LIU Kecheng a Xi’an. Memoria, conservazione, progetto

Abstract: Although the ancient capital of Xi’an constitutes a special case within the tabula rasa urbanism, the discourse on Chinese historical space still calls into question a dichotomous relationship between a de-spatialised concept of memory and the conservation of urban facts, along with a troublesome notion of heritage and authenticity. Working with the relics of the urban origins, Liu Kecheng’s architectural research has evolved instead into a cognitive approach to places, understood as historical and cultural contexts. Refusing both stylistic and image reconstructions, his design integrates conservation of authenticity and rewritings of historical traces to increase the possibilities of reading and interpretation of heritage sites. The deep resignification introduced by the spatial narrative of design provides a link between the bare historicity of unearthed ruins and the rich imagery of textualised memory, thus revealing the potential of heritage assets for the structuring of the city.