The influence of newly built high-rise buildings on visual impact assessment of historic urban landscapes: a case study of Xi’an Bell Tower

Abstract

For a developing country with monument, how to balance urban development and historical buildings protection in the process of urbanization is a key issue worthy of exploration. Xi’an Bell Tower, located in Xi’an city, Shaanxi province, China, is representative of Chinese historic buildings. Aiming at investigating the public’s visual impact assessment of this representative historic building as well as its surrounding urban landscapes, this study chose one newly built high-rise building in the surroundings of Xi’an Bell Tower as research object and set its height, top, and color as the physical properties; meanwhile, the height limit data in the current government regulations were set as the reference object of height. Simulation experiments were conducted to respondents of different demographic characteristics, randomly selected around the Bell Tower, and the statistical data collected, including the sorces rated by interviewers and the demographic characteristics of the interviewers, were analyzed. The results indicate that the height, top, and color of the newly built high-rise building all are influence factors for the public’s visual impact assessment of Xi’an Bell Tower; people of different demographic characteristics assess this historic district landscape differently. This study could be of valuable reference for the future planning of historic buildings’ surroundings.