Appraisal of Architectural Archives in China: A Critique

Dr Xiaomi An

Abstract

The appraisal of architectural archives in China is in accordance with the Archives Law and archival theories of China. However, the application of the general rules for the selection of architectural records has had successes and failures. Firstly, this paper describes the meanings of the archives and architectural archives in China and the general principles of appraisal, then it analyses approaches and criteria for the appraisal of architectural archives in China. Finally, it analyses the challenges, problems and research for the future, and is critical of some current archives practices in the People’s Republic. The analysis is based on national standards and regulations in relation to documentation plans and retention schedules of architectural archives for two types of settings, the architectural archives of creating units and urban development archives (U.D.A.) which holds both public and private records.

1.0 Background

Throughout the ages and in different countries there have been different definitions for words so, in order to better understand the way of thinking of Chinese archivists, the paper starts by defining the meaning of archives, the general principles of appraisal and the context of architectural archives appraisal.

1.1 Archives in Law

The term “archives” is legalized and standardized in The Archives Law of People’s Republic of China: “Archives are historical recordings created directly in the performance of political, ministry, economic, scientific, technical, cultural, religious, or other activities by past and present official agencies, social organizations and individuals, which have preserved values for the country and society, and the term is applied to all physical forms of records, whether textual documents; pictorial documents; sound documents, etc.”[1]

According to the Law, ‘preserved value’ refers to the historical value of records to the country and society. It does not matter whether the records were created by government activities or private activities, if they are “ archival” they must be protected in the public domain.

It is worth mentioning that archives in China cover a very broad context. They can be any type of records that have ‘preserved values’ no matter whether they are current, semi-current or non-current or that the preserved value is short-term (less than 15 years), long-term (16 -50 years) or permanent (over 50 years).[2]

Archives are held in two kinds of custodial settings, Danganshi and Danganguan. In theory, the former is the internal service of a records creating unit like a records management service or institutional repository. The Danganguan is an external service and a permanent place for the custody of archives as both an institutional and a collecting repository.[3] However, in the real world, the nature and functions of Danganshi and Danganguan are more complicated than that.

1.2 General Principles of Appraisal

Appraisal refers to “activities that decide whether archival records should be preserved and how long they should be kept, based on their values."[4] The objectives of archival appraisal in China are for three-fold:

· Safeguarding the values;

· Guaranteeing holdings quality; and

· Achieving maximum safeguarding efficiency with the minimum of cost and labour.

These are particularly significant during preparations for digitisation and microfilming, and in the allocation of space and resources, as well.[5]

The organisation of the appraisal in China is in accordance with the Archives Law. According to the Act’s Article 15, it is forbidden to eliminate archives without permission from government authorities. The State archival administrative agencies are the government authorities for appraisal policies. No organisation except these have the power to stipulate principles of appraisal; to decide the values of records for preserving; to make standards of retention schedules, or determine procedures and measures for disposal.

The processes of archives appraisal in China come in two stages. Stage One is the “filing appraisal” undertaken at the completion of transactions after the creation of records. The objectives of appraisal are to select the archives from these records. At first, records are appraised to see whether they have values for preservation. Only the records that have preserved value should be kept. Others without should be eliminated. Next, records of preserved value are classified into different retention periods in accordance with the national appraisal policies. Finally, they are grouped into files as archives.

The second stage, done separately in both the Danganshi and Danganguan, is “managing appraisal”. This happens in the process of archives custody and management after filing appraisal. As a rule, archives of long-term and permanent value are transferred to different types of repositories according to their provenance.

The objectives of managing appraisal are to select expired archives from preserved archives as a review and revision of former appraisal decisions. In theory, filing appraisal is only done once in the life of records, while managing appraisal may happen many times. However, in the real world, managing appraisal is seldom as simple as this.

To sum up, general principles of archival appraisal in China are in accordance with archival legislation in China. They provide guidelines for what archivists ought or ought not to do.

Urban Architecture: Shanghai

Shanghai World Financial Centre

Shanghai's 460m-high World Financial Centre, due for completion, 2004. ©

1.3 Meaning of the Architectural Archives

“Architectural archives” has both a broad and a narrow meaning in China. While in the custody of the creating agency, the Danganshi, they normally consist of “archives created about activities in undertaking construction of buildings, bridges, roads, etc.”[6] But this broadens significantly when in the custody of the Danganguan to include archives of the whole built environment, recording and reflecting the activities of architects, building construction, design, planning, the entire processes and procedures of the making and shaping of the built environment.

Though the appraisal of architectural archives in China follows these general principles, their application in the real world varies from place to place. Architectural archives are called by different names by different people. For example, building records kept by a planning administration would be called planning administrative archives. But, kept by an architectural institution, they would be called architectural design archives. If kept by a construction corporation they would be called construction archives; if by a property developer, capital construction archives; by a property owner, real estate archives or property archives. A city archival repository, either municipal or specialist, would call them urban development archives. From the huge variety of names, we can observe that architectural archives can have different values for different people and are held in different places for different purposes.

As a rule, the activities of architecture archives appraisal take place in two types of settings in China. These are the architectural archives of a creating unit and the urban development archives (UDA) of a city. Since the 1980's, UDAs have been established in most Chinese cities.[7] From 1984 to 1996, the number of UDAs increased from 112 to 500. By the end of 1996, out of 666 cities[8], around 500 UDAs were established, representing 75% of cities. All large[9] and medium-sized cities[10] now have established UDAs.[11]

To sum up, the meaning of architectural archives in this paper means archives recording and reflecting professional functional activities, processes and procedures of constructing a built environment object. This paper focuses on national strategies for the appraisal of architectural archives in the two types of archival settings, the Danganshi and the Danganguang.

2.0 Architectural archives appraisal methodology

Appraisal of architectural archives has its own features, as far as the implementation of general appraisal rules to content is concerned. Though different archival custodians have different objectives in acquisition and selection, they are in accord over the national rules on retention. The custodians have similar approaches to appraisal and have common tools and criteria for selection.

2.1 Rules on Retention

Generally speaking, there are two national regulations in relation to the retention of architectural archives.

Regulation 1. “Provisional Regulation on Capital Construction Project Archival Materials”.[12]

This regulation was issued in 1988 by the State Archives Bureau and National Planning Committee as part of the national archival administration standards. It serves as a documentation plan, an acquisition policy and retention standard for Danganshi custodians for developers, construction enterprises, design institutions, planning and land government authorities and built environment owners. The regulation makes it clear that creating agencies and organizations should be responsible for filing appraisal. According to this rule, construction project archives should be kept at least as long as the building exists.

According to Retention Schedule and Filing Scopes of Capital Construction Project Archives (Appendix, Regulation 2), different creating units have different responsibilities for construction project archives, and have different retention objectives.

Developer: Archives that have reference values for the use and maintenance of buildings should reflect the provenance of a project, the possibilities, design basis, project management, preparations for use, structures, appearance and the quality of the construction activities, the financial management of the project, etc.

Construction Enterprise. Archives that have evidential values for the construction unit should provide evidence for the proof and analysis of the quality of construction products and the development of construction processes, they would have significance for safeguarding the identity and legal rights of the enterprise. They would be of assistance for investment and management. They would record and reflect levels of construction technology, techniques and management.

Design Institution. Archives that have evidential values for the quality of design and have reference values for the future design should reflect the provenance of the design tasks, basic materials and calculations of the design, and evaluations of each stage of the design.

Government Authority. Archives of authorised project applications, planning missions, preliminary designs and the organization of examination and checking for the completed project.

The aims of the retention are to meet the needs of creating units, the objectives of retention are functional activities that have evidential and reference values for its creators and creating units. The analysis of appraisal is subject (the creators including agency, organization or individual)-function oriented.

Urban Architecture: Beijing

Beijing city scape

Crossroads between East and West: capital city Beijing's massive arterial road system. ©

Regulation 2. “Provisional Regulation on Retention Schedule of Urban and Rural Archives”.[13]

This regulation issued the same year by the former Ministry of Urban and Rural Environmental Protection has been widely applied by UDAs since then as part of the national urban development professional administration standards. It has played many roles in Chinese archival practice. It works as a national UDA documentation plan for a city, a national archival acquisition policy and a retention standard for UDAs. This is particularly reflected in Articles 9 to 95 of the regulation which identify 14 professional activities that have to be documented for permanent preservation and should be given centralized custody in UDAs. They include survey, planning, management, engineering research and design archives, in addition to holdings of pubic utility, sanitation, historic places and audio-video records.

1. Urban Survey Archives e.g. hydro-geological archives, hydrologic archives, meteorological archives, earthquake archives, engineering geological archives, mineral geological archives, place name archives, etc.

2. Urban and Rural Fundamental Reference Materials, e.g. urban and rural economical, population, earthquake, historical evolution of urban and rural, etc.

3. Urban Planning Archives, e.g. overall planning, detailed planning, project planning, etc.

4. Urban and Rural Management Archives e.g. laws, regulations and policies, land use, building permission, real and estate, etc.

5. Municipal Engineering Project Archives, e.g. main roads, ancient and permanent bridges, channels, drainage works, flood proof works, important culvert, etc.

6. Urban and Rural Public Utilities Project Archives, e.g. public transportation, electricity, telecommunication, etc.

7. Environmental Sanitation Management Archives, e.g. sanitation administration, large and middle scale sanitation project, etc.

8. Transportation Facilities Project Archives, e.g. railway, waterway, highway, airway, etc.

9. Industry Project Archives, e.g. above ground and underground pipelines, important industry buildings, electricity factories, urban and rural industry projects, etc.

10. Civil Engineering Project Archives, e.g. representative buildings of different historical periods, buildings of advanced, new or complex technology, high buildings, buildings of historical significance, buildings of importance to citizen’s life, buildings of particular style or structure, buildings of large scale, buildings of importance such as foreign embassy, overseas Chinese.

11. Archives of Urban and Rural Historical Places of Interesting and Gardens and Green Woods, e.g. memorial buildings, list of historical buildings, urban and rural statues, as-built drawings of gardens, etc.

12. Research Archives of Urban and Rural Physical Development e.g. plans of research, achievements of important research, works, academic thesis and manuscripts of importance, civil air defence archives and ministry engineering project archives, etc.

13. Urban and Rural Buildings Design Archives e.g. engineering design with advanced technology, representatives of typical project, standards of buildings, designs of universal project, key project and large-scale project, base maps and records of general project

14. Urban and Rural Audio-video Materials e.g. important meetings, the old and new appearance of the urban and rural, the construction process of key projects and large-scale projects, disasters, historical places of interesting, memorial buildings, ancient buildings, gardens, etc.

The objectives of UDA retention are the preservation of records of professional activities that have national importance and social significance for the making of the built environment of a city. The analysis of the appraisal is object (project or product or purpose of the functions and activities)-function oriented.

The two national regulations represent different documentation plans for different archival custodians. One is for archives creating units that are involved in filing appraisal and retention scheduling of architectural records. The other is for specialist repositories that are involved in managing appraisal and permanent archival preservation. They are administered by different archival administrative authorities. They have different concerns over the purpose of archival custody and the former is subject-function oriented while the later requires object-function.

2.2 Tools for Selection

It can be shown that the principal processes used by Chinese archivists in architectural archives appraisal are their approach to and criteria for selection.

1. Approaches to selection

Irrespective of the archival settings, approaches to identifying and selecting architectural records of preserved value are the same all over China. They could be represented as direct appraisal, which refers to the analysis of values of archives based on direct examination of the records content item by item.[14] This approach provides three key advantages:

First, the value of a complete set of project archives for a built object should be the basis for value analysis.

Second, the file can be used as a unit for preservation, selection and retention.

Third, direct examination of the content of archives is the key device for value analysis.

2. Criteria for selection

There are quite a number of criteria that have been used by different archival custodians and by different archival administrators. In short, they are:

Object analysis. Here “object” refers to an aim, a purpose or a thing behind the functions, activities and transactions that creates records. As a rule, object analysis is based on the analysis of the important key features of an object, its usefulness, its levels of importance, its type and period, and its life span.

(1) Usefulness refers to the use of archives for present or future, the use of archives for the creating unit and the society, the use of archives for administrative, legal, historical, information, technical, cultural and knowledge reference.

(2) Levels of importance refer to the importance of archives to the country, to the city, to creating agency, institution and enterprise, to the use of buildings and to the public interest.

(3) Type and period refers to examples in archives from different and typical periods of time, from different political, economical, technical, cultural, social, personal significance, from different styles, innovation and pro-types, controversial items, list buildings, priorities of public interest.

(4) Life of the object refers to life-length of fixed assets, the economic life-length and technical life-length of the object for existence. Object analysis looks functional purposes as the provenance; archives of the same object should be looked as an integrated body to be a fond or series. It emphasises on the values of archives for the continuity of the built environment. This criterion is widely used in documenting engineering project activities and recordkeeping of engineering project archives in UDAs and making their retention schedules.

Subject analysis. Here subject refers to a creating agency, organisation or individual that create records. Subject analysis is based on the classification by creators according to the project’s social significance and relationships in accordance with traditional archival theory. It emphasises that archives of a creator should be looked as an integrated body to be a fond and could not be separated. Further, the first priority of values consideration and selection is the needs of a creator. This is more often used for retention schedules and acquisition plans of architectural archives in creating units and historical Danganguan.

Urban Architecture: Pingyao

Traditional suburban architecture of
Pingyao, Shanxi province. ©

Functional analysis. This refers to analysis of the importance of social functions and functional activities that create the records. Functional analysis is widely used in conjunction with object and subject analyses in the making of national documentation plans and archival retention policies. Both Regulation 1 and Regulation 2 use this criterion.

Content analysis. The analysis of the significance of the subjects or topics documented in the records that determines the usefulness, authenticity & reliability of the information. Such an analysis is often done by thorough, item-by-item examination by file managers or archivists. The quality of file managers and archivists determines the interpretations of the meaning of the records and determines the existence or elimination of the records. Content analysis is fundamental to the intellectual control of architectural archives in all types of archival settings, such as the work of acquiring, organizing, retrieving, distributing and maintaining records of continuing values. It is always content analysis that determines the quality of archives to be accessible and understandable.

Use analysis. Analysis of the potential uses, the social and economic benefits of archival utilisation that are likely to be made of records. Architectural archives have many uses and can be analysed from different needs of uses. Different custodians have different concerns in relation to their user interest groups. As a rule, it is use analysis that makes the difference between archival institutions’ collection policies and holdings structures.

Time analysis. The values of architectural records should be seen as the history of the times. For instance, typical and representative records from different periods should be documented. Rare records from project creation periods are forbidden to be destroyed. As a rule, it is the time analysis that decides the historical value of records and determines the life span of the records.

Physical status analysis. Analysis of the media, formats and means of recording that make up the records, the conditions for their use and the maintenance of their quality and durability. As a rule, physical status analysis is the basis for cost-benefit analysis; it often determines the value and the main features of holdings. Generally speaking, architectural archives contain records in a wide variety of physical condition. Their analysis provides the foundation for access by users.

Cost-benefit analysis. The value of information in a record measured against the cost of its preservation. This is seldom used in Chinese archival practice since there is no clear and concrete measurement available for its operation.

In conclusion, the appraisal of architectural archives in Chinese archival practice is under the guidance of the two national policies that provide national strategies[15] for documenting what should be preserved and how long it should be kept. There are a variety of criteria used by different archival custodians for different archival purposes.

3.0 Architectural Archives Appraisal Issues

In Part Three, I examine the appraisal of architectural archives in terms of its challenges and problems, and its future.

3.1 Challenges

There are two major challenges that Chinese archivists are facing today in relation to the appraisal of architectural records.

First, the expansion of architectural archives and the pressures this has put on intellectual control and access. Since the 1980’s, the development of urban construction in China has advanced at high speed. Urban development activity has increased hugely, as has the number of the architectural archives. This expansion has brought great challenges to the archives of creating units and UDAs. Serious duplications and overlap of holdings have occurred, including overlaps within archival repositories, within fonds of archival repositories, within files of archival fonds, and between Danganguan and Danganshi.

The disparity between the quantity required for effective use and the quantity of archives in existence are obvious. The quality of archived material goes down, management costs increase and important and permanent archives are not well preserved. As a result, progress in scientific management of architectural archives is disrupted. The disparity has reduced effective access and use of architectural archives and has influenced the effective use of limited resources on, for example, personal, finance and materials for management.

Second, the new media and formats and the challenges they bring to the physical control of archives and their access over time. From the 1990's, computers have become much used in offices. Design and geographical software has been widely used in planning bureaus, design institutions and construction enterprises. Records and documentation of architectural activities are more and more in electronic forms created in multi-media electronic information systems.

The combined problems of immense volume, unstable storage media, and obsolete software and hardware add up to some very tough problems for Chinese archivists to deal with.

At present, the majority of the Chinese UDAs and the architectural archives of creating units have no particular strategies for electronic records and digital archives[16]. In some institutions, two sets of architectural archives are kept, one in paper form, the other electronically. Such a strategy does not solve the problem of rapid obsolescence of technology but brings heavy burdens for archivists who look after increasingly immense quantities of architectural archives in a variety of physical conditions and an information over load.

Urban Architecture: Guangzhou

Guangzhou new suburb

3.2 Roots of the Problem

There are several factors that cause these problems. The roots of the problem can be classified in terms of external and internal factors.

By external factors, I refer to social, historical and political factors that have influenced appraisal practice such as historical event, traditions, government policies, etc. The following variables have impacted on these appraisal problems:

In the 1960’s and 1970’s, because of the Cultural Revolution, many architectural archives were destroyed. Architectural archives before the 1980’s are, as a result, rare in historical Danganguans and UDAs. Archivists today are extremely cautious over the issue of appraisal. They do not want to be held accountable for any problems caused by record elimination.

The number of Chinese architectural archives remaining in existence cannot satisfy the needs of historical archivists concerned with the use, maintenance, conservation and restoration of historical buildings. As a result, archivists now tend to think that it is never a mistake to keep everything, just in case.

In addition, national archival policies allocate supplies for personnel, financial support, space and equipment based on the volume of archives in holdings and the benchmarks for the excellence of an archival institution are decided by the quantity of archives collected. Thus, archivists are encouraged to keep everything regardless of prescribed disposal practices.

UDAs came into existence only in 1980's. The majority of them were purpose-built in the 1990’s and they still have only small amounts in their holdings. Since they have little pressure on their storage space, most are making efforts to preserve everything regardless of expense and consequences.

3.3 Methodology problems

However, the most serious problems of appraisal are the internal factors that are the methodological problems of Chinese appraisal theory and their inappropriateness to the architectural archives[17]. Methodological problems concern the uniqueness of architectural appraisal that general archival principles cannot cover, such as rules of appraisal for observation, reasoning and communication, that is, ways of archival thinking in appraisal, the selection criteria, the framework of appraisal, appraisal standards, etc.

Ways of archival thinking for appraisal are reactive and passive. According to the Archives Law, archivists in archival repositories have no authority to decide what should be documented and what should be kept. They are only responsible for what to preserve and what to have transferred to them. As a result, the preserved values and retention periods are usually decided by the creators and the file mangers. Archivists usually can only take what exists rather than select what should be documented and preserved.

Traditional archival theory has been challenged in its dealings with architectural archives. For instance, traditional archival theory requires archives to be kept according to subject-fond so as to maintain the integrity of the social memory of the organization. Thus, architectural archives have to be kept either by its creating units or by historical Danganguan for permanent custody.

But according to object-fond theory, records from a project should be kept as a whole set, the permanent preservation of original architectural archives should be in UDAs for the integrity of professional memory of the built environment. There are many debates and arguments over what should be the final destination of architectural archives and archivists are confused by theories and standards.

The frameworks for the selection of architectural archives are fragmented. There is no consistent and sustainable standard for the physical and intellectual control of architectural archives throughout the record’s creation, recordkeeping, transferring and custody during the life span of a building object.

The national appraisal standards are too rough. The two Regulations are too abstract. There is a lack of detailed workable procedures for implementation and measurement.

The selection criteria have very little concern for the cost of preservation and the percentages use of holdings. “Cost-value calculations are not the whole answer to appraisal problems, but they are a necessary part of the data on which appraisal decisions bases.”[18]

In conclusion, it is the above internal and external factors that create difficulties for Chinese archivists trying to be successful in architectural archives appraisal practice.

4.0 Recommendations for Future

To solve these problems and meet the challenges, there is need for collaboration between archival custodians, administrators, records managers, records creators, and users; between urban development professional administration policy makers, archival policy makers, architectural activities players and their archival custodians.