Source: Chengdu Daily


A city's planning must find its strategic position, that is, to find its own position in the coordinate system of the world city. At the same time, urban planning should not only have due imagination, but also be based on its own characteristics. For example, Chengdu gives full play to its cultural and natural geographical advantages, which is the basis of urban innovation. This is also the basic idea of Professor Chen Keshi's ten suggestions on the planning and design of Chengdu towards an international metropolis.


There are many great cities in the world. All of them are the crystallization of wisdom contest or winners. In the long process of their economic and social development, they are full of challenges and tangled trade-offs. Chen Keshi gradually analyzes the cultural roots behind these chaotic and complex urban phenomena with keen insight, and perfectly projects these cases into China's local urban construction.


Professor Chen does not hesitate to praise the natural landscape of Chengdu and its prosperity and vitality today, which is why he has frequently visited and accepted the entrustment of many projects in Chengdu in recent years. At the same time, he does not deny that there are many problems that need to be considered and dealt with urgently if he wants Chengdu to develop healthily in the future, find and create higher urban value, Is the answer to these questions after in-depth exploration.


With reference to the world context, problems are easy to highlight


Reporter: Based on what reasons, you put forward ten suggestions for the urban development of Chengdu?


Chen Keshi: earlier, Chengdu Municipal Planning Bureau hired me as an urban design consultant in Chengdu. Later, Chengdu Academy of Social Sciences also hoped that I could make a detailed proposal for Chengdu. Because I have worked and lived abroad for more than ten years and have been to most important cities in the world. In the past ten years, I have also personally participated in many projects and planning in Chengdu, such as the former Xindu Baoguang Temple project and the recent construction and design project of the core area of Tianfu NEW town. When I look at Chengdu from the perspective of the most familiar urban design, I naturally find some problems and give solutions, and the latter is the focus. There are more than ten complete urban design suggestions, and even each one can be broken down in more detail.


What we are doing now is to find the best policy for the urban development of Chengdu, rather than the middle and worst policy, which directly starts with the most critical problem of Chengdu. We should put Chengdu into the coordinate system of the world city and explore how Chengdu develops from this perspective and position. It is very necessary to have a frame of reference. In the world context, many neglected problems will be naturally exposed. Nowadays, many cities spare no effort in their own publicity and put forward many grand goals, but when they are really in the world urban coordinate system, the sense of loss is very obvious. What is a good city? How to judge 600 big cities in the world? In fact, it's also simple. Just look at the gazetteer of the best travel destination. Unfortunately, there are few good cities in China.


After having an in-depth understanding of Chengdu, we are not simply copying the urban environment, but try to understand those successful cases as much as possible, and then jump out, which can put forward more appropriate suggestions for the urbanization process of Chengdu. We learn from other people's advanced ideas, not to find something "pasted". Urban planning cannot be left to people who do not understand the city and do not have deep feelings.


Gaps and problems lead to wisdom


Reporter: at present, China's urban development is following the path taken by Europe and the United States, but the stages of global urban development are different, such as New York, London, Tokyo, Singapore... Population, social system, economic environment, land utilization and other factors are different. Do we need to find a more accurate template? From this perspective, will Chengdu's positioning be vague? Should we follow the route of the post industrial era in Europe or the development of cities in East Asia? It seems that the current urban temperament of Chengdu is partial to Europe and pays attention to leisure and humanities, but we are forced to follow the development route of East Asian cities, take Shanghai as the urban standard and spell the hardware as well as the GDP value. How to find the balance between the two?


Chen Keshi: both the positioning and the balance of the development route are the concrete expression of urban wisdom, and wisdom is the most important factor in urban development. The whole history of human civilization is a history of wisdom competition. Since ancient Greece, every good city is the crystallization of wisdom. 2000 years ago, one of the best cities in the world was Athens, whose patron saint was the goddess of wisdom. The relationship between wisdom and a city has been developed since then. Later, the development of European cities was a contest of wisdom. Today's urban development is still like this. It is not difficult to judge the quality of a city's development. You can see from the wisdom of the owner of the city. Moreover, the development of every city does not start from scratch. It is necessary to find its own breakthrough point on the basis of the success of others. No city can say that it has never learned from the experience of its predecessors and developed itself into a great city from scratch. There is no such precedent.


Absorbing the successful wisdom of other cities also has its preconditions. A city can have no high-rise buildings and rural scenery, but it can't have its own characteristics. We must understand our own advantages and strive to learn from the world's excellent cities on the basis of clarifying this. The development of any city depends on its own cultural and natural geographical conditions. At present, Chengdu is in such a period. It is necessary to have a clear enough concept and a broad enough mind to look at its own humanistic and natural conditions.


Learn from the most successful cities in the world, not in general. There are many great cities in the world. It can't be said that finding a city template can solve all the problems of Chengdu, but if you find some cities with distinctive personalities to compare with Chengdu, you can learn a lot from them. Take London for example. Compare Chengdu with London. Economically, what is the value of creative industries in London? How much is Chengdu? What are the number of international tourists? How many large-scale operas are performed in London every day? This industry comparison gap is very obvious. From the perspective of environment, the number and quality of urban parks in London are far higher than those in Chengdu. It took more than half a century to build the Thames River into an ecological sample. Chengdu is also transforming the Jinjiang River and has achieved some results, but it has not achieved the best effect. In other words, this comparison is very effective. Gaps and problems lead to wisdom, rather than fabricating some unrealistic solutions out of thin air.


Many cities have shown great "initiative" to improve their "urban competitiveness". The high-rise buildings and roads in cities are wider, but the quality is not as high as that of cities in other countries, which is far less refined than others. For a reasonable urban development solution, the proportion of urban planning and engineering construction should account for 50% respectively. In the process of a large number of urban development in China, planning only uses 3% energy, and more than 97% is spent on engineering construction. This bias has led to a large number of urban development status of low-quality design and high-quality construction.


Not copy, but learn from and innovate


Reporter: in your ten suggestions, culture leads urban development. In fact, many cities have taken the development of cultural industry as a breakthrough and built many cultural blocks, but has this reached the goal of excavating culture from the ornamental situation and integrating it into the intelligent industry? Is there a better way than building a project a block? In your proposal, you also proposed to add water features in Chengdu and build the Jinjiang River into a cultural and leisure industry zone. How to do better at the planning level?


Chen Keshi: culture is not a decoration or symbolic thing, but an urban temperament shaped by the discovery and feeling of the beauty of life after years of accumulation and edification. There are many cities in the world that take culture as a breakthrough, such as Florence, which has long positioned the city as a museum city. All buildings are considered around this positioning, and now everyone who visits is deeply impressed by it. In fact, Beijing can also be positioned in this way. Those old buildings and old city walls are very valuable. If they are retained, they are equivalent to an area as large as 20 Florence. Unfortunately, this can only be imagined. Traditional Chinese cities attach great importance to spiritual and cultural construction, which is fundamentally different from the concept of urban development in Europe after the middle ages, especially after the industrial revolution. For example, many cities in the UK are supported by one or several industries. Manchester, Sheffield, etc., with the decline of industries, cities gradually decline, paying a heavy price. The same is true in North America. Detroit, Seattle and some cities are still trying to eliminate the impact of the decline of urban supporting industries. From this point of view, we are lucky not to go crazy on the road of industrialization. At the same time, it also means that we are at a critical moment of rethinking and positioning urban development, which also gave birth to the ten suggestions this time. What kind of city will China need in a few decades and what will Chengdu look like? Where should the city go? Now think, answer and decide. There is a process of discovering and understanding the beautiful and charming elements in the city. What kind of city we need is ready to come out. It's a pity to be hasty and blind. Suzhou is an example. The GDP value of industrialized Suzhou is very high, but it can't do culture again. The original good foundation has been almost destroyed, which can be remedied, but its charm has been greatly reduced and its competitiveness has been lost.


We have always adhered to the view that the successful experience of others must be combined with their own characteristics. Learning from the Seine River along the Jinjiang River is not copying and copying, but learning from and innovation, so as not to lose its characteristics. In addition, there are large-scale cultural groups in Chengdu, and their creativity must be stimulated to create value for the city. Cultural influence depends on the market flow of cultural products. Otherwise, although a city has profound historical and cultural heritage and rich historical and cultural resources, if it cannot be explored through the mechanism of cultural industry and market economy, the influence of urban culture will not exist.


Strengthen the characteristics and continue the urban context


Reporter: many cities are paying attention to the protection and development of historical blocks, but although this development can retain the original style, the original lifestyle has disappeared and become a tourist attraction or cultural window. In your opinion, how can such a problem be avoided?


Chen Keshi: the construction of urban identity needs to highlight the traditional cultural factors, consciously strengthen the characteristics of the city and continue the urban context. China's contemporary urbanization has experienced a short and rapid process. The scale has expanded, but the corresponding urban planning has not been strengthened. It not only does not well reflect the original cultural elements and local traditional characteristics, but also blindly mass produces some projects that seem to have economic benefits. In this way, not only the original urban warmth is lost, but also the culture may become a bottleneck restricting urban construction.


The concept of urban planning and design does not conflict with the love of life. Warmth and nostalgia are also very important urban themes. Take Italy as an example. Italians feel that all the old are precious. This view is also very popular in France, and we are more influenced by American urban values, emphasizing speed and efficiency. Culture, taste and regional characteristics are ignored. Those cities that really make us feel that life is full and in line with human standards must be full of rich cultural accumulation and cultural connotation. Cities can be nostalgic, but not old-fashioned. The original urban values and humanistic factors can be reasonably combined into the city's public space to make it have continuity, cultural content, local quality and local style. In other words, we should tolerate both new and old cities, and allow a city to grow naturally. A city with too rapid development will lose a lot of things, and the urban context and texture are disordered. How can we talk about the wisdom of urban development and create urban value?