By Xinyi Li, EDITOR
Shibati Old Street, a business center of old Chongqing reaching back to the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) and a path linking the Upper City and the Lower City, carries the deepest memories of Chongqing.
After about ten years of preparation, the much-anticipated conservation, renovation, and development project of Shibati Old Street finally lifted a corner off its mysterious veil. Recently, the model demonstration area of the traditional style region was completed.
The design sketch of Shibati Old Street
Shibati Old Street covers an area of around 58,666 square meters. The whole project is due to be completed and open to the public in 2021.
The person in charge of the project from Hangzhou Suntiandy Group introduced that, with an expected investment of over RMB 2 billion, it covered an overall floorage of about 170,000 square meters, including 80,000 square meters of the area above the ground. Among the five plots from A to E, the first three ones close to the city balcony Jiaochangkou will compose a traditional culture sightseeing group.
The group mainly comprises stilted buildings, folk houses in Eastern Sichuan, and structures of combined Chinese-Western styles. It is designed for folk culture display, film and television culture experience, traditional culture performances, theme museums, customized cultural and creative retail commodities, specialty catering experience, and high-end guesthouses. With Bayu culture as the keynote, an open cultural experience block is set to open.
The design sketch of Shibati Old Street
As predicted, the traditional characteristic style region of Shibati Old Street is expected to receive 28 to 30 million tourists every year after completion.
An ultimate goal of the project is to showcase traditional Bayu features and the culture of Chongqing’s mother city. Yuzhong District and the project undertaker proposed that the project take the culture of old Chongqing as the vein, authentic Mountain City buildings as the basis, and business types with a new experience as the engine.
Old Chongqing means integrating traditional Chongqing folk customs, community life, and festivals and celebrations with live-action performances and modern exhibition technologies. Taking advantage of the well-known cultural backgrounds by Chongqing people like Shanguo Alley, Jiaofu Street, Yuetai Yard, Shoubei Street, and Huajiezi Street, several core landscapes and rest areas will be built to reflect the traditional and classic Chongqing lifestyle.
The corner of new Shibati Old Street, which was completed the construction
Authentic Mountain City implies that the project should maintain the original street pattern and texture of Shibati Old Street. This includes carrying out proper reconstruction and innovation as per the building types and elements of traditional folk houses via ancient methods, and strive to maintain or restore the street dimensions and building heights on both sides, thus showcasing its authentic meaning and making the landscape and building the carrier of traditional culture.
Besides, new experience refers to such business types as urban tourism, intangible cultural heritage inheritance, and artistic creativity & experience developing towards panoramic experience with the realization of the combination of culture and tourism, creativity and industry after integrating the industrial positioning of modern service industries like Internet plus. It aims to help old buildings and pathways, traditional handicrafts and time-honored brands scattered in the streets shine again, thus transforming the charm of old Chongqing into soft power to boost the city’s development.
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Source: Chongqing Daily News