Visualizing the cultural landscape gene of traditional settlements in China: a semiotic perspective

Abstract

China has a deep traditional culture and a very long history, and is very rich in traditional settlements (designated as “Famous Historic-Cultural Villages/Towns”, “China Traditional Villages” by China Government). To help people develop the traditional settlements to achieve the great goal of Chinese National Rejuvenation, Chinese scholar put forward the Cultural Landscape Gene Theory of Traditional Settlements (CLGTS) in 2003. Since then, CLGTS has been employed to solve the issues of Chinese traditional settlements, such as the identification and regionalization of cultural genes in traditional settlements, and the understanding of architectural features. Although CLGTS has made great strides in many fields, there is still a lack of scientific findings in exploring the symbol mechanism from a perspective of semiotics. To explore this, we first examine the core features of CLGTS through a dialectic perspective. We analyze two features of CLGTS in depth. First, CLGTS is the dialectic combination of macro settlement image and micro cultural factors of traditional settlements, material appearance and inherent traditional cultural implications, overall features and local self-renewal mechanisms, qualitative and quantitative methods, superiority of cultural factors and rich cultural connotation. Second, CLGTS is famous for its nonlinearity, self-organization, and self-iteration due to various spatial shape and complex structures. Based on the above, we present the concept of a CLGTS Symbolization Method. Then, we further elaborate the key features, classification methods, and corresponding representation methods of CLGTS symbols. Finally, by using Visual C#.net program language, we develop a prototype system of the Traditional Landscape Genetic Symbol Database (TLGSD) to create and manage CLGTS symbols. Test results show that TLGSD can meet the needs of constructing a CLGTS symbol database for a given region. This study is of great significance to explore and contribute to the CLGTS Symbolization Method.