I was back in Beijing for about six weeks this summer, and things were getting worse. Whole neighborhoods of hutongs (traditional Beijing alleyways) are still being demolished, ancient residences gone, while new building projects are under way. Below are some pictures I took outside of the Qianmen area (almost right in the heart of old Beijing, see map below), where Dajiang Hutong and Xianyukou Hutong are being destroyed. The irony about the destruction is that the developers, while doing away with these ancient alleyways, put up photos and (prints of) paintings of the old hutongs and residences as they were and are supposed to be, on the billboards that they erected to cover up what’s going on behind them.
A sign indicating the name of the hutong (Dajiang Hutong) with guards petrolling and stopping visitors from going into the hutongs.
And this is what’s behind the billboards.
Another ancient alleyway, Xianyukou Hutong, is suffering the same fate.
Below is a map that shows where Qianmen (the Front Gate) area is in Beijing. Xianyukou Hutong is shown as Xianyukou St, just a little south of the Gate:
July 4th, 2009 at 2:12 am
I’m very sorry to hear that, among many laudable changes the Olympics prompted in Beijing, the hutongs are fast disappearing. Cities in the US are also coping with the understanding that to combat global warming, increasing housing density must be factored in to preserve “green belts.”
I would love to see photos and architectural plans of REAL structures that have evolved in hutongs. I hear that they are based around courtyards. This reminds me of the Moorish influence in Spain, with interior courtyards of fruit trees, greenery, and a water feature to offer a spiritual “amelioration” in a hot, dry climate, and to produce “air conditioning” not dependent on electricity or fossil fuels.
Is there any way to design the essential features, uniqueness, and ambiance provided by hutongs into residential structures that can accommodate a greater population density? Surely the optimum way to design for a population is to look carefully at the indigenous structures and communities that have arisen “organically” in prior decades and centuries to meet important human and cultural needs of the people dwelling there.