Page 52 - JCAU-4-1

Two Water Towns in the Qingpu District of Shanghai Semprebon

4.3 Case two: Liantang Water Town as an and primary school are the main attractions to
undeveloped historical settlement visitors. A monument named “Memorial Hall
Liantang is a water town of about 1,000 of Former Residence of Chen Yun &
inhabitants with more than 1,100 years of Revolutionary History of Qingpu” was built
history. The settlement is situated in the in 2000 to commemorate his life and service
Qingpu District, on the Shi River banks, a to the country as a hero of the revolution
7
watercourse insisting in the south-western [Figure 13] . He lived in an old-fashioned
canal network of Shanghai. Originally, it was Jiangnan-style residence with brick walls and
called Zhangliantang, and was known as “a timber carpentry. Liantang also has the oldest
land of fish and rice” and as “a land of water art museum in Shanghai, showcasing
bamboo” because of the rice market that calligraphy and painting works and an ancient
flourished at the end of the Qing dynasty tree.
(1644‒1911). The town has more than In the fringe areas, the urban
100,000 sqm of historic buildings dating from environment abruptly loses its traditional
the Ming to Qing dynasties, with two sites connotations. Medium-rise condominiums
listed as provincial and municipal culture have been erected in repeated arrays,
relict protection areas. determining a generic urban environment
Liantang urban space is organized [Figure 14]. Despite these modern presences,
according to the shape of the Yangtze River’s the integrity and distinctiveness of both the
canal network, which was the principal settlement pattern and the architectural form
infrastructural system for goods and people to make Liantang an original historical site,
circulate. As in other famous water towns, expressing tangible and intangible forms of
wares arrived on small boats and were stored heritage [67] .
on the houses’ ground-floor spaces along the
canal. The trading spaces were on the other
sides of these residences, where narrow alleys
pullulated with market activities [Figure 10].
The historic commercial lanes, with repeated
sequences of small shops and laboratories
facing each other, embody the typical public
space of Ming and Qing water towns. On their
back, the mansions were organized as
elongated systems of open and built forms,
spreading perpendicularly to the river. Here,
courtyards enclosed by pavilions and side
walls have constituted the morpho-
typological structure of past family life
[Figure 11]. In these compactedly built areas,
the formal characteristics of local urbanism,
encompassing low-rise density and traditional
ornamental apparatus, have been layered over
time, surviving to this day in recognizable
forms. A series of stone bridges, among
which Chaozhen Bridge and Shunde Bridge,
have historical significances [Figure 12] and
contribute to shaping Liantang’s historic
atmosphere. Chen Yun’s former residence Figure 10. Old market street of Liantang. Source:
Photo by the author, 2016

7 More information is available at https://www.shqp.gov.cn/english/travellingroutes/20181121/313403.html and
https://www.shqp.gov.cn/english/scenicspots/20181121/313401.html. Accessed August 24, 2022.

AccScience Publishing 10