Yunxi Jinshi village

Yunxi Jinshi Village is located in Yunxi Village, Dongyang Town, Anyi County, Nanchang. It is a village with a deep imperial-examination culture, once celebrated for producing three jinshi scholars across three generations of one family. Peng Doushan, a native of Dongyang, became a jinshi in 1822 during the Daoguang reign and served successively as magistrate of Zouping, Shouzhang, Lanshan, Changyi and Teng counties; his son Peng Zechun became a jinshi in 1860 during the Xianfeng reign and rose to director of the Shaanxi department of the Ministry of Justice; his grandson Peng Yaoxi became a jinshi in 1871 during the Tongzhi reign, serving as a bachelor of the Hanlin Academy and a director in the Ministry of Revenue, and was honoured in 1881 with the title grand master of the council. In 2020 the idea of building Yunxi into an examination-culture village was proposed, and in the years since, presenting that culture has become the land's mission: former residences, a history museum and ancient gate towers have returned to public view. Kejia examination culture forms most of Yunxi's historical and cultural substrate and is the distinctive culture rooted in the place. The design preserves that culture while upgrading its means of expression, establishing a three-layer planning strategy of restoration, new building and contemporary transmission. Living scenes and cultural marks worth keeping are allowed to re-energise the barren land through modest intervention and repair, reviving the ancient village under the conviction that architecture here becomes a way of thinking that acts on the land and is achieved together with the village's development. The design acts through the gesture of landscape to knock on the door of an archaic culture, letting the new blend quietly into the recognised marks of history, and reconnecting past and present on the surface of the village.