Green Structure of Stockholm and Xi'an: from a Historical Perspective

Green Structure of Stockholm and Xi’an: from a historical perspective (Draft 3) Na Xiu, Maria Ignatieva, Kenneth Olwig, Cecil Konijnendijk, Rolf Johansson Abstract: Green structure and city structure have seen many different schemes for how a city looks like. Their history provides a way of filling the gap of understanding between Western and Eastern sides from ancient to the beginning of the present era, and will influence open space planning currently and in the future. Many similarities and differences indeed exit when we investigate how green structure evolved in Stockholm (Scandinavia) and Xi’an (China). At the back of the phenomenon (similarities and differences), we can also read how people’s world view and nature view developed. In terms of both cities- even every city in the world, re- reading history especially under a comparative perspective will bring a way to bridge past, nowadays and future, western, eastern and any geographical locations. In this globalized world, understanding among countries becomes extremely important and starting from city would be an available way of realizing. Present era also requires new design and planning responses based on historical and comparative precedents and humanistic considerations. Hence, this paper is an attempt to describe and compare the planning and viewing process of green structure accompanied by city structure in Scandinavian and Chinese cities from ancient to the beginning of the present era (Stockholm and Xi’an are the two case studies). Our purpose is to dig out that with the evolvement of green structure, how world view and landscape planning view changed in both regions. All of them will be valuable references for current and future green structure planning. Keywords: green structure, cityscape, scheme, grid, city planning, world view, nature view, Stockholm, Xi’an Introduction How a city looks was influenced by differentiated schemes of city planning and green space planning history and it affected the modern green space planning as well. Like Konijnendijk et al. (2006) noted, green space planning and management have much older roots in every part of the world. In terms of the two cities, one might think that the history and role of the green structure in a European city like Stockholm and in an Asian city like Xi’an in China would be very different. From the natural science perspective, the differences were affected by the geographical environment; from a social science perspective, philosophical foundation, aesthetic ideology and cultural background which are resulted in formulating different sense of nature and a world’s understanding (Zhou, 2003; Byoung & Kaplan, 1990). As the two case study areas of this paper, Andersson et al. (1998) manifested that Stockholm developed in an orderly and methodical way with the result of centuries’ changing city planning ideals. Different parts of Stockholm built during different historical periods have distinctive individual characteristics. Xi’an, as an ancient capital city in China, has seen over a period of more than three thousand years from empire dynasty to democratic revolution to modern urbanization and globalization. City planning changes accompany with the changes of social development because they are the expression of the dynamic interaction between natural and cultural forces in the environment (Antrop, 2005). At the moment, Xi’an, like many developing country cities, is in the process of searching for its own approaches to addressing local cultural history. These histories provide the qualities that can be regarded as being typically “Stockholm” and “Xi’an” and how shall we preserve and develop them. However, behind what we can see from green structure history, such as landscape gardens and notable architectures, and when we compares the two cities in the light of the thinking of Yi-Fu Tuan, a geographical scholar with a deep knowledge of both cultures, we can see that there are certain structural similarities related to the way people in both places have tended to structure the organization of the city in terms of cosmological binaries, especially the space of the heavenly cosmos and the place of the organic earth - the way we think about the world (world view), the nature (nature view) and human beings. In this globalized world, international innovative planning and design approaches should be researched and implemented (Ignatieva et al., 2011). From a landscape architect point of view, understanding among regions before communication and cooperation became extremely important for national and cross-boundary inventories and assessments. We suppose that following the traces of green structure history current and future open space planning theory can be benefited from its own history on one hand and from other’s history on the other. So, the purposes of this paper is, first to review city and green area planning history of Stockholm and Xi’an from phenomenal and theoretical perspectives, second to compare and contrast the similarities and differences of two cities for improved comparability, compatibility, and consistency, establishment of linkages. 1. Up-Down view: City and green structure of Medieval Age of Stockholm and Han Dynasty of Xi’an In early times, the capital city was indicated according to people’s cosmological perception (in Oxford Dictionaries, cosmology is defined as the study of the origin and development of the universe. Its first miniature is religious cosmology based on the historical, mythological and esoteric literature and tradition) and often treated as the place where a vertical cosmic order, with the cosmos above and earth below, is transposed to the earth, through the mediation of the regent or ruler as the minister of a heavenly god, or gods. These relatively small cities were surrounded by the organic nature of the countryside and the organic form of green structure antithesis the geometric pattern of city. Relationship among Heaven, Earth and Human beings can be explained as a typical Chinese form- the domed-like heaven embraces the vast earth (orbicular sky and rectangular earth, theory of canopy heavens) (Fig.1). Absolutely up and down made sense and the earth occupies the lowest place in the heavenly hierarchy. Following are the two examples from Western and Eastern cities- Stockholm in Sweden and Xi’an in China. Fig.1. Theory of canopyheavens, one of the ancient Chinese cosmologies that thinks heaven is dome-liked, embracing the rectangular earth. Human being is in between of them. Source: depicting by the author from literature. 1.1 Stockholm in Medieval time The first time that the name “Stockholm” appears is in the year 1252. This city, capital of Sweden and Scandinavia, is situated on a number of islands between the fresh water lake Mäklaren and brackish Baltic Sea. In the medieval age, Stockholm consisted only of the small Stadsholmen Island between Lake Mälaren and the inner Stockholm archipelago (Old Town) (Fig.1). The street pattern inside the medieval city walls was an irregular and dense network (Hall & Källström, 1999). Green spaces were quite rare in the Old Town. The kitchen garden (Slottets Örtagård) at the Royal Castle was the dominating green area (Stahre & Wikström, 1986). Outside the Old Town was the unwrought virgin land – the freeform organic earth. The most exalted architectural expression was the Royal Palace (Kungliga Slottet) and Stockholm Cathedral (Storkyrkan). The cathedral served as an symbolized image of the transcendental relations between the human soul and God in Sweden (also in the whole European countries) (Tuan, 1974). The regent was the minister of the god and the close distance between royal palace and cathedral shows supreme imperial dignity and its mediation position between god and normal people. But even the coronation of throne approved formally by cathedral illustrates everyone’s equal position in the presence of God. Green structure was only a tiny piece of functional accessory of the whole city. Fig.2. upward is Stockholm in 1590s, location of Royal Palace and the Cathedral in the Old Town and below is the cosmological thinking between heaven, cathedral, royal palace and city, the red square is Royal Palace, the Blue one is the Cathedral and the green ones are the two markets location where the goods can be exchanged, Source: top is from Stadsmuseum of Stockholm and below is from Stockholm Medieval Museum (photo and noted by the author) Heavenly God Palace Cathedral The city 1.2 Xi’an in Han Dynasty Accordingly, Xi’an (so-called Chang’an in emperor dynasty) is a city with history of more 3,000 years and experiences from Emperor Dynasty to democratic revolution to modern urbanization. It was the capital city of several important dynasties in China’s history (Fig.3). Fig.3 Locations of Xi’an in Zhou, Qin, Han, Tang, Ming and modern time. Source: (Yu, 2009) Although tiny location differences exist, from ancient astrology and Fengshui (literally Wind and Water) its location does not change (Fig.4). The pursuit of telepathy between human and heaven occupied a very important position in ancient China, the location and layout of the city tended to be given some symbolic significance. Xi’an is located in the north of the Qingling Mountains and the south of Wei River. There are other seven rivers going around and combined as the run-off system of Chang’an. The city is surrounded by three sides of water and one side of mountain. From Fengshui perspective, this pattern is called 安(an) that means stability and then the city was named Chang’an means long-term stability. It is one of the most suitable place for building the capital city(Han & Zhao, 2010). From ancient astrology perspective, the location corresponds to the main star belt (Ziwei Yuan) as Ziwei (Polaris) centered (Zhao, 2007). Imperial Palace stood for Polaris, Imperial City was the main stars (Ziweiyuan) that surrounded Polaris and the Outer City was other stars in the sky.

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