Editorials

Protecting old Beijing

(China Daily)
Updated: 2011-03-31 07:53

It is still not too late for Beijing to protect and preserve its past. The municipal government is thinking about hammering out a special policy for protecting the old city as a whole and making it a special zone, soliciting views on its blueprint till April 22 on the website of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning.

The policy will include regulations on how to relocate local residents to make way for preservation.

If it fared well, the move would preserve what little remains of Beijing's historical landscape.

The city adopted a policy of "destroying the old and building the new" shortly after the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. This mindset let the old city come under attack from the wrecking ball of modernization especially in the past 30 years. The traditional courtyard houses and hutong, or alleys, gave way to a forest of high-rise buildings and skyscrapers.

For Beijing's old city, protection theoretically plays a central role. Unfortunately, the guideline drawn up in the 1980s to control the height of new buildings has become virtually a dead letter.

One of the world's great metropolises, Beijing is losing its distinctive features. It is starting to look the same as other big cities, leaving its ancestors and centuries of culture far behind.

Renovation projects have been done in dribs and drabs. Some of them have been denounced by tongue and pen for replacing the traditional low structures with office towers and apartment blocks or shoddy ancient-style houses.

As hutong and other historical streets are dismantled, the buildings on the cultural heritage list that are spared stand isolated and meaningless. The younger generations will never know about the physical historical and cultural context of the protected buildings.

Meanwhile, the new buildings pay little, if any, attention to the traditional ambience and precious architectural fabric of courtyard houses and hutong.

The Beijing Cultural Heritage Bureau unveiled a protection plan for the city's old imperial area in 2003. The plan established a downtown area covering 6.8 square kilometers of palaces, gardens and temples with the Forbidden City at the center under full protection. In theory, the plan should have protected the old urban areas from the bulldozers.

Those good intentions, however, have not been respected. The city planners worshiped at the shrine of Mammon and the plan was poorly implemented.

Beijing's new five-year blueprint for protecting its architectural heritage is a big step forward. It is expected to balance the construction and protection of the whole city rather than just the old city. This should allow more latitude for city planners.

We hope that the municipal government will be as good as its word this time. After all, there are not many old buildings left to demolish.