Traditional villages: problems to be solved for effective protection and development

"traditional residence is a solidified history and the wisdom of national survival. It is the concentrated embodiment of traditional cultural elements such as construction skills, social ethics and aesthetic concepts, and is a precious cultural heritage that is difficult to regenerate." Ni Hong, spokesman for the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said at a news conference held by the National Information Office on the 28th that traditional villages are in urgent need of protection.

Ni Hong said that since 2012, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, together with the Ministry of Culture, the State Administration of Cultural relics and the Ministry of Finance (referred to as the "four bureaus"), have announced that two batches of 1561 villages have been included in the list of Chinese traditional villages, of which 327 villages were included in the first batch of central financial support in 2014. On the basis of the four bureaus, the United Nations Ministry of Land, the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Tourism Administration will soon announce the third batch of 2555 villages listed in the list of Chinese traditional villages.

In December 2013, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development launched a survey of Chinese traditional dwellings. The survey covers 31 provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and takes 9 months to complete a county-by-county survey of traditional residential types, representative buildings and traditional building craftsmen. According to the results of the survey, 599 types of traditional dwellings are sorted out, and the complete Collection of Chinese traditional dwellings is compiled, which is a big investigation, great record, great inheritance and great promotion of our Chinese traditional dwellings.

"since the start of this protection work, it has played a fundamental role in reversing the further disappearance of traditional villages, with increased awareness and increased protection efforts in various localities. At the same time, the disappearance of traditional villages has been brought under control because the relocation and demolition of traditional villages are not allowed. " Zhao Hui, director of the Village Department of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said at the press conference.

The control of disappearance is only the first step. How can traditional villages be further protected?

The protection of traditional villages is faced with the contradiction between the protection and the improvement of villagers' lives. "it is true that a considerable part of the functions of folk houses in traditional villages are quite backward. The biggest difficulty is that the people want to improve their lives, and the government requires him to protect them. " "these problems are very contradictory in some places," Zhao said. "

Zhao Hui said that as long as efforts are made to transform any residential house, it can not only achieve relatively perfect modern life functions, but also achieve anti-seismic requirements.

He said that the next step is to organize experts to "type by type" to study how to increase the function of life and disaster prevention on the basis of the original structure. At the same time, for some too small dwellings, we will also consider coordinating the new homestead outside the village for farmers to build houses, instead of demolishing the traditional dwellings in the village.

If the traditional villages do not develop, for some of the more remote and poor villages, there is no support for protection. Therefore, traditional villages must be protected in the course of development.

Zhao Hui said: first of all, every village is required to prepare a protection plan. One of the core contents of the plan is to avoid overdevelopment and control the area and scale of commercial development. at the same time, it is not allowed to transform neighborhoods where ordinary people live into commercial streets, let alone move out all the villages. for museum-style development. Efforts should be made to find a development model that not only protects traditional villages but also makes villagers rich. But at present, the prominent problem is overdevelopment, so "control" is still the theme.

The hollowing out of traditional villages is also a common problem at present. Many traditional villages are distributed in poor areas, young people go out of the mountain villages in order to get rich, and the population of traditional villages is gradually lost, forming "hollow villages". Zhao Hui said that these traditional villages are still very valuable and should not be torn down just because they are hollow. From the experience of various countries, these "hollow villages" generally continue to strengthen support, which is not only an issue of economic and cultural inheritance, but also a matter of regional and social inheritance, which should be the concept and practice of the government.