Walking through the narrow streets of Xidi I wonder what these ancient villages have, same with the old quarters of European cities, that catch us with that aura of nostalgia of unknown origin. It is as if the old stone, with its rust and scars, reconnect us with our ancestors or the roots of a more "tangible" civilization.
In the case of China, the gap between the present and the origin of that nostalgia is maximized somehow due to the fact that many of these towns: either will disappear, or will become a focus of mass turism that will reduce them to a theme park. In the second case, it is likely that the city will be copied and reproduced in its suroundings, its old buildings will be turned down and rebuilt again with an old-looking touch and we might even see the logo of Starbucks between gray bricks.
Xidi is a miracle. After the many internal wars in China thorughout multiple dynasties, numerous attacks by settlers, the first cultural revolution under Mao, and the "second cultural revolution", defined by the impregnation of neoliberalism in the Asian giant, this ancient village has managed to survive for almost a thousand years to get to this day with an urban fabric very similar to the original one.
The rural population in China before the open door policy established by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 was more than 80% while, currently, the population living in rural areas is less than half after an unprecedent exodus to the cities. During this period, thousands of small villages have been abandoned or destroyed, taking with it, not only a vast number of relics, monuments or buildings of great value, but also part of people´s identity.
Our culture germinates in our cities, if we destroy them and rebuild them fast, cheap and badly, our identity disappears. And this can be applied not only to the case of China, but to any country where property speculation guide their planning (basically all).
During the years I have worked in China as an architect, I have witnessed that there is a somewhat confusing attitude towards the relationship between modernity and tradition. In this regard, there are many cases in which traditional typologies (a pagoda, for example) are redefined with a modern twist "a western touch" showing different features from its original ones such as restaurants, shops, etc. In other cases, large developments mimic old towns and are advertised with large slogans that promise luxurious, comfortable moments inspired by a traditional lifestyle or, on the opposite side, many projects radically cut any relationship with the country´s architectural and urban tradition. A tradition that, we must say, has to be yet recovered after the long parenthesis that Mao´s Cultural Revolution meant.
In my opinion, there have been so rapid changes in the coutry that, in some respetcs, China and its citizens have partly lost the notion of identity within the new cities. Often, architects work on a tabula rasa, in wastelands to be urbanized, where there is no clear context to refer to when establishing relations. Thus, the arbitrariness in design is almost a method itself.
Let´s go back to the streets of the ancient Xidi. Its broken lines seem curved, the elegance of its roofs, the white walls and the gray stone pavement, take us back to a bygone era that often appear better than the present. The facades are pure ornament themselves, as seen in these elevations.
This elegant simplicity can also be observed in the floorplans of its buildings. The "primary cell" is a rectangular module that can be combined in multiple ways resulting in an intense urban fabric. The main facades, a wall clothing the inner courtyards in which the privacy of the families begins (always indoors), punctuate the mistery of the streets of Xidi.
Space transitions are exciting, both inside the dwellings and in the streets. Inside, the movement occur mainly through the sequences of inner courtyards that filter the light, air and water. Outside, the transitions arise from expansion and contraction as well as from the invisible places hidden behind the corners generated by the broken streets that obey the lawys of nature and harmony.
In the following images, we can see the schematic section of some of theese streets and some photograps that capture these spaces.
Somehow, Xidi brought my mind to some night walks around Venice. Perhaps, because of the romantic idea that both are doomed to disappear under the waters of progress. That stoic clinging to a past that, perhaps, was better, and that many yearn mysteriously, patient waiting after the silent corners of its winding streets.
*The main sources of information for this post are: the document presented to UNESCO to declare the ancient villages of Xidi and Hongcun as World Cultural Heritage; the paper Analisys of Vernacular Landscapes in the Ancient Villages of Anhu Province (Zhang Ke, C.); and my own visits to Xidi.