China's traditional villages are the world's largest agricultural civilization heritage with the richest content and value, the most complete protection, and live inheritance. They are valuable "gene banks" for inheriting China's excellent traditional culture. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development has taken the lead in organizing the selection of 8155 Chinese traditional villages, and carried out the demonstration work of centralized protection and utilization of traditional villages in 120 cities and counties.
The team of Beijing Jianzhu University has been carrying out research and practice on traditional villages for more than 30 years, deeply realizing that traditional villages must follow the principles of protection first, utilization based, and inheritance based, adhere to the goal of retaining local people, protecting local soil, and remembering nostalgia, and strengthen scientific research and development and talent team building by building a hierarchical and classified protection system, innovating protection and utilization countermeasures, Only by adjusting measures to local conditions and adopting precise policies can the traditional villages be truly revitalized in protection and passed on in use.
Strengthening planning guidance and building a hierarchical and classified protection system are the basis for the protection and utilization of traditional villages. The planning of traditional villages should be "practical, easy to use and effective". In recent years, we have analyzed the preparation and implementation of protection and development plans for more than 150 traditional villages, and found that there are still some misunderstandings in traditional village value assessment, protection zoning, protection and utilization measures, etc. Traditional villages are "dynamic" heritages that are constantly developing and changing. We should pay attention to their time characteristics and identify their value elements from the dual dimensions of time and space; Traditional villages are "integral" heritages, which need to pay attention to the correlation between different protection elements to avoid the impact of fragmentation, rigidity and fragmentation caused by simple protection zoning; Traditional villages are "living" heritages. The protection and utilization measures should meet the new needs of villagers' production and life, adopt the way of low intervention, micro renewal and light intervention, and truly realize the organic combination of excellent heritage of agricultural civilization and modern civilization elements.
At present, the hierarchical and classified protection system of traditional villages in China has been initially established. While actively organizing the declaration of traditional villages in China, various regions have also carried out the selection and listing protection of traditional villages at the provincial and municipal levels, and gradually formed a centralized contiguous area of traditional villages. The traditional villages in the region have the characteristics of geographical proximity and cultural connection, and are suitable for "cluster" protection and utilization, which is also an important reason for the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development to carry out the demonstration work of centralized protection and utilization of traditional villages. When preparing the plan, local governments should plan the layout of traditional villages at all levels together with other villages, take traditional villages as nodes, connect points and string lines according to local conditions, define the development orientation and timing of each village, give full play to their unique advantages, and plan the layout of public services, infrastructure construction and characteristic industries. For example, Beijing Mentougou District's centralized and contiguous conservation and utilization plan, based on the actual situation, proposed the overall spatial layout of "one river system, eight ditches, and ancient roads connecting hundreds of villages", which combined 12 traditional Chinese villages with more than 60 municipal and general villages to form the protection group of traditional villages in western Beijing, effectively supporting the overall revitalization strategy of regional villages.
The key to the protection and utilization of traditional villages is to clarify the key points of protection and utilization and innovate the protection and utilization countermeasures. The key points of protection and utilization are the location and pattern of traditional villages, traditional buildings, historical environment elements and intangible cultural heritage.
The site selection and pattern of traditional villages are the crystallization of the continuous adaptation of agricultural civilization to nature and the transformation of nature. According to our survey of a heavy rain disaster in Mentougou District, Beijing, 10 traditional Chinese villages located in mountainous areas are significantly less affected than ordinary villages, indicating that the wisdom of the construction of the site selection and pattern of traditional villages is worthy of continuous excavation and inheritance.
Traditional buildings, especially traditional folk houses with distinctive regional characteristics and national style, are the core of the protection and utilization of traditional villages. We have actively explored the management and control methods for the addition, reconstruction or reconstruction of traditional residential buildings, developed a reward and compensation platform for rural housing style, guided and encouraged villagers to actively participate in the improvement of traditional residential style, and achieved good results. How to revitalize idle houses is also a difficult point for the protection and utilization of traditional villages. The key is to explore the rational utilization mechanism of idle houses. In recent years, many attempts have been made all over the country. For example, Longtan Village, Pingnan County, Fujian Province has revitalized idle houses by introducing 100 talents from home and abroad to settle down as "new villagers". In addition, various historical environmental elements, such as mountains, rivers, forests, fields, well spring ditches, quays, moats, stockaded walls, ancient trees and famous trees, are not only important contents of traditional village protection, but also unique resources for innovative construction of open spaces.
According to statistics, 4789 intangible cultural heritages at provincial level and above have been excavated, inherited and developed through the implementation of traditional village protection projects. These heritage records and inherits the excellent traditional culture of the Chinese nation, which is an important support for the development of traditional villages. In addition, the rich and unique intangible cultural heritage, such as agricultural solar terms, ecological ethics, festival activities, folk art, ancestral family instructions, rural customs, is also an important part of the unique spiritual and cultural connotation of traditional villages, and is the soil that traditional villages cannot escape.
Industrial revitalization is the key to the sustainable development of traditional villages, and new business forms are constantly reshaping traditional villages. As mentioned above, Longtan Village has attracted more than 300 villagers working abroad to return home through the development of ecological agriculture, cultural and creative tourism, leisure and vacation, health care and other industries. Many traditional villages are actively guiding social forces to participate in the development of rural industries, and developing new industrial models such as home stay, tourism, health care, vacation, leisure, and "Internet+".
Strengthening scientific and technological research and development and talent team construction is an effective support for the sustainable development of traditional villages. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, major scientific and technological projects have been carried out in the fields of traditional village protection planning, green ecology, residential buildings and infrastructure function improvement, providing good technical support for the protection and utilization of traditional villages. Compared with the needs of the new era, in the fields of overall protection and living inheritance of traditional villages, collaborative design method of traditional building performance and style, regional material performance improvement and new material research and development, infrastructure and disaster prevention and reduction, there are still many key scientific and technical problems, such as the seismic safety problems of traditional buildings that need to be solved urgently everywhere Energy conservation and thermal insulation of regional materials, infrastructure construction in complex terrain and narrow environment, etc., should further increase the support for scientific and technological research and development.
To realize the sustainable development of traditional villages, people are indispensable. On the one hand, we should fully respect the dominant position of the villagers, strengthen the skill training for the villagers, especially pay attention to the cultivation of traditional builders, and improve the willingness and ability of the villagers to participate in the protection and utilization of traditional villages. On the other hand, we should encourage and support more ambitious young people to participate in the protection and utilization of traditional villages. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development organized activities such as "co creation" and "design to the countryside", which fostered a number of professional and technical forces in villages. A group of young people also took the initiative to support the protection and utilization of traditional villages in rural areas, such as Wu Zhixuan, who quit his job as an enterprise executive in 2011 and returned to his hometown Wuyuan, Jiangxi, to establish the "Jiusitang model" of home stay, Chen Yujia, the "rice growing girl" of Shangguandi Village, Bohai Town, Ning'an City, Heilongjiang Province, and Liao Yuming, who activated the operation and development of Xixi Ancient Village, Liaobu Town, Dongguan City, Guangdong Province.
It is hoped that more forces will participate in the action of protecting traditional villages, so that traditional villages can retain their villagers, protect their native land and remember nostalgia.
(Author: Zhang Dayu, President of Beijing Jianzhu University)
