Abstract
As we can see, after experiencing a rapid urbanization stage, China has begun to enter a high-quality urbanization development stage focusing on humanistic and ecological connotations, in which historical and cultural heritage has become a new engine of urban development. The urban government aiming at GDP growth unilaterally pursued the financial benefits of land in the rapid urbanization stage characterized by incremental expansion in China in the past. On the one hand, a large number of new city construction leads to the disorderly spread of cities; On the other hand, large-scale old city demolition activities have caused unprecedented damage to the historical environment, which has led to the gradual disappearance of urban characteristics. At present, China's urban development has begun to enter the stage of stock development, in which urban development and heritage protection are facing more severe conflicts. Scholars and government officials pay more and more attention to the protection of historical and cultural heritage. Because of the development of the concept of international heritage protection, the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) concept presented by UNESCO in 2011 provides a new perspective for the conservation of heritage. However, the fuzziness of its theoretical and practical basis weakens its wide application in different urban backgrounds. Pingyao, located in central China, is the first ancient city in China to be rated as a "Living World Cultural Heritage". As the most complete existing ancient city in China, Pingyao has a history of about 600 years, the urban form of which changes with the adjustment of urban functions. Pingyao's original thought of building a city followed the natural order of adapting to local conditions in the ancient Chinese traditional etiquette system. During the Ming Dynasty, the transformation of commercial function prompted the ancient city to produce a "street" space, a residential form called "fortress" appeared in the ancient city, and a commercial district called "Guanxiang" appeared outside the city. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, drastic changes in the social and economic structure caused the use of ancient cities to enter a disorderly state, and illegal construction and occupation caused serious damage to historical buildings. After Pingyao was recognized as a world cultural heritage in 1997, the development of tourism made heritage protection face more severe challenges. Scholars and the government have made various attempts in the utilization of historical buildings, the improvement of public space, the repair of residential buildings, and the arrangement of streets, focusing on restoring the overall style of Pingyao in Ming and Qing Dynasties. After 2011, Chinese experts tried to apply the concept of "Historic Urban Landscape" to various protection plans of Pingyao's historical and cultural heritage. The historic urban landscape method, which highlights the integrity and form value, is the basis for formulating the fragile areas of historic heritage and the urban development and protection plan based on communities, which has an important impact on the preservation of the complete urban form of Pingyao ancient city. With the current urban development paying more and more attention to humanistic and ecological connotations, the urban cultural heritage protection planning from the perspective of historic urban landscape guides the heritage protection and tourism development of Pingyao ancient city from a more macro national and regional level and cooperates with adaptive governance methods to realize reasonable protection and efficient utilization of buildings. The architecture and street texture of Pingyao ancient city can retain historical traces of different periods. This approach contributes to the sustainable development of Pingyao and is of high relevance to the protection of other Living World Cultural Heritage sites.
