Page 9 - JCAU-7-2

Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism Visualizing research on Huizhou houses

its own methodologies. Some scholars focus on architectural
form and spatial layout, while others interpret these houses
on a sociocultural level. Therefore, scholars from diverse
academic backgrounds and research experiences often
apply subjective selection and classification criteria in
their literature analysis (Xie et al., 2022), highlighting the
need for quantitative approaches in this field. Building on
this basis, this study employs CiteSpace, a visual scientific
literature analysis tool, to conduct a multi-dimensional
bibliographic analysis of literature on Huizhou traditional
houses. This approach mitigates the risk of overlooking
important academic achievements due to individual
research biases, ensuring a scientific and systematic
Figure 1. The exterior and interior of traditional Huizhou houses. Source: selection and classification of literature. The analysis
Photos by the authors (2024) objectively presents research hotspots, evolutionary paths,
and trends across different periods. However, as CiteSpace
Since the 1990s, research in China has increasingly primarily captures overall trends and hotspots without
explored the artistic features of wood, brick, and stone delving deeply into content (Fang et al., 2018), this study
carvings in Huizhou’s Ming and Qing dynasty architecture; complements the quantitative findings with qualitative
along with the social and cultural contexts they embody analysis of key literature, enabling an in-depth discussion
(Wang, 1991). With the relocation of Yin Yu Tang, a of the unique value of Huizhou’s traditional architectural
historical house over 200 years old from Huangcun village, culture, its methods of inheritance, and its current socially
Anhui province, to the Peabody Essex Museum in the innovative applications. In doing so, this study offers
United States, where it opened to the public in 2003, the fresh cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspectives on
international academic community has also heightened its China’s regional architectural heritage and, potentially, on
focus on the value, protection, and inheritance of Huizhou’s global cultural heritage.
traditional architectural cultural heritage (Li, 2014).
However, rapid urbanization and industrialization have Given that “traditional Huizhou architecture” is a term
posed unprecedented challenges to the survival and specific to Chinese regional architecture, this study selects
development of traditional villages and architecture, with China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) as the
regional distinctions gradually disappearing (Li et al., core database due to its comprehensive quantity, quality,
2018). In 2021, the Chinese government issued the and coverage of literature. CNKI is China’s largest and
Opinions on Strengthening the Protection and Inheritance most authoritative academic research platform, providing
of Historical Culture in Urban and Rural Construction, access to a wide range of resources, including journals,
urging all regions and departments to implement context- dissertations, conference papers, books, yearbooks,
sensitive guidelines. In response to this directive, the Anhui newspapers, and more, making it an ideal data source for
provincial government formulated the Implementation bibliometric analysis (Liu, 2021).
Plan on Strengthening the Protection and Inheritance The literature search spans from the year 2000 onward,
of Historical Culture in Urban and Rural Construction using “topic” as the retrieval type. Search terms include
in 2023, emphasizing Huizhou’s traditional architectural “Huizhou traditional houses,” “Huizhou-style traditional
concepts and imagery as key tasks. Despite considerable houses,” and “traditional houses of southern Anhui,”
research achievements in the field of traditional Huizhou with the source category limited to “all periodicals.” Due
architecture accumulated over the years, further exploration to limited data availability for 2024, the end year for
is needed to expand the depth and breadth of research retrieval was set to 2023, resulting in 1,458 search results.
(Fang & Li, 2022). To ensure data authority and reliability, we screened out
unauthorized, duplicated, and irrelevant documents,
2.2. Research methods and tool ultimately retaining 309 publications from the Chinese
Traditional Huizhou houses, as a highly regional Social Sciences Citation Index, Chinese Core Periodicals
architectural type, have complex historical, cultural, and List, Chinese Science Citation Database, along with 768
social backgrounds that require researchers to possess additional academic publications on Huizhou traditional
profound local knowledge. Research on traditional houses, for a total of 1077. These publications were
Huizhou houses involves multiple disciplines, including imported into CiteSpace V.6.2. R7 in “RefWorks” format.
architecture, history, and cultural anthropology, each with The research design process is illustrated in Figure 2.

Volume 7 Issue 2 (2025) 3 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.4473