Prof. Ruan Yisan

Ruan Yisan is a professor and doctoral supervisor at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Director of the National Research Center of Historic Cities, and a renowned Chinese expert in the preservation of historical architectural heritage, often hailed as the "Guardian Angel of Ancient Cities." Born in November 1934 in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, he is a descendant of the prominent Qing Dynasty scholar Ruan Yuan. He entered Tongji University's Department of Architecture in 1956 and has been teaching there since graduating in 1961. He has devoted his career to the protection of ancient cities and towns, advocating the conservation principle of "restoring the old as it was, preserving its authenticity." In the early 1980s, he successfully saved the ancient city of Pingyao from demolition through his conservation planning efforts, and Pingyao was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. He has since led conservation plans for historic towns such as Zhouzhuang, Tongli, Luzhi, Wuzhen, and Xitang, and has participated in projects including Lijiang Ancient Town, the Three Lanes and Seven Alleys in Fuzhou, and historical towns along the Grand Canal, completing over 340 urban conservation planning projects in total. He has received the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award twice (in 2003 and 2005), became the first Asian to receive the Henry Hope Reed Award in 2014, and was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2005. His publications include Chronicle of City Protection, Records of City Protection Trails, Ancient Towns South of the Yangtze, and Theory and Planning for the Conservation of Historic and Cultural Cities, among others.