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The New Glory of An Ancient City

The sprawling Olympic Park on the northern end of Beijing's central axis is home to the all-new Olympic Forest Park. Many of the 2008 Beijing Games venues are located there, including the landmark National Stadium (Bird's Nest); National Aquatics Center (Watercube); Olympic Village; Main Press Center and the International Broadcast Center.

Many who have caught a glimpse of these facilities from afar have been amazed by their rapid development; they would be equally impressed to discover that the site for this complex was planned decades ago.

According to Du Liqun, chief planner from the Beijing Urban Planning & Design Institute, Beijing civic officials intended to use this area for an Olympic Games when they placed their bid for the 1990 Asian Games.

Du said, "The city has seriously considered this area since the 1950s." In the Beijing Overall Urban Plan 1993–2010, the Beijing Municipal Government designates and reserves the area for putting up "large public structures to represent the economic and technological development of the Chinese capital in the 21st century."

Du said that although the plan doesn't specify what those "large public structures" might be, the city had already assigned some "major use" for the more than 1,000 hectares of reserved land.

So it was logical, when Beijing began its bidding in the 1990s for the 2000 Olympic Games and later for the 2008 Olympic Games, that the city would propose that this land be used as the main Olympic site, demonstrating both its goodwill and determination.

Du said the government chose the area as the main site of the Games because it already had a sports centre, a traditional cultural museum and a relatively developed infrastructure.

"More importantly, the area was well-forested and there was no need for major relocation of residents," he said. 

Du said the northern end of Beijing's central axis has symbolic value, too. The axis has had a special significance for more than 700 years, because Chinese emperors planned the city along this central line.

The 7.8-kilometre-long central axis, one of the most important cultural veins of the city, stretches from Yongdingmen in the south to the Bell Tower in the north, through the centre of the ancient city, with the imperial Forbidden City as its mid point.

Some Chinese scholars believe the Forbidden City, Tian'anmen Square, and the National Olympic Sport Centre and its adjacent Asian Games Village, all sitting on Beijing's axis, have been three main milestones in the history of urban construction of the city. The National Olympic Sport Centre and the adjacent Asian Games Village are now part of the Olympic Park complex.

Yu Wenlong, a former resident of Wali Township where the Olympic Forest Park is being built, recalls that for decades villagers had been engaged in planting trees and building "green belts" on the land. There were no factories that could cause environmental damage to this area.

Thanks to efforts of Yu and other villagers, the nearly 666.66 square kilometres of land in Wali where they had planted with trees will be carefully integrated into the Olympic Forest Park.

After 2008, plans call for the Olympic Park to become Beijing's largest multi-function community, complete with shopping centres, business centres, exhibition halls, large-scale stadiums and entertainment facilities.