From Continuation to Evolution: Historic Review and Value Enlightenment of the Lanzhou Urban Construction Plan

This paper provides a holistic picture of the Draft Outline of the Lanzhou Urban Construction Plan in 1951 and the Work Report of the Lanzhou New Urban Construction Plan from 1952 directed by Chief Ren Zhenying of the Lanzhou Municipal Construction Department. The author analyzes the changing process of planning thoughts from "industry as subsidiary" to "industry-oriented," putting these plans into the macro context of national social system reform and economic recovery during the early years of new China, and analyzes the evolution of the planning paradigm from the explicit continuation of European and American model to the implicit intervention of Soviet model. It is believed that the influencing process of the European and American model and other foreign urban planning ideas is not continuous, and obviously has phased and partial features. The evolving process of the urban construction plan in Lanzhou from 1951 to 1952 is historically representative, which manifests the transition history of an early Chinese planning paradigm from the European and American model toward a Soviet model.