to rebuild or restore their past scenarios, to become memorials of the past. In contemplating on the boundary of the past and the present, the culture of the Hutong Courtyard House might not only need memorials, but an increased practice in self-renewal which enables the living memory to continue to change with time. The museumized space of the Hutong Courtyard House should not only be a representation of an idealized past, but based on understanding how the buildings work today within the modern city and indeed how they might work tomorrow. As living cultural heritage, the Hutong Courtyard House heritage-scape will need to evolve from its approach of “archaized architecture”.

fig. 107 fig. 108 fig. 109 fig. 110

KE QIN Duke ‘s residence Museum of LU XUN ‘s residence AN HUI Provincial hostel SHAO XING Regional hostel

177

“The very stuff of the museum is the resurrection of memories kept alive in the hearts and minds of its former residence. ”

The preface quoted from the Shijia Hutong Museum that I referenced at the beginning, explains what the institution is determined to pass on and communicate about the traditional culture of the Hutong Courtyard House, and promises to integrate this into the Shijia hutong as a living museum. But because the traditional hutong fabric has been replaced by the new reproduction, and other layers of cultural deposit have been erased, it is now a place of fantasy rather a site of memory in terms of its built environment, that can be transmitted to the next generation. According to DI GIOVINE(2009), Museumification as

related to the eco-museum, with the goal of keeping the heritage alive within a heritage site. Unlike a traditional museum, which only collects and exhibits documents and objects, it collects people and their immaterial activities. Unlike inanimate objects, which are in some way concrete in form, the substance of a people’s culture does not only - ICOMS(2004), ICOM - The International Council of Museums

178

vary from individual to individual, but is constantly changing and replicating. In a living museum, or an eco-museum, the most fundamental change is that the museum is no longer just about the display of value static “artifacts”, but about the values produced by the individualities of people living in that culture and the changes they have made by living within that context. This is what the eco-museum attaches importance to and passes on as cultural heritage. From this perspective, the spatial representation of the Shijia Hutong Museum should not just represent a general idealized courtyard house, but grapple with how also to exhibit those “mediators of memory”- the original spatial context which has changed with different residents and functions through the time. This strategy of eco-museumification of the Hutong Courtyard House would not just be limited to an individual public museum, like the Shijia Hutong Museum, but can also be applied to the Hutong heritage-scape at large. In light of this, how would it be possible to represent this kind of cultural memory within the heritage-scape of the Hutong Courtyard House?

E M CO

USEUM

179

During the 1960s, minimal sculpture launched an attack on the prestige of both artist and artwork, granting that prestige instead to the situated spectator, whose self-conscious perception of the minimal object in relation to the site of its installation produced the work’s meaning. Similar to the debate of cultural values in the heritage-scape, a discussion about the meaning of artworks and its materiallity and context were raised between some artists and critics. In 1970 two exhibitions took place in New York, “Information at the Museum of Modern Art and Software’ at the Jewish Museum, which together marked a widespread shift in the nature of art objects. Artists included in Information’ and ‘Software’ redefined the artwork as a pure act of communication. In these new approaches meaning arose from the context of an object’s presentation and, as in Minimalist sculpture, the content of the work was as much a product of perception as the result of material fashioning. ( DAVID JOSELIT, 2003) - DOUGLAS CRIMP(1995), On the Museum’s Ruins, p17. - p. 18

180

S A

ITE-SPECIFIC RT

181

What site-specific art has changed is that the usual indicators of the artists’ subjectivity in the craftsmanship of a work was abandoned, the subjectivity experienced was the spectator’s own. This condition of reception, in which meaning is made a function of the works’s relationship to its site of exhibition, came to be known as site-specificity.

- DOUGLAS CRIMP(1995), On the Museum’s Ruins, p17. - p. 18

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“ SITE-SPECIFICITY ” There are two features identified in site-specific art: the first is that the artwork itself was made to respond to a particular site, it changes the individual site through its presence; the second is that the audiences’ understanding of the artwork was considered the real subjectivity of its meaning and value. Regarding the first feature, in the context of a critical approach to the value and selection of memories in the Hutong Courtyard House, a site specific response to the location should address and work with the existing mediators of the ‘ individual memories ‘ of the site, rather than become an installation of the collective memory that could be placed anywhere.

There it was, attached to the structure of that old ware-house on the Upper West Sideâ&#x20AC;Ś For to remove the work meant certainly to destroy itâ&#x20AC;Ś The work was conceived on the site, built on the site, had become an integral part of the site, altered the very nature of the site.

fig. 111 RICHARD SERRA Splashing , 1968 installation Castelli Warehouse, New York

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fig. 112 Different additional volumes on different â&#x20AC;&#x153;Big-messy Courtyardsâ&#x20AC;? 184

185

Many artists began to regard material things as irrelevant to an experience of art which, in their view, centered on an exchange of information. As Kynaston McShine, the curator of Information, put it in his catalogue essay, “With the sense of mobility and change that pervades their time, [the exhibiting artists] are interested in ways of rapidly exchanging ideas rather than embalming the idea in an “object.”

- DAVID JOSELIT(2003) American Art Since 1945 pp.129 - 160

186

Then regarding the discussions of value within the heritage-scape, the site-specific response should not only be limited to a discussion between architects, developers, or governments. Instead, this response should be a site-specific artwork that allows the public to react, reflect, and even participate. And I argue that this would also meet the core value of cultural heritage “to be passed on by people”. This approach allows more spectators’ participation in forming present Hutong cultural memories and sharing with others what spatial memory trace of the Hutong recalls the individual memory that they themselves value in particular, and that should be inherited as heritage.

fig. 113 Hans Haacke, MOMA Poll [1970] Information, Museum of Modern Art

Would the fact that Governor Rockefeller has not denounced President Nixonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Indochina policy be a reason for you not to vote for him in November ?

YES

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“ ART AS INFORMATION ” If an individual Hutong Courtyard House is a site, and the information is the critical response to that specific space, then the renovation and redevelopment of the courtyard-house can be seen as an artwork for communication. Why do we need to emphasize the architectural space to show the value system of Hutong Courtyard-house? McShine(the curator of Information) claims that a dynamic exchange of information would only be embalmed if given permanent form. When it comes to the heritage-scape of the Hutong Courtyard House, this can also be understood as a formation of cultural memory. (The objectivation or crystallization of communicated meaning and collectively shared knowledge is a prerequisite of its transmission in the culturally institutionalized heritage of a society (JAN ASSMANN, 1988 )

fig. 114 Different Medias new Hutong memory on different Hutong Courtyard House Sites 188

If more notions reflecting the new hutongs can be materialised as cultural formations like monuments and presented to the public, then more individual memories will be able to contribute to the formation of a ‘new’ cultural memory. The protection of cultural heritage of the Hutong Courtyard House needs to be an act of building diverse monuments, at a variety of hutong sites, creating cultural memories from different social groups, for different functions, at different times in history.

fig. 115 Hutong Bubble by MAD Architecture fig. 116 Micro Hutong by ZAO Architecture fig. 117 Hutong Tea House by Archstudio

fig. 118 Plugin House by People Architecture fig. 119 Micro Messy- Courtyard by ZAO Architecture fig. 120 Si Fen Yuan by TAO Architecture

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“In the classic period, the three main producers of archives were the great families, the church, and the state. But who, today, does not fell compelled to record his feelings, to write his memoirs... The less extraordinary the testimony, the more aptly it seems to illustrate the average mentality.” “Problematically, museumification often presupposes that the keepers of this brand of culture are not those immediately enacting it...”

“ SITE-SPECIFIC ” MEMORY

- PIERRE NORA(1989), Between memory and history Les Lieux de Memoire, Representations, No.26 pp. 7 - 24 - MICHAEL A. DI GIOVINE(2009), The Heritage -scape Unesco, World Heritage, and Tourism pp261-274 190

More stakeholders, in addition to developers, architects, or preservers, especially those who live lives in the Hutong Courtyard Houses should all be able to record their own individual memory of their cultural heritage. Only if more “individual memories” are recorded, can “collective memory” become closer to “changing and living memory”, and make the cultural heritage alive.

Not everyone has the opportunity to materilize his/ her memory as a monument in the built-world. Unlike the limitation in the physical world, the cyberspace provides possibilities for everyone to archive and ‘materialise’ their memory. This research has prompted my idea of creating an online platform as a site-specific art to respond to the issue surround my discussion of the Shijia Hutong Museum - what kind of Hutong memory and memory-scape should we museumized as cultural heritage. It is a platform that collects memory archives and traces selected by individuals’ and that have to do with and are intimately linked to the Beijing Hutong Courtyard House.

“The quest for memory is the search for one’s history.”

- PIERRE NORA(1989), Between memory and history Les Lieux de Memoire, Representations, No.26 pp. 7 - 24

Hopefully, if more living memory can be archived and represented, either in form of a monument or artefact in the physical world, or displayed somewhere even more accessible in cyberspace, eventually a new, more complex and multilayered cultural identity of the Hutong Courtyard House can be made readable for the public as traces of a more authentic collective memory.

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fig. 121 Homepage of the website

记

忆

废

CREATE YOUR OWN

192

墟

之

上

N HUTONG MONUMENT

193

fig. 122 Type the name and number of the courtyard house to locate the Monument for individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hutong memory

C H O O S E 24 Shijia Hutong

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24 Shijia Hutong (previous 54 Shijia Huton)

H U T O N G

S I T E

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fig. 123 Choose texts of memory in the memory archive randomly, or write individuals’ own memory archive.

1924, SHU HUA LING

g asked n i L a u uh t ering, Sh here for an ar h t a g t r e ar At the a ly, “ We u know how to t n u l b e yo Tagor day, do o t g n i r gathe draw?”

After breakfast w in the courtyard. ple-trees growing the main hall.

CHOOSE A HUTON WRITE YOUR O

196

... a slider in the no rth side of the first courtyard, and a pi geon house at the opposite...

Click the board to view more

we went out to play There were two apbeside the steps of

NG MEMORY YOU LIKE WN SITE MEMORY

197

fig. 124 Create individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own memory archive of words

My top left had stair

W R I T E

Y O U R

T E X T

H E R

nce I drew a O . n e rt a rg de t It was a kin all of the firs w e it h w e panda on th acher said court , the te

CHOOSE HUTONG B

198

WRITE YOUR O

y grandfa ther build a little te p of the k rras itchen. He used the m e on ft on the c aterials onstructio n site nea d a little r rby ooftop ve getable ga , so we r of red w rden with ater pipe handrail.

Drag the board to create more

YEAR NAME

G MEMORY YOU LIKE WN SITE MEMORY

199

fig. 125 Individuals can choose a structure for their monument from the Courtyard House database

CHOOSE A MONU B

200

1924, SHU HUA LING

Click the empty space to view more

UMENT STRUCTURE N

201

fig. 126 Individuals can choose a roof for their monument from the Courtyard House database

C H O O S E B

202

M O

Click the empty space to view more 2013, Archaistic Roof

O N U M E N T

R O O F N

203

fig. 137 Individuals can choose different facade elements for their monument from the Courtyard House database

1980s, Green Dado

C H O O S E B

204

F A C

Click the empty space to view more

A D E

E L E M E N T S N

205

fig. 128 Individuals can build up their monument with the materials they selected

After brea kfast w in the cou rtyard. ple-trees growing the main hall.

r the courtya The wall of i ff ra full of g garten was c ri b e it e wh panda on th e b to g in go er said I am

S H A R E

206

Y O U

we went o ut to There were play two apbeside th e steps of

derrd-house kin rew a d I ce n itis. O teachck wall , the e a painter.

M O N U M E N T

207

fig. 129 Monuments are exhibited in the monument gallery, where different memories can be read.

he for an art gat â&#x20AC;&#x153; We are her how do you know ering today, to draw?â&#x20AC;?

My grandf ather build top of the a little te rrase on kit left on the chen. He used the m constructi on site ne aterials had a little arby rooftop ve getable ga , so we stair of re d water pip rd e handrail. en with

... a slider in the nor th side of the first courtyard, and a pig eon house at the opposite...

M O N U M E N

208

N T

After brea kfast we w ent out to in the cour play tyard. Th er ple-trees growing be e were two apside the st the main eps of hall.

2017.09.20 by YANG

e te wall of th a on the whi I drew a pand the teacher said , ten kingdergar

G A L L E R Y

VIEW T H E M A P

209

fig. 130 The numbers of Hutong memory monuments of each hutong can be read on the map, as a data for visualizing the memory archive

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T O

SHI JIA HUTONG M O N U M E N TS

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REFERENCE

1. JAN ASSMAN; JOHN CZAPLICKA (1995), Cultural History/Cultural Studies, New German Critique, No. 65, pp. 125-133, Available from “http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0094-033X%28199521%2F22%290%3A65%3C125%3ACMACI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z “ 2. ICOMOS(2002), International Cultural Tourism Charter. Principles And Guidelines For Managing Tourism At Places Of Cultural And Heritage Significance. ICOMOS International Cultural Tourism Committee. 3. ICOM.MUSEUM (2014), ICOM - The International Council of Museums- ICOM. [online] Available from: “ http://icom.museum/fileadmin/user_up.../p7_2004-4.pdf ”[Accessed 20 Nov. 2014]. 4. RAPHAEL SAMUEL(1988), Theatres of Memory: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture v. 1, Verso; New edition edition 5. PIERRE NORA(1989), Between memory and history, Les Lieux de Memoire, Representations, No.26, Special Issues: Memory and Counter Memory, pp. 7 – 24 6. SHIJIA HUTONG MUSEUM(2017), Exhibitions of the Museum 7. WANG JUN(2003), Beijing Record, A Physical and Political History of Planning Modern Beijing, Joint Publishing Co. (English version: WANG JUN(2011), Beijing Record, A Physical and Political History of Planning Modern Beijing, World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd) 8. The Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning (2000), The Preservation Plan of 25 Historic And Cultural Preservation Areas In Old Beijing, Available from “http://www.bjww.gov.cn/2004/7-27/3073.html ” 9. ANDREAS HUYSSEN(2003), Present Pasts, Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory, Stanford University Press, pp. 2-7 10. LING SHUHUA(1953), Ancient Melodies, London, The Horgarth Press 11. LIU JIAN PENG(Feb 2014), From Shijia Kindergarten to Hutong Museum, Chao Yang Men News, Page 8 12. IFENG BLOG (2012), The Protection of Property Rights, Interview of Hua Xinmin, reprinted article available at “ http:// blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_7d49a51a0102wq79.html ”

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13. ZHENG XICHENG(2009), Residential Houses In Ancient Beijing, Xue Yuan Publishing House 14. PFBC(Prince’s Foundation for Built Community)(2011), Design Guidance Of the Renovation Work of Shijia Hutong Museum, unpublished document 15. PFBC(Prince’s Foundation for Built Community)(2011), Design AdjustmentOf the Renovation Work of Shijia Hutong Museum , unpublished document 16. CLARISSA SEBAG-MONTEFIORE (2013), False Historical Consciousness, The New York Times Company, available at “https://cn.nytimes.com/opinion/20130321/c21sebag/en-us/ ” 17. DOUGLAS CRIMP(1995), On the Museum’s Ruins, first published in 1993, London England, The MIT Press, HELMUT K ANHELER, YUDHISHTHIR RAJ ISAR(2011), Cultures and Globalization: Heritage, Memory and Identity, Volume 4 of The Cultures and Globalization Series, SAGE Publications 18. DAVID JOSELIT(2003), American Art Since 1945, first edition 2003, Thames & Hudson, pp.129 – 160 19. MICHAEL A. DI GIOVINE(2009), The Heritage –scape, Unesco, World Heritage, and Tourism, Lanham: Lexington Books. pp261-274

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CREDITS fig.0 http://www.greatmirror.com/index.cfm?navid=817 fig.1 Dirgram made by the author

fig. 13 – 14 Original image : photo credit to LUO ZHE WEN, Beijing Record, Joint Publishing Co.

fig.2 Google Map 2017

fig. 15 Original image : http://www.ihuawen.com/hw/article/28720.html

fig.3 Beijing Surveying and Mapping & Research Institute 1957 Obtained from PFBC(Prince’s Foundation for Built Community)

fig. 16 Original image : https://m.v4.cc/News-3609033.html

fig.4 Original image : Beijing Publishing House, 1962 fig.5 Original image : China Map Publishing House Surveying and Mapping Publishing House, 1994 fig. 6 Original image : http://sucai.redocn.com/yishuwenhua_7482677.html fig.7 Original image : http://www.theworldofchinese.com/2013/01/lining-up-beijing/ fig. 8 Original image : Google Map 2017 fig.9 Original image : Hou Ren Zhi Anthology, 1988 fig. 10 – 11 Original image : http://collection.sina.com.cn/cqyw/2016-10-27/doc-ifxxfysn7854177.shtml fig. 12 Original image : http://bluesky0301.blog.sohu.com/86678922.html 214

fig. 17 Original image : photocopy from Beijing Record(2003), photo credit to Beijing Planning and Construction Magazine fig. 18 -19 https://m.v4.cc/News-3609033.html fig. 20 Photo taken in Shijia Hutong Museum fig. 21 Photo taken in Shijia Hutong Museum fig.22 Lifeweek Magazine, 2009, NO. 43 fig. 23 LING SHUHUA, Ancient Melodies,The Horgarth Press, 1953 fig. 24 Photo taken in Shijia Hutong Museum fig. 25 Photo taken in Shijia Hutong Museum fig. 26 original image : https://www.flickr.com/photos/64808588@ N07/5993276327 photo credit to Old Andy

fig. 27 Original image : http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_7d49a51a0102wq79.html fig. 28 Original image : Beijing Municipal House Management Bureau,1957 photo taken in Shijia Hutong Museum fig. 29 Original image : Google Map 2017 fig. 30 Original image : BEIJING Old City and Ju Er Hutong, China Construction Industry Publishing House ,1994

Yan Zhu Bai Dai Co.(bottom) Image obtained from PFBC fig. 41 Original image : Beijing Surveying and Mapping & Research Institute 1957 Obtained from PFBC(Prince’s Foundation for Built Community) fig. 42 - 43 Original image: Photocopy bought from Internet http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/toyobunko/II-11-D-802/ fig. 44 A History of Chinese Architecture, 2009 China Construction Industry Publishing House

fig. 31 – 32 Photo taken by the author

fig. 45 – 46 http://www.sohu.com/a/128981759_503031

fig. 33 Photo credit to Nicola Longobardi http://www.elledecor.it/en/beijing-design-week/ Dashilar-Pilot-Project-beijing-design-week-2014-neighborhood-district-restyling#10

fig. 47 ZHENG XI CHENG(2009) Drawings of Beijing Courtyard House Residences, Xue Yuan Publishing House

fig. 34 Photo credit to People’s Architecture https://www.urdesignmag.com/design/2014/12/16/ pop-up-habitat-by-peoples-architecture-office/ fig. 35 Original image : Beijing Surveying and Mapping & Research Institute 1957 Obtained from PFBC(Prince’s Foundation for Built Community) fig. 36 Drawing credit to ZHENG XI CHENG fig. 37-38 LING SHUHUA(1953), Ancient Melodies,The Horgarth Press fig. 39 Yan Zhu Bai Dai Co. Image obtained from PFBC fig. 40 Original image : Photo credit to Mattew Kelly (top)

fig. 48 - 49 Photo credit to QIANG YI SHU IFENG NEWS http://wemedia.ifeng.com/19894652/wemedia.shtml fig. 50 Original image : Photo credit to Mattew Kelly Image obtained from PFBC fig. 51 Original image: Beijing Surveying and Mapping & Research Institute 1957 Obtained from PFBC(Prince’s Foundation for Built Community) fig. 52 Original Image obtained from PFBC fig. 53 Original image : Photo credit to Mattew Kelly Image obtained from PFBC

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fig. 54 Photo taken by the author fig. 55 Photo taken by the author fig. 56 Original image : Photo credit to Mattew Kelly Image obtained from PFBC fig. 57 Photo credit to the Peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Architecture http://www.yicai.com/news/5292465.html fig. 58 http://hunan.voc.com.cn/article/201607/20160706084210865_3.html fig. 59 Original image : Photo credit to Mattew Kelly Image obtained from PFBC fig. 60 - 61 photo taken by the author fig. 62 Original image : Photo credit to Mattew Kelly Image obtained from PFBC fig. 63 Photo taken by the author fig. 64 Photo taken by the author fig. 65 Original photo credit to Mattew Kelly Image obtained from PFBC

Image obtained from PFBC fig. 69 Photo taken by the author fig. 70 Photo credit to ZAI JIA http://www.sohu.com/a/137194030_513102 fig. 71 -75 Original image credit to PFBC fig. 76 Original photo credit to Mattew Kelly Image obtained from PFBC LING SHUHUA, Ancient Melodies,The Horgarth Press, 1953 fig. 77 - 78 Original image credit to PFBC fig. 79 Original photo credit to Mattew Kelly Image obtained from PFBC LING SHUHUA, Ancient Melodies,The Horgarth Press, 1953 fig. 80 NI YUE HONG(2009), Study on Typology of Beijing Hutong Si He Yuan, China Construction Industry Publishing House fig. 81 Original image credit to PFBC fig. 82 TIAN YONG FU, 2013 Chinese Ancient Architecture Manuel, China Construction Industry Publishing House fig. 83 Original drawing credit to PFBC

fig. 66 Photo credit to National Geographic http://www.nationalgeographic.com.cn/news/4198.html

fig. 84 TIAN YONG FU, 2013 Chinese Ancient Architecture Manuel, China Construction Industry Publishing House

fig. 67 Photo taken by the author

fig. 85 Original drawing credit to PFBC

fig. 68 Original photo credit to Mattew Kelly

fig. 86 TIAN YONG FU, 2013

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Chinese Ancient Architecture Manuel, China Construction Industry Publishing House fig. 87 Original drawing credit to PFBC fig. 88 Original photo credit to Mattew Kelly Image obtained from PFBC fig. 89 Image produced by author fig. 90 - 91 Image produced by author fig. 92 – 94 Original photo credit to Mattew Kelly Image obtained from PFBC fig. 95 - 96 Image produced by author fig. 97 - 99 Original photo credit to Mattew Kelly Image obtained from PFBC fig. 100 -101 Image produced by author fig. 102 - 104 Original photo credit to Mattew Kelly Image obtained from PFBC fig. 105 – 106 Original photo credit to Mattew Kelly Image obtained from PFBC fig. 107 http://www.daoyoupeixun.com/blog/qdtmzwf/1533744767.html fig. 108 http://www.cbda.cn/html/topproject/20121024/13967. html fig. 109 http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_8273021f0102v9mq.html

fig. 111 http://www.artnews.com/2015/10/16/time-on-theirhands-scott-burton-on-richard-serra-and-bruce-naumans-durational-art-in-1968/ fig. 112 Photo taken by the author Diagram produced by the author fig. 113 http://napoleonicrevival.tumblr.com fig. 114 Image produced by author fig. 115 Photo credit to Shu He http://www.archdaily.com/50931/beijing-hutong-bubblemad/_mg_9940_by-shuhe fig. 116 Photo credit to DOMUS http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2016/11/15/ micro_hutong_zao_standardarchitecture_.html fig. 117 Photo credit to Archstudio http://www.jiemian.com/article/379427.html fig. 118 photo credit to PAO(People Architecture) http://www.gooood.hk/mrs-fans-plugin-house-by-pao. htm fig. 119 Photo credit to ZAO(Standard Architecture) http://www.standardarchitecture.cn/v2news/7299 fig. 120 Photo credit to TAO Architecture http://www.archiposition.com/information/projects/ item/857-split-courtyard-house-trace-architecture-officebeijing.html fig. 121 – 130 Image produced by the author

fig. 110 https://cn.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g294 212-d1864330-i63371261-Mei_Lanfang_Memorial-Beijing. html

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