风景园林学科自明性的本地化和现代化路径——近代中国城市发展中的水滨要素再认知

Localization and Modernization as Paths to the Autonomy of Landscape Architecture: Redefining Waterfronts in Modern Chinese Urban Development

关键词:  风景园林  学科自明性  水滨  城市更新  本地化  现代化

Key words:  landscape architecture  disciplinary self-evidence  waterfront  urban renewal  localization  modernization

摘要:

通过分析“水滨”这一要素在安徽省芜湖市的近当代发展，叙述了本地人视角中风景园林研究范式的确立过程。自然被吸纳到城市中，既取决于人类驾驭客观世界的技术能力，也形成了城市不同历史时期对于风景的看法：从“环境”到城市的一部分；从征服自然的初期阶段，到城市发展面临的当下任务。城市要“更新”，同时也会改变城市人对包括“水滨”在内的都市风景的看法。通过以上讨论总结出风景研究范式形成的独有路径：基于地方实际的本地化是学科总体原则和抽象观念落地的前提；现代化与发展需求则是观念革新推动实践迭代的动力之源。变化的风景知识通过这2条路径得以传承、发展，进而奠定了风景园林学科的自明性基础。

Abstract:

By analyzing the role of "waterfronts" in the modern and contemporary development of Wuhu City, Anhui Province, this paper discusses the vernacular reception of a landscape research paradigm. This knowledge related to landscapes is by no means abstract, singular, or static. Exploring research paradigms and pursuing "self-evident foundations" for the research implies an unceasing inquiry into the essence and ultimate goals of a discipline. When a discipline transforms from "self-containing" to "itself-driving", it acquires the methodological capacity to continuously construct itself. The "waterfront" mentioned in this article is not limited to the physical boundaries of cities, large rivers, and lakes, but can generally refer to the direct symbiotic relationship between cities and water in the process of humanity's conquest of nature. This relationship has gradually transformed over hundreds of years, and this transformation is also a tangible part of modernization, interdependent with specific local conditions. In places where Chinese and foreign elements coexist, the modernization of urban waterfronts in cities like Wuhu has particularly distinctly demonstrated this dual nature. By the early stage of the reform and opening-up in the second half of the 20th century, the new urban area generally extended northward along the riverbank and, at the same time, expanded eastward perpendicular to the riverbank to inherit the existing urban context. It gathered sufficient urban energy and density on the narrow riverside interface, spreading along the riverbank and connecting seamlessly with the original riverside space of the old urban area, thus providing sufficient gradient and hierarchy for the subsequent redevelopment advancing in depth from the waterfront. Based on such favorable conditions, coupled with the support of the new discipline, a potentially favorable perspective has been provided for the redevelopment of new-type waterfronts under the guidance of new perspectives. Remarkable progress has been made in the construction of waterfront-friendly infrastructure, and by "bringing the Yangtze River into the city and directing the city toward the port", a new-type urban waterfront with late-development advantages and new perspectives has been created. People in the Jiangnan region have not only changed their living environment but also integrated this environment into their own culture. In other words, such landscapes have gradually been actively absorbed into cities, becoming the local context of urbanization itself. The integration of nature into cities depends on the knowhow to harness the objective world, and it also alters cities' perspectives on landscapes of assorted urban development: a shift from regarding nature as an "external environment" to seeing it as an integral part of the city; and a transition from the initial stage of conquering nature to the current tasks of urban development. As cities undergo "renewal", they also change urban residents' perceptions of urban landscapes, including "waterfronts". Through the above discussions, this paper summarizes the exclusive path to the autonomy of landscape architecture: localization based on local realities is a prerequisite for the implementation of the overall principles and abstract concepts of the discipline, while modernization and development needs serve as the driving force for the upgrading of practices through the advancement of concepts. The changing knowledge on landscape is accordingly sustained and developed. The "water" remains unchanged; only the "shore" is vastly different - this transformation provides a typical case of the formation, revision, and return to a new balance of knowledge in the landscape architecture discipline. It occurs both between man-made and natural elements, and between existing cognition and new developments, thereby establishing a cycle from "self-containing" to "itself-driving" and back to "itself-driving". Viewing degeneration, permanence, and transformation from the perspective of natural systems will act on the city sequentially from two dimensions - physical space and ideology - and repeat cyclically. This is precisely the "cycle" through which the discipline gains experience from practice and converts it into a scientific-humanistic integrated theory.