Cultural Heritage and Adaptive Reuse in Rural Urban Contemporary China. The interest for the western methodologies and the peculiarity of the Chinese issues

From the early 90s several Chinese cities engaged transformation embodying in architecture, public space and urban texture, the physical evidence of the expectations and contradictions originated and breed by the reforms initiated in the late 1970s. The idea and the meaning of cultural heritage has been evolving since then in Chinese architectural culture through central government reforms and private initiatives managing the reconstruction of national identity within a context of cultural modernity, through physical architectural and urban simulacra replacing a glorious past recently destroyed. The academic studies deeply rooted in the tradition settled by Liang Sicheng (19011972) – considered the father of modern historical studies in architecture – such as the one produced for more than fi fty years by Wu Liangyong research group at Tsinghua University of Beijing, have been running parallel trying to appropriately address the national ambitions and to establish a specifi c Chinese discipline inspired to international principles on the design theme of adaptive reuse within the more general framework of cultural heritage. The most recent changes in the Chinese contemporary countryside due to the urban-rural migrations and increasing national tourism industry are also adding complexity and defi ning new possibilities.