Crafting a town_5

Crafting a town

prototype.com.hk

November 27, 2013 -- Cicheng is an ancient town with a rich history, but instead of attracting tourists to its picturesque streets, it hopes to lure designers with its exquisite culture of handicrafts. It is 38 C outside. The heat in the ancient wooden house is stifling. But the crowd keeps moving from one exhibition hall to another, frequently stopping for closer observation of the work on display. Among them is Wang Weidong, president of womenswear label Broadcast. Wang came to Cicheng near Ningbo, about two hours' drive from Shanghai, to look at the possibility of setting up a studio here, tapping into the town's handicraft resources. "This is a place where we can actually look back into our own culture," Wang says. "Only by doing that will we be able to think independently, rather than always following others." Wang is among his many peers who are trying to find roots in Cicheng, a 2,400-year-old town that is trying to revive itself by preserving and innovating on its tradition of handicrafts in its tailored surrounding of architectural heritage. At a time when Chinese ancient towns like Lijiang are being choked by tourism, Cicheng is trying to walk a different path. Here, craftsmen spend a decade restoring a single street, handicraft artists devote a lifetime to honing their skills and designers indulge in meditation as part of their efforts to resonate with traditional culture in their work. "We don't preserve Cicheng just for the sake of preservation. We want to preserve it in a way that allows modern people to continue to thrive in it," says Yan Zaitian, president of the Cicheng Development Company. Stretching over merely two square kilometers, Cicheng's architectural heritage inspired Pritzker-winning architect Wang Shu. Its restoration of ancient architecture has won the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation. It was praised as one of 18 "heritage heroes" by UK-broadcaster the BBC, for its preservation of its traditional handicrafts. Rich history The town first came to public attention in the midst of a nationwide interest in ancient town revival more than 10 years ago. Back then, the prospects for the area were far from promising. Planned and built in the Tang dynasty (AD 618-907), Cicheng took after the then capital city of Chang'an. It was home to many influential scholars, whose legacy to the town is numerous examples of ancestral architecture. Thirty-three of these buildings have national level or district level status. The town was largely ignored when Ningbo started to develop its marine economy, moving the city center toward the coast. During the Japanese occupancy in the late 1930s, the east gate and the city walls were torn down to allow the residents to evacuate quickly during air raids. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, modern buildings were constructed among the ancient courtyards. The waterways that ran along the stone-paved streets were filled to double the road capacity. In the early 2000s, when other ancient towns like Lijiang and Zhouzhuang started grabbing national attention for their picturesque landscape, all Cicheng had was run-down houses, city walls that no longer existed and a history that lingered only in people's memories. However, Yan considered these as gateways to restore Cicheng's glorious past. "We didn't have much to start with," Yan says. "So we had to be extra careful with our choices." Tags: Rapid Prototyping, Rapid Prototyping China, Plastic Tooling, Plastic Tooling China, Rapid Prototype, Rapid Prototype China, Rapid Tooling, Rapid Tooling China, CNC Prototype, CNC Prototype China, Functional Prototype, Functional Prototype China, Metal Prototype, Metal Prototype China, Plastic Prototype, Plastic Prototype China, Rapid Manufacturing, Rapid Manufacturing China, Low volume production, Stereolithography, Stereolithography China, Vacuum Casting, Vacuum Casting China, whatsapp marketing, wechat marketing, seo, e marketing, �W��OӋ�ṩseo, e marketing, web design by zoapcon