COMPARISON STUDY OF TYPICAL HISTORICAL STREET SPACE BETWEEN CHINA AND GERMANY: FRIEDRICHSTRASSE IN BERLIN AND CENTRAL STREET IN HARBIN AS EXAMPLES

Abstract

The article analyses the similarities and the differences of typical historical street space and urban fabric in China and Germany, taking Friedrichstrasse in Berlin and Central Street in Harbin as examples. The analysis mainly starts from four aspects: geographical environment, developing history, urban space fabric and building style. The two cities have similar geographical latitudes but different climate. Both of the two cities have a long history of development. As historical streets, both of the two streets are the main shopping street in the two cities respectively. The Berlin one is a famous luxury-shopping street while the Harbin one is a famous shopping destination for both citizens and tourists. As for the urban fabric, both streets have fishbone-like spatial structure but with different densities; both streets are pedestrian-friendly but with different scales; both have courtyards space structure but in different forms. Friedrichstrasse was divided into two parts during the World War II and it was partly ruined. It was rebuilt in IBA in the 1980s and many architectural masterpieces were designed by such world-known architects like O.M. Ungers, Aldo Rossi, Rem Koolhaas, Jean Nouvel and I.M. Pei. However, Harbin was once occupied by Russian as the colonial area, so the buildings on Central Street are mostly of Russian style. The article tries to explore the relationship between the historical and geographical environment and the urban commercial street space and urban space texture through this comparison. The comparison is to play a reference role in the regeneration of the historical street in China. This paper is subsidized by NSFC project which is named as <Research on Technical System of “Downtown Factory” Community-oriented Regeneration in Yangtze River Delta Region>, NO.51678412.