EXPLORING TRANSFORMATION OF STREET LAYOUT IN THE OLD CITY OF BEIJING: CASE STUDIES OF QIANMEN AND XISI

Abstract

Numerous historical buildings, streets and sites keep disappearing nowadays because the impact from rapid urban modernization development. Usually, the government and planner have ideas about how to build new urban landscape while own limited ways to preserve historic site. The old city of Beijing shows this conflict obviously with a large number of historical districts replaced by new modern constructions. Qianmen and Xisi districts are the two representative regions inside old city and so by researching them, can some new efficient methods and solutions be fond to guide further development of historic sites? Urban morphology is the key research methodology. It is the study subject of the form of human settlements and the process of their formation and transformation. The study seeks to understand the spatial structure and character of a metropolitan area by examining the patterns of its component parts and the process of its evolution. In particular, street pattern and route structure are the focuses rather than entire urban form subject. After the entire study, the urban form data can be transformed into mathematical results firstly, providing the scientific and rational outcomes as basis. Then the deeper relationship between urban morphology and historical reasons can be detected, giving the cogent logic for urban renovation and evolution in the future.