Only when information becomes a relatively complete system can its value reach the maximum and be far greater than their simple sum.
They form a complete defense system with the gate, as well as complete villages and towns.
After confirming this point, the inevitable corollary is that the lifeblood of cultural relics is its historical authenticity.
However, they should be integrated into the historical value of cultural relics and confirmed in the river of architectural history, scientific history or art history.
Second, the cultural relics to be protected are not one or two isolated single buildings.
That is, the main value of cultural relics and buildings lies in that it carries the historical information obtained from the birth and the whole existence process, that is, it is the physical witness of history.
Of course, this does not deny the scientific value and artistic value of cultural relics.
The historical information contained there is the most complete, vivid, living and real.
Neighborhoods, cities and rural settlements have formed a systematic whole in history.
It is the historical value of cultural relics and buildings as the basic starting point that forms the current international scientific theory of cultural relics and buildings protection.
Therefore, these principles naturally become the “code of ethics for cultural relics and building protection workers”.
Therefore, we can know that the so-called historical information of cultural relics and buildings is not only, or even mainly, not the process of its own experience from life to death, but all valuable information it obtains, including social, political, economic, cultural, scientific and technological.
The environment of cultural relics is their historical environment.
For example, in villages in southern Anhui, the family life, upbringing and mentality of Huizhou merchants can be read; We can read some support and greater constraints of clan organizations on Huizhou merchants in all aspects of business operation, as well as the role of clan in maintaining the social order of Huizhou merchants’ hometown; We can read the mutual dependence and friction between Hui merchant families and tenant servants; We can read the influence of Cheng Zhu Neo Confucianism on the spiritual and cultural life of Huizhou merchants; Of course, we can also see from the architecture the creative level and aesthetic ability of Huizhou merchants and craftsmen, as well as their pursuit.
For example, some Romanesque churches in Western Europe are pregnant with brilliant Gothic churches in structural technology and artistic forms.
First, when confirming cultural relics buildings and compiling the general purpose of cultural relics buildings, we should strive to form a relatively complete and multi-level system of cultural relics buildings, so as to correspond to the multi-level systems of society, culture, politics, economy, military, science and technology in history, including the building itself.
A block, a village and a city can be said to be an encyclopedia as long as they are carefully interpreted.
Integrating the scientific value and artistic value of cultural relics and buildings into the historical value is to deepen their understanding, not weaken their significance.
A negative example can be given.
That is to say, the overall of cultural relics should not be a scattered, accidental and disorderly aggregate, but should be planned to make them comprehensively and systematically reflect the complexity and diversity of social history.
Therefore, an important logical conclusion is that the so-called historical value of cultural relics does not just refer to its antiquity.
Therefore, the protection of cultural relics and buildings should focus on the systematic integrity of the historical information they carry.
First, they should be protected together with their existing environment.
As a small example, the protection of Xianxia pass, in addition to the four gates, must also protect the general military Yamen and training ground outside the gate.
Bucket arches in Chinese architecture are ever-changing, and only when they are examined in the evolution of architectural structure and style can they have more full significance.
It is precisely in this way that people can regard architecture as a “historical book of stone”.
These two values are very important.
History is originally a method, a method to deepen the understanding of all aspects.
Even the seismic cracks and flood marks on the buildings are valuable data for studying the local natural history.
The basic point of these principles is: to protect cultural relics and buildings, the first thing is to protect the authenticity of its historical information.
In the process of their existence, there are countless organic connections between them and the environment, which includes information exchange and systematization; Secondly, we should protect some relatively complete architectural groups as far as possible, including neighborhoods, urban and rural settlements and even settlement groups.
Although antiquity may contain important or more historical values, it can not determine the full value of cultural relics and buildings, or even not always the main value of cultural relics and buildings..
This is the real history.
However, once they are put into the history of architecture, they can be found to have a very important position in the long river of architectural development, connecting the past and the future.
In order to break through the limitations and one sidedness of the historical information carried by individual cultural relics and buildings as much as possible, and strive to make those information play a greater role, that is, to make the information more authentic, we should make them form a system as much as possible.
It is from the historical authenticity that the methodological principles for the protection of cultural relics and buildings are constructed completely logically.
In the middle of the 20th century, the establishment of the science of the protection of cultural relics and buildings and the gradual improvement of the secondary school science system for more than 30 years have finally made people establish the basic concepts and values of cultural relics and buildings.
This situation often occurs in the so-called “transitional period” or “formative period” of style.
Individually, they do not score high in scientific value and artistic value.
The gradual implementation of these principles has led some corresponding technologies to move towards a clear goal, such as anti-corrosion of wood and anti weathering of stone.
Some buildings are not outstanding in structure and not very popular in appearance.
In the temple of heaven, you can read the politics, philosophy and religion of the era of autocratic monarchy; In the ancestral temple, we can read the family organization and its social function in the agricultural era; In the temple, we can read the suffering, pursuit and desire of good and ignorant civilians.