On Chinese Civilization Being the Only Continued Civilization in the Viewpoint of the Modern National History Construction

Chinese civilization is the only ancient civilization thriving to this day seems to be a common view in the historical academia and Chinese society as well. Culture is a way that human beings actively adapt to the surroundings and keep consistence with environmental change. All cultures created by human beings are changing, so is the Chinese culture. The physical and cultural evolution presented by the archaeological discoveries and related historical researches show that Chinese culture is multi-sourced and multicultural. This is the secret for the Chinese culture to retain its vitality. The reasons that Chinese civilization is the only civilization thriving to this day among all of ancient civilizations in the world include the ancestral worship, the identity to common ancestors, traditions of writing pedigrees and history books, the longhistory Chinese character system and the creative thinking and cultural methods of interpreting new thoughts by using traditional Chinese thinking and cultural structures. Especially in modern times, impacted by the nationalism trend, the national state narration built for meeting the requirement of the national state"historical memory"left us the strong impression of Chinese civilization being the only continued civilization and fostered the affective identification with the common history.

Artificial Stone in France （1830-1930）： A Materialbetween Modernity and Tradition

1920s and 1930s architecture has often been associated with the use of modern materials, such as reinforced concrete, glass and steel, mainly thanks to the role given them by the historiography of the modern, of presenting a break with former tradition and of spreading the need of architectural renewal. The study of architecture from the point of view of construction techniques evidences, instead, how architectural renewal started earlier, during the 19 century and involved the whole realm of building, even tradition-associated materials, such as wood and stone. Indeed, artificial stone （which appeared in early 19 century） represents--above all in France--a link between traditional construction in stone and the newborn reinforced-concrete technique, so as to underline the gradual shift from 19 century construction codes to the new industrial construction techniques, which in the 1920s and 1930s tend to overlap and blend, in this way determining a material continuity of modern and 19 century architecture.

Urban Utopia and Building Experimentations： The Rural Villages of the Sicilian Latifundium

The colonization of Sicilian latifundium was an attempt of regeneration of the rural areas. It was carried out by Benito Mussolini, called II Duce, who governed Italy by a regime with an absolute and conservative approach for 20 years since 1922. According to this plan, there were some rural villages （with a school, a church, a police station and a doctor＇s surgery） and a number of rural homes, spread in the landscape, that formed one of the most important achievements of the agrarian reform in Italy. The author has been conducting scientific research on this topic for several years. He started with the archive ＂Ente per la Colonizzazione del Latifondo Siciliano＂ （now called Ente Sviluppo Agricolo） to review the original designs and contracts with companies, ledgers and other administrative documents. Lately, he has been reviewing the personal archives of designers involved in the building program, where he has found original drawings, letters, sketches, etc.. He has also conducted some architectonic and technical surveys of the sites. We have to consider that nowadays the mentioned rural villages are a strategic resource for the development of the neighboring areas, as it may become a network for the sustainable tourism and the promotion of the local agro food specialties. On this purpose, the local authority is going to promote some plans for the requalification of these sites. The particular achievement of this article is to show a number of possibilities for the reuse of these places.

Not really an aftermath.The role of actual construction in the design process of the Sydney Opera House roof

For the past 50 years,the Sydney Opera House has been the subject of a prodigious hagiography of the personalities involved in its realization and their legendary querelles.Yet it remains paradoxically unexplored when it comes to its operative construction decisions,particularly those that relate to the erection of its renowned superstructure.Through the analysis of a newly discovered set of shop drawings prepared for the innovative formwork system of the iconic roof sails,the paper contributes to the construction history of the building whilst shedding light on the hitherto unacknowledged role of the general contractor in the design process.In doing so,it questions the validity of conventional assumptions about the technical division of labour in complex projects,where construction and project management tend to be kept separate from architectural and structural design,furthermore suggesting the need for broader design exegeses,combining project-based and production-based concerns.In reflecting on its import for contemporary practice,the study suggests that the revealing picture of the Sydney Opera House project,as it emerged from the cumbersome archive-based crossanalysis of the manual documentation produced for it,is in principle much easier and perhaps important to obtain today.This is due,on the one side,to availability and diffusion of digital project collaborative platforms;on the other side,to the merging and the blurring of professional and non-professional design contributions.

A pragmatic approach to church construction in Northern China at the time of Christian inculturation： The handbook ＂Le missionnaire constructeur＂, 1926

In 1926, French Jesuit missionaries from Darning published at Xianxian （Hebei province） a little handbook for church construction in Northern China： “Le missionnaire constructeur, conseils-plans” （“The missionary builder： advice-plans”）, containing 67 pages of text and 54 plates. After a short introduction about handbooks and pattern books of churches, this paper describes and analyses the handbooks content and its different practical aspects about building materials, masonry, roofs, etc. The book, however, is more than a compilation of technical hints and reveals a lot about the missionaries＇ perception of Chinese building traditions as well as the transmission of Western techniques to Chinese workers. The paper also contextuatizes the handbook and tnes to identify both the authors and the addressees. In the mid-1920s, the Vatican launched the Christian inculturution process in China, which concerned architecture too. Nevertheless, many missionaries resisted, preferring Gothic or Italianate architecture to a new Sino-Christian style. The handbook participated in this debate.