How to Preserve Historic Districts in Harbin

Abstract

Historic preservation is always a hot topic in contemporary city development. The heritage witnessed how human life evolved and how the city developed. The high historical value assembles the city’s spirit and it brings to the human a sense of belonging. However, with urbanization and modernization, the heritages are easily under the risks of being damaged. Since 1980s, China started to pay attention on heritage preservation. The historic buildings, sites and historic cities are continuously added into the preservation objectives. Harbin city is a Chinese city with influences of western culture in its architecture due to its history. The government took actions to preserve these heritages since late 1980s. But facing countless historic remaining, the process of historic preservation planning has many problems which lead to a dissatisfaction of Harbin city. So far, there are 22 legally listed historic cultural districts. Based on their functions, they are divided into 5 types. The three districts having the most problems regarding preservation are covered in this research while the other two with better conditions are left for further study. The main difficulties in historic preservation are stated to provide sufficient knowledge on what is happening in Harbin, namely the decay of historic cultural value, the extensive influence of the government and commercial developers over other actors, and the lack of funding on preservation projects. In order to improve the historic preservation planning system for Harbin, the research deeps into the current situation of Harbin and analyzes two European cases in order to draw lessons. Three main parts in the body of the analysis are inspiration phase, learning phase and the transplantation phase. The inspiration phase contains the current situation and the case introductions, the learning phase contains the case analysis and the transplantation phase is focusing on transferring the merits from cases to Harbin. Five aspects are found to be essential in historic preservation. These are guidance of operation, public participation, supervision in process, coordination with other organizations and money source. The activities of these aspects are discussed in the case studies. And in order to improve the historic preservation planning system in Harbin, together with the local situation and resources, this research recommends five mechanisms. According to Richard Rose’s theories on the alternatives of treating lessons learning, they are adapted to increase the suitability and effectiveness: The research suggests that the experts should come up with a clear and detailed operating guidance for the operators in real work. The public’s involvement and other organizations should be encouraged and stimulated to coordinate in the preserving process. The funding problem can be solved by getting support from central government and the society including rich groups and donations. The mass media should monitor the process in order to ensure the fairness of the process.