I would like to hypothesize that no one wants to see an urban residential district full of illegal constructions, potential fire hazards, and a low-quality dense population. However, this is what Three Lanes and Seven Alleys (三坊七巷) and other historical districts across China left for local governments. Known as the “Beverly Hills” of imperial China, Three Lanes and Seven Alleys (abbreviated as Sanfang Qixiang), a 0.38-square-kilometer historical architectural complex, contains numerous residences for commoners and historical figures. Despite its national categorization as a “Major Historical and Cultural Site,” Sangfang Qixiang has posed enormous difficulties on the Fuzhou government that seeks to renovate the place catering to rapid urban development. The remediation stretches throughout decades, igniting civic and academic debates. While some argue that such remediation is sustainable, I contend that it demolishes Sanfang Qixiang culture with excessive commercialization and reconstruction. In this essay, I would like to examine the occurring debate and figure out a possible alternative to improve the remediation process in its cultural preservation.
From my research, I found that some supporters of remediation believe that its introduction of business “revitalizes” traditional buildings, which helps to reconstruct Sangfang Qixiang ’s spirit as a residential block. In Ying Chen’s The Practices of Community Construction Based on Sanfang Qixiang in Fuzhou, she considers Sanfang Qixiang a successful instance that utilizes the theory of community construction and, therefore, has significance as a reference for other historical district protections in China. In her explanation of how Sangfang Qixiang features community construction, she analyzes that the functional replacement of ancient buildings “makes them more valuable for reuse, improves social and economic benefits, and recovers the vitality of the block” (Y. Chen). While Chen correctly highlights the importance of community construction in residential culture protection, I argue that the commercial replacement fails to conform to this theory and is a misunderstanding of Sangfang Qixiang culture, which, in Boling Chen’s metaphor, means street structures as the bone and residences as the flesh (B. Chen). The remediation categorizes only half of the 270 traditional residences as buildings that require protection and the rest of them have become shells holding commercialization. As remediation substitutes residences with business entities, it weeds out the flesh and the bone that exists for the flesh loses its significance. I believe that what we need to revitalize is not the tourism popularity that commercialization achieves, but the communal popularity that forms the Sangfang Qixiang culture.
To clarify, I am not advocating for the complete elimination of commerce in Sangfang Qixiang as moderate commercialization does benefit cultural dissemination by attracting tourists. Instead, I am pointing out the incorrect perception of revitalization, which, in consequence, might lead the remediation into over-commercialization. Unfortunately, this is no longer a pure hypothesis. Walking on the main pedestrian street, I see that inlaid under the quaint door plaques and impending wooden balconies are mostly souvenir shops, quick-service restaurants, theaters, and other irrelevant entities. Research has exhibited a commercial inclination compared to cultural practices in Sangfang Qixiang. Specifically, there is less than 25% of cultural undertaking & industry facilities and over 70% general consumption which is “profit-oriented facilities irrelevant to local historic and cultural characteristics” (Zhang et al. 732). This indicates that the goal of remediation has leaned more towards economic profits than residential cultural protection under the flawed guidance of “revitalization.” Even worse, most of these cultural industries price their commodities relatively high and limit the cultural experience in pure consumption instead of an interactive engagement, which implies a fixed profit-oriented operation under the skin of cultural industries.
Though the remediation does preserve (or better to say reconstruct) historical residences in their original form, this Sanfang Qixiang culture residing in the side lanes and alleys now faces ignoration. According to a study by Guining Wu and Yunfang Yao, Sangfang Qixiang’s current operation mode prioritizes the main commercial street, compressing the significance of lanes and alleys. More specifically, it means treating the side lanes as a supplement to the main commercial street by managing low-key traditional skill training or private food restaurants (Wu and Yao 69–71). While such operation mode does contribute to tourism and regional economy, Sanfang Qixiang now degrades into an empty title as this positioning shifts the center of the visitor experience to general consumption instead of the culture in lanes and alleys.
So, what is behind such commercialization and other cultural sufferings? I would argue that it is the local government’s goal to build a regional landmark at the expense of cultural protection. Zhewen Liu, the former President of the China Society of Cultural Relics once pointed out on People’s Daily that historical district protection should center on comprehensive improvement rather than large-scale reconstruction and demolishment (Wang and Feng). However, Sanfang Qixiang’s remediation completely goes against this theory as it officially reconstructed the households aiming to fit in the label of “museum of ancient buildings of Ming and Qing dynasties” and erasing any reasonable diversity based on civic engagement. Further on its way to “revitalize” Sanfang Qixiang and construct a regional landmark, the remediation introduces cultural practices of other regions, such as the lantern performance in Sanming, Fujian, that have nothing to do with Sangfang Qixiang’s original communal culture. Recently, the government is even planning to build Sangfang Qixiang into a technological street with a 5G application. In other words, Sanfang Qixiang now evolves into a regional landmark combining tourism, commercialization, and technology, which silently weakens the original spirit of the place as a residential community.
Now, what could the government do to improve the remediation process in its cultural preservation? In The Protection and Development of Tourist Resources in Sanfang Qixiang Historical District, Wei Wang and Ruiming Guan put forward the Genuity, Sustainability, and Win-Win Economic Principles (Wang and Guan 100). Specifically, the article advocates for regional historical consistency regarding Sangfang Qixiang’s position as a historical district, an active inheritance of culture, and a balance between commercialization and protection. I agree that the conceptual consolidation of Sangfang Qixiang’s position would help to resolve the growing ignoration of lanes and alleys. In practice, I believe the remediation can flip the existing priority between the main commercial street and the side lanes by employing more local guides who could redirect the visitor’s attention.
However, while Wang and Guan do recognize the importance of positioning, they fail to emphasize the essentiality of public engagement, or people’s voices, which Hailun He and Xiaorui Zong analyze in their study (Zong and He). By using Sangfang Qixiang as an example, this article identifies the common conflict between civic participation and government-led architectural protection in China. It reinforces the equal importance of public engagement and government interference, points out the dilemma faced by people in entering the conversation, and provides international references to solve the issue. I believe that the introduction of public engagement into the remediation of Sanfang Qixiang could help to preserve the culture. Looking through civic debates on various online forums and blogs, I found that many posts exhibit unsatisfactory in Sangfang Qixiang remediation as well as sarcastic discussions on whether the government permits such expression of discontent. The possibility is that these people are not able to or not willing to provide constructive comments through formal channels. Nevertheless, this trend also indicates that the local government should pay more attention to civic reflections instead of monopolizing the protection process: Zong and He also criticizes that there were no actual stakeholders on the consultation meeting held by the government in the name of public participation. Therefore, along with the rebalancing of street significance, I would advocate for more civic engagement in the remediation of Sanfang Qixiang.
Work Cited
(1) Chen, Ying. “The Practices of Community Construction Based on Sanfang- Qixiang in Fuzhou.” IOP Conference Series. Earth and Environmental Science, vol. 638, no. 1, IOP Publishing, 2021, p. 12015–, doi:10.1088/1755–1315/638/1/012015.
(2) Chen, Boling. “福州终于是个没有意思的城市了 — — 三坊七巷，它已…” Douban, 22 Oct. 2010, www.douban.com/group/topic/15089569.
(3) Zhang, Jingjing, et al. “Research on the Positioning of Protection and Utilization of Historic Districts Under Big Data Analysis.” International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences., vol. XLII-2/W5, Copernicus GmbH, 2017, pp. 731–35, doi:10.5194/isprs-archives-XLII-2-W5–731–2017.
(4) Wu, Guining, and Yao Yunfang. “On the Protection, Renewal, and Commercialization of the Historic District.” Chinese and Foreign Architecture Journal, Jan. 2020, https://mall.cnki.net/magazine/Article/ZWJC202001022.htm
(5) Wang, Jun, and Feng Yingbing. “谁来保护文化生态.” People’s Daily, 005 Ed., 15 Aug. 2000, pp. 1–2.
(6) Wang, Wei, and Ruiming Guan. “The Protection and Development of Tourist Resources in Sanfang Qixiang Historical District.” Journal of Fuzhou University, vol. 28, no. 3, 2014, pp. 99–103.
(7) Zong, Xiaorui, and Hailun He. “Study on the Redistributive Right of Discourse in the Protection of Sanfangqixiang in Fuzhou.” Sichuan Building Materials, vol. 45, no. 1, 2019, pp. 38–40.
