This study aims to explore morphological transformation process of base cities of Houjin-Fe ala, Hetu ala and Shenyang-under the rule of Nurhachi The main contents of study are focusing on the role of capital cities, site, castle and wall structure, and internal spatial structure such as street system and layout of facilities. Basically the capital cities can be classified into three. The first class, Fe ala and Hetu ala, is located at the foot of a mountain, inheriting traditional site characteristics of the castles of Manchuria. The second class, Jaifan and Sarh?, is built in order to prepare for war, and sited on the top of a mountain surrounding rugged topographical condition. The third class, Shenyang, which is located in the middle of flatland.
This study aims to explore morphological transformation process of base cities of Houjin-Fe ala, Hetu ala and Shenyang-under the rule of Nurhachi The main contents of study are focusing on the role of capital cities, site, castle and wall structure, and internal spatial structure such as street system and layout of facilities. Basically the capital cities can be classified into three. The first class, Fe ala and Hetu ala, is located at the foot of a mountain, inheriting traditional site characteristics of the castles of Manchuria. The second class, Jaifan and Sarh?, is built in order to prepare for war, and sited on the top of a mountain surrounding rugged topographical condition. The third class, Shenyang, which is located in the middle of flatland.
The traditional prototype of Manchurian settlements is based on the mountain wall, which the main facilities are located on the top of the site. But the morphological characteristics are changed with the influence of the culture of Chinese. From the point of morphological transformation process, Hetu ala is positioning on the main turning point in view of the role of capital cities, castle and wall structure, and layout of facilities. But the traditional site characteristics of Manchurian have an influence on internal structure of Shenyang castle, which has pseudo-mountain in the middle of castle.
Shenyang, constructed as the Capital City of Nurhaci, was a complex of traditional Manchuria culture and Chinese culture in the perspective of the site, situation and their internal structure such as street system and layout of facilities. Shenyang is divided into two morphological period followed Nurhaci-era, Hongtaiji-era.
Basically the spatial structure of Shenyang was formed on the basis of ＋street system of Shenyang Zhongwei City which was made in the period of Ming Dynasty. As time passed, combination of horizontal spatial structure with vertical structure was proceeded on the basis of the street system of Shenyang Zhongwei City.
From the view of spatial structure and culture context, main characteristics, which is derived from the analysis of ancient map of Shenyang, can be summarized into three things, as follows ; transformation of open spatial structure into closed structure, transformation of practical spatial structure into symbolic structure, transformation of natural spatial structure into institutional form of ancient Chinese capital city.