Hosted by the Program on Chinese Cities （PCC）
4/9/2026 6:00 PM-8:00 PM EST
Presenter: Zihan Jiao
Master, majoring in Urban and Rural Planning, Beijing Jiaotong University
Visiting scholar, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Supervisor: Prof. Yan Song
Abstract:
Historic district regeneration often seeks a balance between improving living conditions and preserving physical heritage. However, existing research has largely focused on traditional conservation issues such as authenticity and legibility, while paying less attention to the spiritual continuity of the district as a “cultural living organism” that continuously generates and transmits cultural meaning through dynamic evolution.
Taking the historic district surrounding Beijing’s White Pagoda Temple as a case study, this presentation introduces a “cultural-spatial symbiosis” perspective. Drawing on cultural urban development theories and Kevin Lynch’s image of the city, it first outlines major trends and problems in contemporary urban regeneration, asking: how is the spiritual core of the district embodied and evolved in space?The study then combines spatial morphological analysis with textual analysis. By cross-referencing these two approaches, it explores the symbiotic mechanism between culture and space—focusing on spatial transformation trajectories, driving forces, and self-adaptive processes under external interventions such as policies, demographic shifts, and capital flows.
Finally, the presentation demonstrates theoretical and practical outcomes gained through the researcher’s direct engagement in district regeneration. The researcher provides an integrated analytical framework that reveals the causes of broken spatial imagery and weakened spiritual belonging, offering a decision-making reference for governance that balances physical regeneration with the continuity of cultural life.