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Planning Beijing's Future

There is something compelling about the massive aerial photograph and urban model of China's capital at the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall.

Finding places of personal interest, or just seeing the bigger picture is easy, as the scale of the Beijing Master Plan model in the eastern section of the planning hall's third floor is so vast. It invites you "into" the city, but there's no "Beijing at-a-glance" here because of the magnitude and complexity of the model. Instead, viewers linger, whether rooted to the aerial-photographic floor panels surrounding the urban model or peering at the 302-square-metre model through large binoculars located on a second-floor balcony.

A visit to the planning museum, located just east of the Old Beijing Railway Station in Qianmen (near the southeastern corner of Tian'anmen Square), provides Beijing residents or visitors a special opportunity to see how the places where we live, work and play fit into the overall scheme of things in greater Beijing.

The experience is likely to be affected by each individual viewer's personal relationship with the city that will play host to the 2008 Olympic Games and that has served as a capital city in China for 850 years.

How far is your apartment from Tiantan? Where is Beijing's Olympic Park in relation to the Forbidden City? What are those new buildings going up at the intersection of Jianguomenwai Dajie and the East Third Ring Road? Where does that river go after it passes your place of work?

The answers exist at the planning hall.

Urban planning has played an integral role in the life of Beijing throughout its history. Kublai Khan established the Mongolian court at Dadu in 1267 near the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), providing defences and homes for as many as 400,000 people who came from all corners of the Mongolian Conquest, including Marco Polo who wrote about Dadu's magnificence.

The Ming Dynasty (1369-1644) continued the tradition with its highly detailed defences of old Beijing and the amazing Forbidden City. These were retained and expanded by the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and are now protected by the central government and its detailed cultural relics protection plan.

These and other architectural and planning influences are elaborated in detail in the western section of the third floor at the exhibition hall, as are the city's plans to protect remaining ancient cultural relics along and away from Beijing's "axes." The axes are corridors that run from north to south encompassing Beijing's Olympic Park, Bell Tower (Zhong Lou), Drum Tower (Gu Lou), the ancient ruins of Dadu, the Forbidden City and Beihai Park, the Temple of Heaven and Yongdingmen, and east to west along Chang'an Jie through Tian'anmen Square.

Of particular interest to businessmen may be the models of Beijing's Central Business District (CBD) in Chaoyang. One is immediately struck by how much progress has been made in constructing the initial phase of the CBD, that is, how much of the infrastructure is already in place. Here one can begin to imagine what the CBD is going to mean to the fortunes of Beijing and get a glimpse of what life might be like in the future.

Some models show how green spaces are being integrated into the CBD's planning for a high-quality living and working environment. Other models detail traffic plans, a particular interest to Beijing's increasing number of motorists.

In the southern section of the fourth floor, there are models of Olympic venues that give viewers an idea of what to expect in the way of infrastructure when the Olympic Games convenes in 2008. The models reflect the advanced thinking that is taking place as the city plans for the Games.

An exhibit concerning the metropolises of the world and how Beijing compares to them is featured on the southern section of the hall's fourth floor. The exhibit provides a comprehensive look into how the great cities of the world developed and changed over time.

In the southern section of the fourth floor, futuristic home designs are displayed.

Planning exhibitions set up by the districts and counties of Beijing are almost limitless in the information they provide about current topographies and future development plans for mountain areas such as Fangshan and resort areas such as Miyun.

Still other exhibits outline Beijing's transportation plans, whether highways, roads, subways, trains, planes.

Two 3-D films are shown in the planning hall's 400-square-metre, 120-degree cinema viewing screen, with one film highlighting Beijing's history as a capital of China and another highlighting "The New Beijing" as it plans for 2008.

The 10-metre-high, four-metre-wide "Old City of Beijing" sculpture that hangs in the museum's main foyer provides additional context for the museum's exhibits. The sculpture depicts the overall layout of the city when new China began in October 1949. More than 118,000 houses are shown on the bronze layout that also includes locations of lakes, streams, and old fortifications.

Artworks; architectural models, including models of courtyard houses (siheyuan); calligraphy; and ornamentation are featured throughout the museum.

Special exhibits, such as the Master Plans of World Cities and Towns of Architectural Biennial Beijing 2004 that closed on October 6 and the Beijing Architectural Cultural Week 2004 show that began on October 5, add to the mix.

Various Chinese cities from outside Beijing Municipality also exhibit at the hall.

The Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall, according to its operators, "Serves as a platform for both domestic and overseas scholars to exchange academic ideas, as an education base of patriotism and morality for youngsters, and as a place to stimulate public passion for understanding and loving Beijing more and participating in the development of Beijing." The exhibition hall succeeds on these grounds.

On the downside, almost all the textual information at the museum is rendered solely in Chinese so a lot of the information is inaccessible to foreign readers and listeners, unless accompanied by a translator. Nevertheless, for sheer visual spectacle, the museum is worth a visit by anyone interested in Beijing.

The hall is easily accessible by subway. Exit the southeastern side of the Qianmen Subway Station on the Loop Line and you're there.