"Activate" historical city’s modern "backbone" exploring Xi’an’s contemporary axisymmetric development

Abstract

As one of the world’s renowned ancient city, Xi’an’s axisymmetric spacial pattern has been inherited and reserved till now. Today, the accumulated city space along Xi’an’s axile wire is, not only the most important historical site, but also the most dynamic area in ancient city. Like all the other remained but dynamic ancient cities, there still has the biggest challenge facing Xi’an’s axisymmetric spacial environment: how to keep balance and get win-win between preserving the traditional city pattern and establishing a city’s modern vitality. By researching Xi’an’s axile wire and its important nodal spaces, this thesis mainly analyzes their features and characteristics and explores how they solve the contradictions between tradition and modern in the development of the space along Xi’an’s axile wire; how they activate modern city’s energy and satisfy contemporary people’s developing demands, changing a historical heritage city into a creative modern cultural city as well as a cosmopolis. In the end, this essay tries to explore the limitations in Xi’an’s axisymmetric development in order to give enlightenment how to develop Xi’an in the future.