The influence of Russian and Japanese architectural schools on the development of the city of Dalian in the late 19th century – the first half of the 20th century.

Pugacheva Ekaterina Alekseevna ORCID: 0009-0004-2841-3699 Assistant Professor; Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning; Pacific State University 680035, Russia, Khabarovsk Territory, Khabarovsk, st. Pacific, 135, office 506g km.904@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Kurbatov Renat Konstantinovich student; Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning; Pacific State University 680035, Russia, Khabarovsk Territory, Khabarovsk, st. Pacific, 136, office 506cg renatkurbatov2003@mail.ru

Introduction. Since the 15th century, a Eurocentric model of the world began to take shape in the world, which is why Western European traditions began to prevail over the rest and were actively broadcast around the world. However, the states of East Asia, of which China was the central one, developed for a long time according to their historical principles and did not adopt the model of development of European states due to religious, geographical, climatic and geopolitical features.

The turning point occurred after the two Opium Wars (1840-1842, 1856-1860), when Western European countries finally gained access to the Chinese market. The Russian Empire also took an active part in the division of spheres of influence, wishing to consolidate the Sino-Russian border in order to avoid the arrival of Western states in the Far East, which resulted in the conclusion of a lease agreement for Northeastern China by the Russian Empire in order to build the China-Eastern Railway (CER), which was designed to shorten the railway route to the city. Vladivostok.

The increased Russian presence in the region led to a confrontation with Japan, which resulted in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), as a result of which the southern branch of the CER with its adjacent settlements was transferred to Japan, which soon became known as the South Manchurian Railway. All this predetermined the duality of the development of this region for the next decades.

During the period of foreign interventions, this region began to develop actively.: railway transport appeared (the construction of the CER and YMR and cities within the exclusion zone), which gave an impetus to the development of the economy; the transport network and infrastructure of numerous station towns were laid out; areas built up by foreigners increased the area and population of cities several times.

During the first half of the 20th century, the region was influenced by the presence of the Russian Empire and Japan, which was reflected in both urban planning and architectural principles of urban development. Each state has influenced the railway, transport, urban planning and architectural infrastructure to varying degrees.

The relevance of research. At the end of the XX – beginning of the XXI century, a period of active study of the historical and cultural heritage of cities in Northeastern China began. One of the aspects of such research was the analysis of architectural and urban planning heritage, which reflected the influence of the cultures of the East and West.

However, with a fairly detailed study of the Russian architectural heritage associated with the construction of the CER, the YMJD and the influence of the Japanese urban planning school have so far been studied to a lesser extent, especially in the Russian scientific school. Thus, the features of the development of these settlements and their impact on the formation of urban development in Northeastern China need further study.

The purpose of the study is to identify the features and principles of the formation of the development of the city of Dalian during the period of influence of foreign concessions in the late 19th century – the first half of the 20th century.

The object of the study is the urban development of the city of Dalian in the period under review.

The subject of the study is the peculiarities of the influence of Russian and Japanese architectural schools on the development of the structure of the master plan and the architectural appearance of the city.

The main objectives of the study are to consider the prerequisites for urban development; to identify the features of urban development in different stages; to determine the planning features during the period of foreign influence.

Methods and methodology. To study the development of the urban structure, an analysis and systematization of available archival, literary, digital, cartographic, photo and video sources was carried out. The descriptive method was used to characterize the compositional and planning features of urban planning solutions. The comparison method made it possible to compare the studied urban planning solutions of architectural schools in Russia and Japan. To understand the prerequisites and features of the development of architecture and urban planning in Manchukuo in the context of the transformation of the political and socio-cultural life of the region, a historical and genetic approach was applied, on the basis of which the periodization of urban development was carried out.

The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time it is estimated what contribution in the architectural and urban planning context foreign architects made during the period of foreign concessions in the design of Dalian in the late 19th century – the first half of the 20th century.

Periodization of development. As noted above, the active development of the weakly urbanized territory of Manchuria began at the end of the 19th century with the construction of the CER and the cities of the exclusion line in the sparsely populated territories of Northeastern China. Russian engineers and architects carried out all design decisions, despite the involvement of Chinese and Manchurian labor.

This city was built in accordance with the fashion trends of that time in Russia, which is reflected in its unique architectural appearance. Despite the fact that the ice-free port of Dalian (Dalny) was supposed to become the pearl of the CER, it is less associated with the Russian heritage, although the planning development was laid by the Russian architect K. G. Skolimovsky. This is largely due to the defeat of the Russian Empire in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) and the transfer of the South Manchurian Railway to Japan, which, in turn, divided the development of the region into two parts - Russian (northern) and Japanese (southern) until the 1930s.

The zone of Japanese presence, on the contrary, demonstrated sustainable development and formation within the framework of colonial Japanese architecture. During this period, a completely new system of dividing city blocks and their proportions developed, although the architectural appearance of buildings tended to Western European stylistics, which was also evident in the previous period, in order to create a unified architectural appearance of the city.

The unification of the two urban design trends took place in 1932 after the formation of the pro-Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. At that time, the focus was on the new capital Changchun, where new approaches in architecture, urban planning and urban design were fully developed. However, other major cities also received new master plans, which carefully integrated urban design developments from previous eras. Dalian has become one of these cities.

In this regard, the main stages of the development of architecture and urban design in the southern part of Manchuria can be identified.:

1. Traditional Chinese city (until 1898) — there was practically no foreign influence in urban design;

2. Construction of the railway and related infrastructure under the leadership of the Russian Empire (1898-1905) — changes in approaches to urban planning began to manifest themselves, which were influenced by the construction of the CER;

3. Japanese influence on the development of the city:

3.1 The period of lease of the lands of the Kwantung region by the Japanese Empire (1905-1932) — urban planning began to change immediately after the transition of the railway from Russia to Japan, but was fully developed only after the Xinhai Revolution;

3.2 The period of the existence of the state of Manchukuo (1932-1945) — the creation of Manchukuo instantly changed the pace of urban development in the entire region.

Literature review. Unlike the central regions of China, the architectural history of Manchuria has been studied to a lesser extent. Russian Russian scientific school has played a significant role in the study of the region due to the study of the architectural heritage of Russian architects and engineers during the construction of the CER and the white emigration. Among the researchers of the history of architecture and urban planning, such researchers as N. P. Kradin, I. V. Galuzova, V. A. Lynsha, N. V. Kocheshkov can be distinguished.

In general, the issues of urban development in Manchuria during the first half of the 20th century have been repeatedly raised in scientific discourse, including in the framework of the development of railway construction by E. Denison and G. Ren, L. Li, Yu.V. Ordynskaya, who also partially touched upon the stage of the beginning of transformation in urban planning as a result of the construction of the southern branch of the CER, which is better known as the YMZHD.

S. S. Levoshko ^[1], T. Y. Troitskaya studied the Russian architectural and urban planning heritage in the Far Eastern abroad. The works of A. P. Ivanova ^[2-4] and E. V. Glatolenkova ^[5] mainly reflect the study of the architecture of new station towns, the buildings of which combined European and Chinese traditional elements. The analysis of Japanese influence, in particular, its manifestation in the form of the application of the Tatsuno style, is devoted to the works of I. Dai ^[6] and D. S. Tseluiko ^{[7, 8]}. In general, the role of foreign architectural schools in the formation of architecture in Manchuria is considered in the works of T. A. Smolyaninova ^[9], L. Tan et al. ^[10], A. P. Ivanova and A. A. Alekseychuk ^[11], M. E. Bazilevich ^[12], H. Liu and G. Zhu. The activities of individual architects in Manchuria were considered By N. P. Kradin ^[13], M. E. Bazilevich ^[14] and E. V. Glatolenkova ^[15].

An ancient settlement. The formation of the city of Dalian is difficult to trace, as the history of this region begins more than 70,000 years ago. According to historical records, at the beginning of the Han Dynasty (about 190 BC), a small fishing village called Sanshan was located on the site of the city, which belonged to an island outside the bay. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, it was called Sanshanpu and was located opposite across the bay from the modern city and is known on Russian pre-revolutionary maps as the village of Talenwan (Fig. 1) ^[16]. Sometimes the village of Talenvan may be mistakenly considered the founding site of the city of Dalny, but these are two different settlements, although both are located in the same bay.

1. Map of Liaodong Peninsula, 1903 ^[16]

Despite the fact that a large number of ancient settlements were located near the new city, due to the residence of the peasant population on the territory, which was mainly engaged in fishing, none of them received further economic development, and all the functions of the administrative center were subsequently concentrated in the city of Dalian.

Russian port "Dalny". In 1896, Russia received the right to build a railway line through the territory of Manchuria. Thus, Russia wanted to reduce the railway, thereby reducing costs, and ensure the early establishment of Russian influence in Northern China ^[17].

Construction began in August 1897 and was carried out simultaneously in three directions from the village near the Sungari River, which later became the city of Harbin, and from three terminal stations — Grodekovo in Primorye, Transbaikalia in Siberia, and Port Arthur as the terminus of the southern branch, for which Russia received a concession a little later in June 1898. Thus, Russia got a chance to operate an ice-free port on the coast of the Yellow Sea, respectively, and a communication route to the coast of the Pacific Ocean running across the entire continent ^[18].

Initially, the city was supposed to be located near a place called Lushutun (in the western environs of modern Dalian). But in 1899, the construction site was moved to the area of the village of Zinniva. This decision was made due to frequent changes in water levels, strong winds, problematic ship mooring conditions, and the lack of sufficient space for urban development ^[18].

Russia did not manage to stay in the southern part of the peninsula for long (1897-1905), but this short period of time became the starting point for the transformation of a fishing village into a European city, with avenues and luxurious mansions ^[5].

The territory of the peninsula, as a place endowed with great potential for the development of an ice-free port, was of particular interest to Russia. Russian designers arrived in Dalian in 1897. St. Petersburg military engineer V. V. Sakharov became the author of the first schematic master plan, developed together with two German specialists in the field of construction — Bralinovsky and Yehender ^[18]. It was a simplified regular scheme with elongated rectangular building blocks, but it did not take into account the terrain features, although it allocated large areas for parks and squares ^[1]. This approach to design was possible in the European part of Russia, but in the Far East, with its unstable and complex terrain, this approach was wasteful, impractical and did not contribute to an organic perception of urban space and architecture ^[19]. However, this plan did not take into account all the features of the relief, which is why most of the ideas of the Sakharov plan were rejected by architect Kazimir Skolimovsky ^[20].

Only toponymy and placement of recreation areas were transferred to the final version of the master plan by Skolimovsky (Fig. 2) ^[21]. The concept of its variant was based on the achievements of European urban planning of that time and consisted in creating an "ideal" and exemplary city based on the example of the works of R. Pemberton, E. Howard, A. Edwards, D. Speckle and others ^[13]. The new general plan, taking into account the relief, assumed a radial-circular scheme consisting of nodal points in the form of ring-shaped and semicircular squares with streets radiating from them, similar to the technique used during the rebuilding of Paris in 1853 and during the reconstruction of London after the fire ^[18]. It also provided for the solution of transport, economic, environmental, sanitary and technical problems, which expresses the main idea of new trends in urban planning at the beginning of the 20th century ^[19].

Fig. 2. The master plan of the city of Dalny, 1899 ^[21]

Based on the new plan, the city's territory was divided into three parts: Chinese, European and Administrative Towns, which were separated by park areas ^[22]. It was necessary to strike a balance between giving the streets a European look to attract foreigners and the indigenous customs of Chinese life.

The administrative town was intended to house employees of the railway, factories and steamships of the CER Company. It was located in the northwest of Dalian and was bordered on the south by the railway tracks through which the road to the European Town was laid, on the north and east by a freight station with a factory, and on the west by a bay. This town was built primarily to provide housing for all visiting employees, so by 1905 it was the most complete of all the districts of Dalian.

In terms of population, the city quickly became the second largest city in Manchuria after Mukden. The well-equipped and mechanized port hosted ocean-going vessels at that time and in a short time took the second place after Shanghai in terms of cargo turnover on the entire continental coast from the Okhotsk to the South China Sea.

The Japanese city of Dairen. After the territory of the Liaodong Peninsula was transferred to Japan in 1905, all the names of the cities remained the same, but the reading of the hieroglyphs was changed from Chinese to Japanese, and therefore Dalny became known as Dairen.

Dairen City, Kanto Prefecture, Japan, was founded during the Meiji era, survived the Taisho era, and collapsed (as a prefecture of Japan) during the Showa era. Japan also gained extraterritorial rights in the region north of the 885-kilometer (550-mile) area. The South Manchurian Railway in 1905 (i.e. the South Manchurian Railway zone), which was extended to Changchun.

Japanese buildings continued to build the city according to the architectural plans of Russia and adopted the same trends of fashion for an ideal city, a garden city (Fig. 3). Basically, all the axial highways laid earlier, as well as the radial squares, retained their location and direction so that a single composition of the master plan was formed. The administrative town was preserved in its original form and did not expand for several more decades. The original planning structure with a diverging three-beam was preserved, and a railway use zone developed to the east of the town over time, which was also designed during the period of the Russian administration.

a)

3. Map of the city of Dalian: a) - 1912 ^[23]; b) during the Japanese occupation ^[24].

The southeastern part of the European Town has undergone the greatest changes. The development of the city in this direction is probably due to the fact that it was there that the port was located, which was a city-forming enterprise. The port area itself has grown significantly over time, and the number of railway tracks leading to the unloading area has increased several times. To ensure the convenience of operation and maintenance of equipment, it was near the port that a new area began to be built up.

On a large undeveloped territory intended for the organization of a park space (woodlands), blocks were laid out, enclosed within the framework of existing axes, however, ignoring them and obeying the principle of dividing an orthogonal grid into equal blocks, where the layout was already devoid of expressiveness.

The changes also affected the Chinese town, where, already significantly ignoring the Russian master plan, a small area of the city began to develop. It can be noted that it was in this area that the layout in the traditional Japanese style was laid out, which can also be traced in the projects of such cities of the former Japanese Empire as Sapporo (Japan), Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (Russia) and Sinuiju (North Korea): the main urban axis is laid, which is parallel or perpendicular to the city-forming straight line (it acts as rivers or, as it was in Dalian, a railway), from which, according to the division of an orthogonal grid, blocks with 1:2 side proportions are laid out, sometimes grouped into squares or rectangles of larger size for the construction of large administrative complexes, which is traditional for the Japanese system of proportionation in urban planning.

It is worth noting that the layout and development of the city differed significantly from such large cities in the region as Changchun and Shenyang, where the master plans of the Japanese settlements built, developed by Kato Yonokichi, were very similar and included the same urban planning principles.:

- the main urban axis stretched from the railway station perpendicular to the highway;

- Two diagonal beams also radiated from the station square.;

- the intersections of the main streets were organized in circular squares, along the perimeter of which the main administrative buildings were located;

- the entire settlement was limited by the exclusion zone, which hindered the development of the city.

Dalian was an absolute exception to these rules, both because of the wider boundaries of the exclusion zone during the Japanese administration, and because its master plan was worked out in detail, and the main compositional axes had already been laid earlier.

Thus, over time, the architects solved various tasks: first, the development of the city within the framework of the laid—out master plan, where partial changes were made only inside the blocks, and then the development of the city beyond the existing borders in a new undeveloped territory, where the approaches that were familiar to Japanese urban planning were already fully implemented (one main urban axis, orthogonal grid of streets, division of blocks in a ratio of 1:2).

Fig. 4. The plan of the city of Dalian, 1932 ^[25]: blue — Japanese buildings; purple — buildings of Manchukuo.

1 — Dalian Stock Exchange, 1913; 2 — Dalian branch of Yokohama Specie Bank, 1909; 3 — South Manchurian Industrial College, 1911; 4 - Dalian Pitou Company office, 1926; 5 — Hongji Big Stage, 1911; 6 — Liaodong Jianguo School, 1929; 7 — Dalian Railway Station, 1935; 8 — Kanto Prefectural Administration, 1937; 9 — Kanto Prefectural Police Department Office, 1936; 10 — Dalian Central Broadcasting Bureau, 1936; 11 — Mitsukoshi Corporation, 1935.

The city (especially the European Town area) was actively built up with numerous buildings of political and economic institutions, most of which were included in the list of cultural heritage sites of China. It was this part of the city, which was less associated with the Russian (Administrative Town) and Chinese (Chinese Town) heritage, that became a platform for the demonstration of the skills of the Japanese architectural school. On the map (Fig. 4), you can see that most of the historical buildings are concentrated near the main city square of Zhongshan and the main compositional axes passing through it. It is necessary to pay attention to the ensemble of this square, despite the different periods of construction of buildings. The architects supported the unity of the Western European style, established during the period of the Russian concession, and continued building the city in order to create a unified architectural appearance of the city. This is largely due to stylistic features, according to which most of the buildings forming the facade of the square were erected in Japanese imitation of the classical Western style (colonial sayokan), which gave this square a great status and representativeness. During the Japanese administration, a branch of the Bank of China (1909), a branch of Yokohama Masayoshi Gold and Silver Bank (1909), Dalian City Hall (1915), a branch of Toyo Takushoku Co., Ltd (1917), and the postal and telecommunications bureau of the Kanto Prefectural Government (1925) were built here. This square was and remains one of the key squares of the city.

Despite the fact that in the modern world the city center is being built up with numerous high-rise buildings, the historical part still remains emphasized and presentable against the background of faceless skyscrapers. It is historical buildings that, due to their imagery and proportionate number of floors, are more harmonious for people. That is why the historical buildings are still preserved in the city on the red line, while the high-rise buildings are moved deeper into the block, thereby being perceived as far away from the observer.

The architectural appearance of the buildings shows traces of classicism, Gothic, and Renaissance, which later came to Asian countries, but towards the end of the 1920s, there was a tendency to reduce decorative elements and simplify the facade of the building (Japanese Army Special Service Police station — 1925; Futou office -1926; Lüda Jianguo School — 1929). Later, this will result in the predominance of constructivism, which will develop the appearance of the city in a new way.

Thus, during the development of this area of the city, which is under the control of the Japanese administration, not only the planning structure was laid out, but also ensembles of the main streets were formed, which have survived to the present day. At the same time, the compositional techniques used in urban design were based on a combination of classical European urban planning techniques with Asian proportions, which created a unique urban environment typical of Japanese colonial settlements.

The Manchukuo period. After the founding of Japanese-controlled Manchukuo in 1932, sovereignty over the leased territory of northeast China was transferred to Manchukuo, whose government concluded a new lease agreement with Japan, under which Japan transferred the area of the South Manchurian Railway to Manchukuo. However, Japan maintained the Kwantung Leased Territory as a zone separate from the nominally independent Manchukuo until its surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, it was to this zone that the city of Dalian belonged, which continued to remain under the rule of the Japanese state.

Despite the intensive growth of the city and its economy, inherent in all urban areas under Japanese rule, Dalian did not share many features of the utopian architecture characteristic of the new capital of Manchukuo, and attempts to mix Chinese, Japanese and European styles. Most of its buildings retained a European flavor, as it was built during its boom until the 1930s ^[26].

Urban development was mainly concentrated in the same two areas as during the Japanese concession period — in the portside zone and in Chinatown ^[27]. The port itself was enlarged several times, which made it possible to receive and export even more cargo, which means to further increase the capital flow to the city, which contributed to its further development. The division of the blocks of the new district was no longer so strictly subordinated to a rectangular grid, it already took into account the relief and the river crossing the area, which set the main direction of the streets.

The Chinese city expanded significantly (Fig. 4) and incorporated some of the ideas that were originally laid out when designing the city of Dalian: large areas were given over to park areas that served as the "lungs of the city", cutting off industrial areas from residential areas; and diagonal streets were used to unload the center, at the intersection of which a ring road was organized, which served as the town square. Basically, the division of the quarters was again a perpendicular grid, but additional diagonal rays had already appeared here, and the proportions of the division of the quarters were different. Probably, the area that was built earlier adopted the Japanese principle of dividing the quarter in a ratio of 1:2, and the one that was designed later reproduced the principle of dividing the golden ratio in a ratio of 3:4. It is also worth noting the appearance of a characteristic element for urban planning in Manchukuo — the main square in the shape of an ellipse, which was also located on the composite axis, as well as smaller circular areas.

It is in this area of the city that most of the buildings included in the list of cultural heritage sites of China are concentrated (Fig. 4). They are also located along the main compositional axes that form street ensembles. In the buildings of this period, one can already notice the widespread rejection of facade decoration and the predominance of constructivism.

In 1945, after the end of World War II, Dalian was internationalized under the Yalta Treaty and Soviet troops were stationed there. In 1955, the Soviet Army donated the territory to the People's Republic of China.

Conclusion. An analysis of the development of the urban structure of Dalian showed an example of the development of cities located in the exclusion zone of the South Manchurian Railway. Meanwhile, based on this and previous research, we can talk about the key role of the influence of foreign (Russian and Japanese) architectural schools on the formation of the appearance of the city. It is worth noting that, despite the centuries-old history of small settlements on the peninsula where Dalian is located, its core began to form only through the formation of foreign settlements, which is typical for many cities in northeastern China due to the construction of railways and station towns.

Thus, the formation of the modern historical core is primarily related to the development of the urban structure in the first half of the 20th century. Meanwhile, the city grew the most during the Japanese colonial period, its area increased several times. During this period, a transportation network was laid, which to this day determines the planning structure of Dalian. The new approach to urban planning, which was used by architects of that period, greatly changed the appearance and style of the city, and Russian and Japanese architects played a leading role in the development and defined the appearance of Dalian in the first half of the 20th century.

In the course of the work, for the first time, the features of urban design in Dalian in the first half of the 20th century were comprehensively analyzed in the context of changing political regimes and, as a result, the influence of various urban planning schools.

It is revealed that the formation and significant development of the city and the region as a whole began after 1898, when the construction of a railway connecting the cities of the region with Europe and the central part of China began on the territory. It was with the advent of foreign architects that the city began to take shape in the same way as the cities of Western Europe, where functional zoning was thought out, a traffic system was organized to avoid the shortcomings of existing road transport systems, and the street facade was designed to form a single street ensemble.

During the Chinese period, urban planning was not regulated by the state apparatus, and therefore did not leave a mark in the history of the city, although in the future it is worth studying in more detail how Chinese urban planning principles influenced the planning structure of settlements in the first half of the 20th century.

Russian construction was mainly concentrated in a small area of the Administrative Town, which was largely implemented according to the projected plans, however, due to the short—term arrival of Russian architects in southern Manchuria, they never fully implemented the project, although they laid an important foundation for the further development of the city - the main compositional axes, including The railway, circular squares and the division of blocks by perimeter buildings are also reflected in the modern general plan of the city.

It is also worth noting right away that despite significant changes in the political sphere in the region, namely the formation of a new state of Manchukuo with an attempt to form its own architectural school and expand the territory due to the removal of the boundaries of the exclusion zone, the Manchukuo period became a smooth continuation of the Japanese period due to the fact that during these two periods urban planning The development of the region was regulated by representatives of the Japanese architectural school. During this time, a significant step has already been taken towards the formation of a metropolitan-level city. The area has grown several times, and the number of constructed facilities has reached a high value, many of which have been preserved and have become cultural heritage sites. During this period, the influence of all other states except Japan was minimal, which gave rise to the independent development of urban planning. The territory of the state on which the YMZHD line was located became a de facto new region of the Japanese Empire, which had long been of great interest to it. Therefore, with the acquisition of legal grounds for the use of land, urban planning has made a huge leap and influenced a significant expansion and formation of the planning structure of the city. The basic principles applied by the architects were traditional for Japanese urban planning — the orientation of the composite axis parallel or perpendicular to the city-forming straight line (river, railway), from which residential areas were built in a 1:2 ratio, sometimes grouped into larger blocks. However, the experience gained from the Russian school of architecture is reflected in the laying of several diagonal beams unloading the central part of the city.