Crafting a town (3)

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By Sun Yuanqing (China Daily) 08:46, August 08, 2013

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A porcelain exhibition is staged in an old house.Photos Provided to China Daily

Evoking the past

Spontaneity is avoided in restoration, with the rule of "restoring the old as the old" strictly adhered to. The construction teams are all from Ningbo to ensure that the crafts remain local.

As the restoration went on, more questions arose: Is it necessary to restore the old east gate, the city walls and the waterway? Unlike Lijiang, a town that has relocated its locals to make room for tourists, Cicheng is still home to about 17,000 local residents.

"They might add appeal to Cicheng's landscape, but how would it affect people's lives?" says Yan. "The locals and their lives come before the restoration."

The problem was solved with a modern touch. The original frame of the east gate is shaped out by glass while the inner structure is made of stone. The "city walls" are sketched out by black trusses, evoking the memory of the city walls without hindering modern transportation.

A small stretch of the waterway was restored near the east gate to give people a glimpse of the past. The rest of the roads were paved with white stones and black pitch to indicate the old waterway and stone road respectively.

One of Cicheng's symbolic architectural heritages is "scraps walls". In the past, poor people would collect leftover materials from the wealthy to build their homes. It is very difficult to build even walls with these uneven materials. This building method was applied by Wang Shu in his design for the Ningbo Museum, which won the 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize along with his other works.

Scrap-walled houses are still commonly seen in Cicheng today as they have been carefully preserved.