A Great Chinese ‘Rural’ Metropolis—The Unity and Contradictions in Beijing’S Urban Identity

Cities’ Identity Through Architecture and Arts – Catalani et al. (Eds) © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-1-138-05409-7 A great Chinese ‘rural’ metropolis—the unity and contradictions in Beijing’s urban identity Xie Li ICOMOS CHINA (Chinese National Committee for the International Council on Monuments and Sites), Beijing, China ABSTRACT: A historic city, with its complex webs of relations and stories past, is often a bafflingly complicated system, and as such any attempt to summarise its identity becomes questionable. However, such efforts offer us an opportunity to better understand the role cities play in shaping our lives through their urban landscapes. The author has been working on the practical solutions for Beijing’s urban conservation and regeneration. This paper attempts to step back and look at the city in its historical and spatial totality in order to expand our vision of the possibilities for the conservation and rehabilitation of Beijing’s unique architectural heritage. By looking at the city as a complex, contradictory organ- ism, this study seeks to redefine our general approach to urban conservation and development. ‘How noble this city must be! For we have spent four hundred years trying to finish it off, and we still have not succeeded.’ – Doctor Juvenal Urbino, Love in the Time of Cholera 1 INTRODUCTION The old city of Beijing has experienced greater changes in the past seven decades of rapid development than in all its earlier existence of the previous eight centuries. As modern China embraced new ideologies from the 1950s onward, the capital faced the radical demolition of historic landmarks such as old city walls, gates, and decorated archways. Many noble man- sions and large courtyard houses were filled with new populations of working-class own- ers, without much effort to adapt their design. With the real estate boom and large-scale urban construction projects of the past 30 years, have come even further erasures of tradi- tional houses in favour of wider roads, high-rise buildings and commercial developments. An awareness and practical knowledge of cultural heritage protection and urban conservation have grown rapidly in China, but never fast enough to catch up with the speed of the changes made in the name of ‘modernisation’. Preservation of the historic city of Beijing has evolved via a similar path to that followed by the international community, moving from the protection of individual monuments to larger historic districts, and now to historic urban landscapes. Regrettably, however, the damage of previous actions has left irreversible marks on the city. As the Beijing of today becomes more and more fragmented and its distinctive history less and less visible, is it still possible to reconnect with that urban past and its creative spirit? In this paper, I attempt to delve into the genes that make the capital unique to provide one possible answer. 3 CH01_T1a_1.indd 3 2/28/2018 10:10:37 AM 2 RETHINKING OLD BEIJING’S IDENTITY 2.1 Beijing was built in a day The old saying goes that ‘Rome was not built in a day’. We take it almost as an inherent truth that great cities do not spring into being fully formed, but are developed incrementally over time. Beijing, however, presents a different story. Beijing differs from other ancient capital cities around the world, such as Athens, Rome, or Istanbul, whose premodern forms primarily grew out of the natural evolution of urban space according to changes in population, economic wealth and political power. As the capital of a vast empire, historic Beijing was unique because it came into being as a ‘planned entity’ (Liang, 1986). Born to be old: An 800-year-old city carrying a 3,000-year-old tradition The actual construction that made Beijing the capital city it is today took around 20 years in the 13th Century, but its planning strictly adhered to principles laid out 3,000 years ago in the ancient Chinese Confucianism classic the Zhou Li, or the Rites of Zhou. ‘Here, where Heaven and Earth are in perfect accord, where the four seasons come together, where the winds and the rains gather, where the forces of yin and yang are harmonised, One builds a royal capital.’ Though compiled later in the Spring and Autumn period, which began in the 7th century BC, the Chapter text ‘Record of Construction’ of the Zhou Li already set forth the conditions for the site selection of a capital city as early as the 11th century BC. The above poetic description was no random vision, but an expression of a rich geomantic system that explained ideals of place. Mountains and rivers, sunlight and wind—all elements of the natural environment were carefully observed and recorded in order to calculate the exact place where a city representing the heart of the empire would be able to prosper. The book also specified the proper layout of a city, with guidelines illustrating in great detail what a good capital city should look like. It stated that such a capital should be laid out in a square so as to align with the four directions, north, south, east and west. Three city gates should be built on each side and interconnected via gridded streets. According to the Zhou Li, the inner organisation of a city should reflect the order of the universe itself, with every social function having its proper place. The court was to be placed in the centre, facing south, with the market behind, and an altar for paying respects to ancestors on the left and another for worshipping the gods on the right. It sets forth plans for the layout of main streets, with access designed hierarchically to lead from the most public to the most private spaces. The actual design and construction of Beijing took place during the Yuan dynasty (1271– 1368). It was built to be a strategic and ideal city, in the shape of a square, perfectly situated on the geomantic point representing the central place of power on earth. The guidelines set forth in the Zhou Li’s Records of Construction were materialised in almost every scale and dimen- sion. Everything was planned, from the capital’s placement within the empire’s geographic environment—with attention paid to the major mountains and rivers to locate the city’s most symbolically central point—to the width of residential lanes, so as to guarantee the proper social hierarchies, good circulation of traffic, and sufficient sunlight and ventilation. In the Ming dynasty, Beijing was enlarged from its original square shape to a shape by including the Temple of Heaven to the south, and the urban waterway system was reorgan- ised. The Qing dynasty inherited the city of the Ming, adding its own aesthetic preferences and decorative details. In terms of architecture and urban design, the same ancient Chinese principles prevailed. Typically, other older Chinese capitals were destroyed when a new dynasty came to power. But Beijing, an ‘unparalleled masterpiece of urban design’ (Wheatley, 1971), stood solid and intact through 800 years. By crystallising Chinese philosophy and cosmology in its physical 4 CH01_T1a_1.indd 4 2/28/2018 10:10:38 AM manifestation, it is the ultimate example of ancient Chinese urban planning, and perhaps the largest single work of art in the world. If we use the modern language of urban design to summarise, some of the main features of the historic city of Beijing would be as follows: 1. Site selection according to geomantic omens, a perfect location with all natural environ- mental elements well-considered, balancing the forces of Yin and Yang 2. The north-south central axis of 7.8 kilometres, the spine of the city, which dictates the capital’s spatial order and symmetry, and gives it a clear orientation 3. The city walls of the Yuan and Ming dynasties, the big square in which every house will identify itself with the grid of the city and the earthly world 4. The consideration of natural landscape elements in its design, which serves practical func- tions such as providing water for urban usage, but also shows how Daoist aesthetics bal- anced and completed the Confucian order of Beijing’s urban planning, softening severe, square rigidity with natural shapes and curving lines 5. The chessboard street patterns, with fishbone lanes dividing and connecting neighbour- hoods used for commerce and social congregation, just as much as for transportation 6. An absolutely horizontal composition, with only one type of building (courtyard house) of one-storey high, forming a uniquely open and graceful skyline 7. Unity and variety in form, colour and decorative details, with a hierarchy achieved through a play of symbols, where their accurate organisation creates a kind of visual symphony in space. All of the features listed above were part of a holistic urban planning vision that reflected the integral, complete philosophy of what ancient Chinese people thought made up the ideal human habitat. Theirs was a philosophy of order and harmony. As an entirely designed space, the old city of Beijing was the best illustration of this ancient philosophy. It is common in urbanism today to put more emphasis on the idea of an urban fabric before thinking about individual architectural elements. But from the very beginning, those planning the old city of Beijing were already thinking about the capital in such a way, coming up with an open yet well-structured plan which succeeded in flexibly adapting and accom- modating actual on-the-ground realities as time went on and dynasties alternated. Beijing has for centuries functioned as what Richard Sennett terms an ‘open city’ (Sennett, 2006).

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