The software of conservation : conserving the Nanjing city wall through better cultural heritage interpretation

Abstract

The Nanjing City Wall (南京城墙), which is located in Nanjing (南京), Jiangsu Province (江苏省), was built in the capital of Nanjing in the early Ming Dynasty. At that time, there were four cities which is palace city, imperial city, capital city, and outer city. Now known as the "Nanjing City Wall" generally refers to the capital city wall. The capital city wall is east to Zhongshan (钟山), west to Shitou (石头), south to Qinhuai (秦淮), north to Houhu (后湖), with a circumference of 35.267 kilometers, and the existing intact City Wall is 25 kilometers, which is the longest existing ancient city wall in the world. Also, it is one of the few well-preserved ancient walls in China. Together with the Great Wall of China, the Nanjing City Wall is now considered to be one of the most important city walls of ancient cities in China. Despite its heritage significance, it was only until the 1980s that the heritage significance of the Nanjing City Wall was officially recognized, and since then, much repair and maintenance work has been carried out to preserve the structure. However, while the government’s conservation effort has been focused on the conservation of the “hardware,” much work remains to be done to conserve the “software,” which is the people’s memories of the tangible and intangible aspects of the wall, such as the stories and experience of the local people and visitors. In other words, the “cultural memories” of the wall. The author lives close to Nanjing in the city of Maanshan (馬鞍山), about 15 minutes to Nanjing by train, and has visited Nanjing many times. Nanjing’s city wall is perhaps its most iconic monument that speaks of the identity of the city, and it is a major attraction for visitors. Before studying in ACP, the author served as a volunteer for Nanjing City Wall Protection Volunteers Association to carry out conservation of parts of the city wall, which drew her particular interest on the city wall. When the author began her study in the MSc(Conservation) programme at The University of Hong Kong, she took the opportunity to apply her interest as a research topic for her dissertation. As such, this research focuses on the cultural heritage interpretation aspect of the Nanjing City Wall，and the scope is to first understand the state of physical conservation that has been carried out and the current inadequate state of interpretation, in order to provide a basis for developing an interpretation framework for this important monument of Nanjing city that might help lead to better conservation.