Kaiyuan possessed operational centrality, which came from coordinating activity across the railway and keeping it functioning.
03 / Comparison
A railway with more than one center
Several places can each be important for different reasons, but the question forces these functions into a single ranking.
This led me to distinguish two kinds of centrality. Kaiyuan possessed operational centrality, which came from coordinating activity across the railway and keeping it functioning. Operational centrality is often difficult to see because it is relational.
Bisezhai, on the other hand, possesses stronger representational centrality. It allows visitors to encounter the key characteristics of the entire railway as a coherent historical object.
The paper's comparison
Two ways a railway becomes central
The two forms of centrality do not cancel each other. Both Bisezhai and Kaiyuan possess these two forms to some extent.
It allows visitors to encounter the key characteristics of the entire railway as a coherent historical object.
Kaiyuan
Operational centrality
He measured significance through functions and Kaiyuan’s key role in the past, while heritage measured significance through what could survive materially and represent the larger story.
Bisezhai
Representational centrality
The station might not be the most important one on the line, but it condenses a long, distributed system into a landscape that can be protected, visited, and remembered.
What the comparison reveals
The two forms of centrality do not cancel each other. Both Bisezhai and Kaiyuan possess these two forms to some extent.
Next: how a site becomes representative