The city of Suzhou has a history stretching back more than 2,500 years, serving as the capital city of the Wu Kingdom as early as the Spring and Autumn Period (722- 481 B.C.E.) in 514 B.C.E. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Lake Tai in the province of Jiangsu, China. The city has enjoyed an economic prosperity and social prominence, as evidenced by the popular Chinese saying that “In heaven, there is paradise. On earth, there are Suzhou and Hangzhou.”
Benefiting from its strategic location on the Grand Canal trade route, its agreeable climate and stunning scenic beauty, Suzhou - especially since the Sui Dynasty in the early seventh century - has been one of China’s most important urban centers. The city’s architecture is famous for its stone bridges that span its many canals, the intricacies of its living spaces, and its meticulously designed and executed gardens, making it a tourist attraction for over a millennium. The city has also been an important center for China’s silk industry since the Song Dynasty (960 -1279 C.E.), and continues to hold that prominent position even today. The city’s history includes destructive invasions, and the city was burned down more than once, as have many other cities in the course of China’s history. Even so, the location of the city and its physical layout have stayed constant, which makes it a rare and extremely valuable existent example of ancient urban planning (compare the present day layout to the one depicted by a map of the city from the Song Dynasty). Professor Ruan Yisan attributes this to one major physical characteristic - that the city was built around a network of canals. He points out that even though other built structures have been easily destroyed because of both elements and human intention, the extensive canal system of the city remains unchanged due to obvious reasons – it is much harder to do damage to a river than to a house or a temple, and the immediate functional purpose of the canals make them a top priority of maintenance during and after reconstruction of the city. This is an important point to bear in mind because it explains why the canal system, including the canals themselves, the bridges and the walkways along them together with the residential architecture, features so prominently in Professor Ruan’s conservation work of the city.
As for the architectural heritage of the city, Suzhou is famous for its vernacular structures which are considered representative of the Southern Yangtze River region, making it a perfect exemplar of the study subject. The city’s overall layout and spatial treatment, architectural style and decorative detailing, and its cultural relics and sites of historic interest, such as the ancient city gates and walls, temples, pagodas and gardens make it one of the most vitally important architectural centers in China.
The modern city of Suzhou has a population of 5.9 million people, of whom about 2.17 million reside in the city proper, in a land area of approximately 1,650 square kilometers (ca. 636.7 square miles). This translates to a population density of about 3,408 persons/sq mile, much too high for the preservation of the ancient city as a living and developing organism. This view is agreed on by many scholars and conservationists (including Prof. Ruan himself) working on China’s vernacular architecture today. Infrastructure improvements on the old city have been under way since Professor Ruan proposed his first conservation plan in 1986.
