Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
New China established its capital again in Beijing and according to the needs of
time has carried out the city planning and construction in succession, taking the old
city as the core. Judging from the spatial structure of the whole city, the most impor-
tant thing, and foremost thing too, was the enlargement of the Tian'anmen Square,
i.e. to convert the enclosed square of imperial court of old days into a broad and
magnifi cent city square. At the same time, two wings of the Tian'anmen Square, the
eastward and westward Chang'an Boulevards, were also broadened and extended,
thus making a scene just like a horizontal axis from east to west crossing the vertical
axis of old days from north to south at the Tian'anmen Square.
Along with the demolishing of city wall of old days, the construction of
Second, Third and Fourth Ring Roads was carried out one by one. All these ring
roads have naturally led to the extension of north-to-south middle axis inside the
old city. This had been fully shown in the city planning map of early stage. The
south extension line of middle axis inside the old city had as its basis the road bed
stretching from Yongding Gate down to Dahong Gate at Nanyuan. As for the north
extension line of the middle axis, there is no basis available because the area from
the Gulou and the Zhonglou to the north Second Ring Road was totally blocked
by the dwellings. This was directly related to the practice of breaking the histori-
cal tradition of Jin Zhongdu, the middle capital of Jin Dynasty, and not establish-
ing the due north gate at the time of founding the Yuan Dadu, grand capital of
Yuan Dynasty. There is also no basis available for the further extension to the due
north after crossing the residential areas, and there was the blocking of important
buildings in between as well.
Therefore, except the portion inside the old city wall, this north extension line of
the middle axis hadn't started being opened up until the eve of the convening of the
Eleventh Asian Games in 1990, so that it could be linked with the north Fourth Ring
Road under construction for the same purpose at that time. The northern portion of it
is Beichen Road now. The location of the then-established main venue of the Asian
Games, that is, the National Olympic Sports Center, is on the east side of the intersec-
tion of Beichen Road and north Fourth Ring Road. To the north sits the Beijing
International Convention Center constructed at the same time, and the two face each
other across the Fourth Ring Road. This place is just situated to the due north of the
old city, wide in area, nearer to the capital airport and rather convenient for the inter-
national communication. So far as the selection of geographical location thereof is
concerned, therefore, it is very suitable too for this grand international activity, with
the call for 'Unity, Friendship, Progress', to have this place as the center to take
place.
In fact, it is just the successful convening of the Asian Games in Beijing and the
decision of constructing the National Olympic Sports Center thereupon that makes
me become conscious that in the planning and construction of Beijing City, the
concept which can be called 'Three Milestones' is taking form (Fig.
3.1
). The study
reads as follows:
The First Milestone is the core construction of the Beijing City in history, the
Forbidden City. It has been 570 odd years old since it was built, representing the
