The Promotion of Building Culture in Rural Germany

Over the past two decades,building culture has increasingly caught the attention of the architectural and planning professions.The building culture is to be understood in the broadest sense as the sum of all cultural,economic,technological,social and ecological factors influencing the quality and process of planning and construc­tion.While the revitalisation and promotion of building culture is central to discussions on urban areas,these are generally ignored in regard to rural areas.This article aims to provide an overview of how building culture has been promoted in Germany’s rural areas,thereby contributing to international research on this topic.The paper adopts a general descriptive approach in examining the promotion of building culture in rural Germany.It provides back­ground knowledge on institutional promotion and demonstrates the diverse approaches implemented in represent­ative villages as best practices examples.The German experience confirms that the promotion of building culture is a meaningful and effective measure to help revitalise rural areas.Moreover,the three selected rural municipalities show how stakeholders from civil society are increasingly involved in measures to implement and promote building culture in the local context.

Urban Public Spaces and Design of Historical and Cultural Buildings——Series II of Urban Public Space Design

This paper summarized concept and role of urban public space, highlighted its role in emotional exchange, cultural exchange, and business communication, and the significance of showing inside image of the city in terms of morality and residents' quality. Combining with design of historical and cultural buildings, the paper explored the forms of historical and cultural buildings in urban public spaces from the perspectives of administration square, religious square, cultural square and commercial street, so as to design "human-concerned" urban public spaces that meet human needs and reflect personality of the city.

Pest Management in Museum Collections and Storage Areas （New ApproachmOnline Sensors for Pest Detection）

Common denominator and one of the goals in the ＂storage＂ of many, even different, commodities （agricultural, etc.） is their protection against invasion by biological pests; protection of objects of cultural heritage deposited in museums, galleries, archives and other institutions of a similar type is one of the specific case. The present article is an overview of basic （potential） biological pests of some ＂storage＂ commodities （with emphasis on the protection of objects of cultural heritage） as well as methods used for their detection. In the final section, a modular system of the ongoing assessment of the environmental characteristics of depositaries and exhibitions （including ＂biological＂） is briefly presented; its advantage is the possibility of on-line monitoring of the evaluated parameters （temperature, humidity, lighting, etc.） including the detection of presence of crawling and airborne insects.

Public libraries in China:Development and challenge

Since the start of the new century, public libraries in China have shown a healthy trend of development, featuring an ever-increasing scale, an initially established service system, a steady progress in infrastructure construction, improvement in networking, digitization and modernization levels, and strengthening of service efficacy. Nevertheless, there are also serious problems, such as a weak foundation, insufficient funding, lagging legislation,and shortage of professionals. For the present and for a certain period to come, the focus of the building of public libraries should be placed on further seeking financial support, promoting the building of service systems covering both urban and rural areas, and improving services.

Doctors Bridging Borders Chinese doctors working in Africa build cultural bridges

BEFORE Chinese medical teams were sent to Africa, to most Africans. China was a remote country that they had barely heard of. But through seeing and being treated by Chinese doctors Africans began to learn about China and its people.