Ninh Binh is the only locality in Vietnam and also one of the few in the region to possess the dual heritage title of "Trang An World Cultural and Natural Heritage" officially recognized by UNESCO in 2014. This is a priceless asset of the country and the province, creating momentum and foundation for rapid and sustainable development. Currently, the Party Committee, government and people of Ninh Binh are making efforts and determination to build Ninh Binh into a centrally-run city on the basis of "Millennium Heritage City".
Where heritage converges
According to historical records, although Hoa Lu city was only built for more than 4 decades, it has affirmed its appearance as an urban area with a large non-agricultural population and has completely shifted to production, exchange of goods, and service activities, serving the king, mandarins, clergy, officials, and soldiers in the city. The water and land traffic and trade routes were expanded and exploited synchronously and effectively. The residential areas of non-agricultural residents, although still temporary, have appeared simultaneously along rivers and wharves. Urban infrastructure, ports, markets, river ports, sea ports, etc. are increasingly dense, Chinese, Champa and some Southeast Asian countries' merchant ships come and go bustlingly. Hoa Lu has truly become a bustling trading and exchange urban area in the sub-region, in the entire Giao and Ai regions, domestically and with other countries in the region, marking an unprecedented development of medieval Vietnamese urban areas in the late 10th and early 11th centuries.
Since the early 80s of the last century, the late history professor Tran Quoc Vuong pointed out that this was a "transitional", "hinge" and "adjacent" land, which Dinh Tien Hoang soon recognized and fully exploited these natural advantages to build the capital at the right level of a centralized monarchy that was on the way to affirming its position. Hoa Lu urban area therefore gradually became the earliest and most typical medieval urban area of Dai Viet nation at that time.
Throughout thousands of years of national construction and defense, Ninh Binh has always been a strategic area, marking the long marches from the South to the North to protect independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. Currently, the vestiges of Hoa Lu Ancient Capital in Truong Yen Commune, Hoa Lu District are one of the four core areas of Trang An Scenic Landscape Complex with two outstanding cultural and natural factors, recognized by UNESCO as a World Cultural and Natural Heritage in 2014, the first and only dual world heritage in Southeast Asia.
According to Prof. Dr. People's Teacher Nguyen Quang Ngoc, Vice President of the Vietnam Historical Science Association: The identity value of that urban area will continue to be promoted as long as the government and people are still interested and have the conditions to exploit the advantages of water transportation, trade, forest transportation, and sea transportation. And reality has proven that over the past 30 years, Ninh Binh has been successful and has made very impressive progress. The outstanding values of the first imperial capital of Dai Viet nation, as well as the first medieval urban-port city leaning on the mountain, overlooking the river, opening to the East Sea in the Northern region, have created the most typical identity values of the historical-cultural space of Hoa Lu Capital, as the main resource, strong driving force and fundamental advantage for Ninh Binh to be able to elevate to become a civilized, modern heritage urban area - a centrally-governed city representing the growth pole in the South of the Red River Delta.
Create development momentum
Not only gathering invaluable cultural values, at the scale of World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Trang An also converges the millennium heritage landscape including: River-mountain complex, terrain, geomorphology and natural heritage of the site; ancient citadel space and traditional settlements located in the core of the heritage, history and continuity; heritage infrastructure; open space and landscape; land use and functional zoning; relationships and all other elements that make up the structure of the millennium heritage landscape. Besides, there are socio-cultural activities and values, economic activities and intangible aspects of the heritage related to diversity and identity.
According to Associate Professor, Dr. Architect Nguyen Hong Thuc, Hanoi National University: That landscape is strong enough to be the foundation for the development of a historical urban area integrating the goals of preserving mixed world heritage and millennium settlement heritage in Ninh Binh, developing the unique characteristics that only Ninh Binh possesses, paralleling the goals of socio-economic development as a sustainable approach. This approach considers Heritage as a foundation to attract tourism, high-quality human resources for innovation, cultural industry and knowledge economy - as an important resource for sustainable urban development here. This allows for the birth of breakthrough management tools, promoting the harmonious combination of modern interventions with this heritage area.
Proposing a model for developing urban heritage space for Ninh Binh province, Dr. Architect Nguyen Quoc Tuan, Head of the Faculty of Architecture, Phuong Dong University, said: Ninh Binh should focus on urban development in the direction of building creative art cities, tourist cities associated with cultural heritage, with the vision of a "Millennium City", associated with the thousand-year heritage that nature and our ancestors have passed down. Designing and selecting development models, building friendly urban areas, adapting to climate change, suitable for indigenous culture, preserving and sustainably maintaining heritage, promoting a unique economy associated with the capacity to develop creative culture... is the appropriate direction, so that the existing good values will be passed down to future generations.
Although the world does not have a truly clear definition of heritage urban areas, according to Professor Hoang Dao Kinh, the first person in Vietnam to propose a complete concept: "Heritage urban areas are a unique historical entity, a product of urban civilization, organically combining material and spiritual elements, architecture and culture, in harmony with nature, which is the starting point that governs everything". According to this definition, heritage urban areas are completely different from urban areas that own heritage, because it emphasizes the integrity of the urban area, in which the tangible and intangible elements are in an inseparable relationship, or it can be understood that to consider an urban area with enough elements to be a heritage urban area, we must consider two elements: culture and nature in an entirety that makes up the urban area.
In Decision No. 1266/QDTTg dated July 28, 2014 of the Prime Minister approving the Ninh Binh Urban Master Plan to 2030, with a vision to 2050, in the total area of over 21,000 hectares of Ninh Binh urban area, the area of Trang An World Cultural and Natural Heritage occupies about 12,000 hectares and the core heritage area is 6,000 hectares; including the thousand-year-old Hoa Lu Ancient Capital, the first capital of the centralized feudal state in Vietnam. According to the plan to arrange administrative units of Ninh Binh province, the current Ninh Binh city will merge with Hoa Lu district to become Hoa Lu city, meaning that almost the entire area of the Ninh Binh urban master plan will become the future Hoa Lu city, and Hoa Lu city will have nearly 30% of its area as World Cultural and Natural Heritage.
To implement the Politburo's viewpoints and orientations on socio-economic development, ensuring national defense and security in the Red River Delta; to implement the Party and State's policies on preserving and promoting the value of national cultural heritage, on urban management and development in localities with the Ancient Capital heritage, possessing the title of world heritage by UNESCO; along with the urban development trend in the world towards an urban model with high cultural content, with a humane urban life, with fresh nature, with a reasonable pace of life, getting rich through intellectual economy; based on its natural-cultural-historical potential, Ninh Binh sets the goal of building Hoa Lu city into a Millennium Heritage City.
To realize this goal, Ninh Binh province needs to have specific mechanisms and policies to promote the outstanding and unique cultural and historical values of the people, the land of Hoa Lu Ancient Capital and the outstanding global values of Trang An World Cultural and Natural Heritage, striving to build Ninh Binh province to basically meet the criteria of a centrally-run city before 2030 and by 2035 become a centrally-run city, a typical Millennium Heritage City in the Asia-Pacific region.
Nguyen Thom
Source
Comment (0)