Arcade City

There are 22 Qilou streets in Qilou City, with a total length of 7 kilometers. The longest street is 2530 meters. There are 560 Qilou buildings, which are rare in China. Arcade buildings are mainly distributed in dadongshang Road, dadongxia Road, shajie street, Danan Road, Xiaonan Road, Sifang Road, Wufang Road, Jiufang Road, Nanhuan Road, Dazhong Road, Guilin road, Guibei Road, Beihuan Road, Minzhu Road, Jianshe Road, Zhongshan Road, etc.

The continuous arcade is a symbol of Wuzhou's past glory and prosperity. There were more than 1500 large and small businesses in Qilou street, which created tens of thousands of rich businessmen. The most classic buildings in Qilou city are the former site of Wuzhou customs, the former site of sidagong hospital, Datong Hotel, Xinxi Hotel, Dadong restaurant, Yuexi building, etc. the streets with the most historical and cultural heritage are Mawang street and Jinlong lane. The center of the arcade city is from the arcade to the atrium square, in which there are statues of Zhao Guang, Mou Zi and other historical celebrities in Wuzhou. The inner wall of the flood dike from the new West Hotel to the Dragon Mother Temple has a 1.4 km long historical and cultural corridor in Wuzhou. You can read the history of Wuzhou for more than 2000 years in one day.

Xiao Jian, a well-known contemporary Chinese scholar and cultural scholar, pointed out that the arcade city is a historical witness of Wuzhou's prosperous commerce and trade in the past century.

Arcade City

Qilou city is located in the old city of Hedong, Wuzhou, Guangxi. There are 22 Qilou streets with a total length of 7 kilometers. The longest street is 2530 meters. There are 560 Qilou buildings, which are rare in China. Arcade buildings are mainly distributed in dadongshang Road, dadongxia Road, shajie street, Danan Road, Xiaonan Road, Sifang Road, Wufang Road, Jiufang Road, Nanhuan Road, Dazhong Road, Guilin road, Guibei Road, Beihuan Road, Minzhu Road, Jianshe Road, Zhongshan Road, etc.

Xiao Jian, a famous contemporary Chinese scholar and cultural scholar, pointed out that Qilou city is a historical witness of the prosperity of Wuzhou's commerce and trade in the past 100 years: Wuzhou, located at the intersection of xunzun, Guangxi and xisanjiangkou, has a unique geographical location. It is the birthplace of Lingnan culture and Pearl River culture. The ancient political, economic and cultural center of the Pearl River Basin and Lingnan region has become the center of modern and modern hundred years "Commercial port of Guangdong and Guangxi" and "water gate". In 1897, Wuzhou was opened as a trading port, gradually developed into a famous commercial port in the Pearl River Basin, and began to build arcade buildings. In the past, arcade city was full of merchants. At its peak, there were more than 1500 large and small businesses, creating tens of thousands of rich people!

Cultural orientation

Cultural orientation of Lingnan arcade complex in Wuzhou

Xiao Jian, a well-known contemporary Chinese scholar and cultural scholar, pointed out that the arcade city is a historical witness of Wuzhou's prosperous commerce and trade in the past century.

Cultural orientation of Wuzhou time honored snack street

Xiao Jian, a famous contemporary Chinese scholar and cultural scholar, pointed out that Wuzhou time-honored specialty snack street is the inheritance place of Wuzhou local characteristic food culture and the confluence place of Lingnan food culture! The street is the residence of the image shop of Wuzhou paper wrapped chicken in maijinbao. It has gathered Liubao tea, Bingquan soybean milk, snail, beef, guiling paste, river noodles, boat porridge and other local specialties and cultural elements of Wuzhou. At the same time, it has also gathered a variety of local specialties from Lingnan. Wuzhou is the center of Lingnan culture and Pearl River culture

Birthplace, throughout the ages, there has been a saying that "food in Wuzhou". All kinds of delicious food in Lingnan come from Wuzhou flavor! Arcade city is a historical witness of the prosperity of Wuzhou's modern commerce and trade for one hundred years. The block is located in the arcade City, which is an image window to show Wuzhou's local and even Lingnan's characteristic food culture and Wuzhou's Arcade commerce and trade culture. It highlights Wuzhou's unique cultural charm and charm of "a century old commercial port, dream arcade; Lingnan's food, fragrance"! The block is located in Wufang section of arcade city business circle in Wuzhou, Guangxi, which is the main part of arcade city.

Development history

On February 4, 1897, the Qing government and Britain signed the supplementary provisions of the Sino British Treaty on Myanmar in Beijing. After Wuzhou was opened as a foreign trade port, it gradually developed into a famous commercial port in the Pearl River Basin, and arcade buildings began to rise in Wuzhou.

At the end of 1924, a huge fire broke out in Wuzhou. The authorities decided to "demolish the city to build roads, dig mountains to fill ponds", demolish all the millennium old city walls and gates of Wuzhou, expand the urban area, build underground canals with city bricks, and pave streets and roads. The Hedong District of Wuzhou has gradually become a arcade city. The arcade building is designed and constructed in combination with the humid and rainy climate in southern China. It is generally a three or four storey building. The storefronts of the shops on the ground are retracted 2 to 3 meters inward to let out as a pedestrian corridor The second floor of the building is generally equipped with a water gate, which is convenient for residents to use when the street is flooded. A bamboo ladder can be put down at the water gate, from which residents can get up and down to take boats, or a bamboo basket can be put down at the water gate Buy rice, oil, vegetables, kerosene, batteries and other necessities from the sales boats cruising along the street. The brick pillars near the street are inlaid with iron rings, one high and one low, which are also used for mooring boats and mooring ropes. All these are due to the special needs of Wuzhou, which is located at the mouth of the three rivers and floods the street several times every year.

In August 2002, the people's Government of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region proposed that the urban construction and tourism development of Wuzhou should take landscape and arcade as the core content, and allocated 20 million yuan to transform the arcade city. In June 2003, the reconstruction project of Qilou city was started, with an actual investment of 180 million yuan. There are 441 buildings with a total area of 57109.44 square meters, 110 additional Qilou buildings with an area of 10550.7 square meters, 6 memorial archways and 10 sculptures.

In September 2004, Wuzhou held a grand opening ceremony of Qilou city. The new arcade architecture not only has the traditional characteristics, but also shows the style of the times. It has become a beautiful three-dimensional landscape painting in Wuzhou. When you visit the arcade City, it's like people in the painting and people in the painting.

Wuzhou arcade culture has become a beautiful scenery. In 2003, Wuzhou had built a flood dike, and the phenomenon of being affected by floods every year has become history, but the unique architectural style of arcade has been preserved as a witness of history. There are 22 arcade streets with a total length of 7 kilometers, the longest of which is 2530 meters. There are 560 arcade buildings, which are rare in China. They are worthy of the name of "China arcade museum city".

Commercial and residential signs

The arcade buildings in Wuzhou are mainly the front shop and the back house, the bottom shop and the upper house, and the integration of residence and business. The downstairs is the pedestrian passage, and the outside of the arcade is the vehicle passage. Generally, reinforced concrete structure is adopted, and the column spacing is generally about 3m to 5M. The top ornaments, balconies and capitals are of different forms, either solemn and generous, or exquisite and chic, or elegant and noble. Reliefs, Roman pillars and arched windows combine traditional Chinese style with European classical architectural style. From the appearance of Wuzhou arcade, we can see that many representative Chinese architectural languages at that time, such as flower windows, brick carvings, memorial archways and so on, were very exquisite, and their functions and art reached a very high level. Entering the arcade city is like entering the arcade museum city. Here, the clear water wall reflecting the charm of the water city, the western style balcony with iron bars, the roman columns and arched windows with strong traces of Westernization, and the unique water gate and ship tie ring in Wuzhou are highlighted in the facade.

Located at the confluence of the two rivers, Wuzhou arcade city has been attacked by floods all the year round. In order to deal with the rising river water, residents have convenient access and special use for mooring boats, so there are water gates and iron rings on arcade pillars. Iron rings are embedded in the brick columns of arcades near the river or other low water level streets to tie boats when the streets are flooded. The windows above the second floor of the low water level arcade facing the street are door type, in case of getting on and off the ship in flood season. This feature is the only one in China. In the past, when floods hit the streets, the public did not panic. Water to the door, pad a few bricks, continue to do business, play cards, touch mahjong. When the water reaches the second floor, the public will tie the boat to the iron ring and get in and out of the boat through the window or water gate.

In the arcade museum city, we can see the gray carving art with Chinese traditional culture on the wall everywhere. On the wall of the arcade on Danan Road, there is a relief of "more than a year in a row" with two carp swimming under the lotus pond; another relief shows four white cranes under a pine tree, which means "pine and crane Changchun"; there is a treasure bottle with the meaning of "peace and security"; there is a sculpture of "carp leaping over the dragon's gate" on the square of Longmu temple, etc.

Parapet is the most gentle name in the decoration components of arcade city. The parapet is the parapet on the roof of the arcade, which is more than half a person high and faces the street. The origin of the parapet is very interesting. In ancient times, because of the constraints of feudal ethics, large families built a wall on the roof and walls to prevent their daughters from going out. While the girls could not help the wonderful and temptation of the outside world without leaving home, so they quietly climbed to the roof or high wall, separated by the low protective road Looking out from the wall, over time, it was called the parapet. This kind of low wall with the roof facing the street, let the daughter of the boudoir look down on the earthly world, and bloom her youth without showing mountains and dew. Occasionally, the scholar who looks up is lucky to catch this touch of spring, and a romantic story begins from then on.

architectural style

Baroque style

This form is in Southeast Asia

Chinese PinYin : Qi Lou Cheng