City and its spontaneity in the cases of Beijing

Politecnoco di Milano

School of Architecture and Society Urban Planning and Policy Design Advisor: Alessandro Balducci Auther: Lu Lu 833442 Academic year: 2015/2016

Abstract

Introduction

1 Hundred years’ of urban planning

1.2 Urban planning challenges in the twenty-first century

1.3 The changing focus in urban planning 1.4 The spontaneity

2 Urban planning situations in China

2.1 The Chinese urban planning development in modern and early modern history

-Period 1939-1949, The Urban Planning Law -Period 1949-1984, Interim Procedures of Urban Planning

-Period 1984-1990,The Urban Planning Ordinance

-Period 1990-2008, The Urban Planning Act -Period 2008-recently, Urban and Rural Planning Law of People's Republic of China

2.2 The procedure of urban plan making in China 2.3 The guiding ideology and goals of Chinese urban planning

2.4 The urban planning implementation and management

11

27

3.2 Background of Beijing

3.2.1 The urban development of Beijing 3.2.2 Beijing and urbanization process 3.2.3 Beijing and industrialization process 3.3 The Spontaneous Experiments in Beijing

3.3.1 Sanlitun Bar Street and Commercial District -Location

-The emergence and transformation process -Redevelopment with new developers and government control.

3.3.2 Nanluoguxiang Commercial Street -Location

-The transformation process

-In its commercialized development 3.3.3 Houhai Bar Street

-Location

-The transformation of a Bar Zone 3.3.4 Songzhuang Art Village

-Location

-The emergence and development of Songzhuang -Urbanization process

3.3.5 798 Art Zone -Location

-Emerge as Art Zone -Art or commerce?

3.4 The spontaneous experiment: Zona Tortona -Introduction

-Transformation process -A new trail in urban planning

42 42 44 47 52 52 52 54 55 58 60 60 61 64 64 68 69 70 70 74 75 75 75 80 82 82 83 84

4.1.2 A human based spontaneity 4.1.3 The role of citizens

4.2 Spontaneity and diversity

4.3 Urbanization covers up the success of spontaneous transformation

4.3.1 Urbanization is a result but not an aim 4.3.2 The relationship of spontaneity and urbanization

4.4 Spontaneity: predicaments under the prosper 4.4.1 Who is the owner

4.5 The right of the city 4.6 After Spontaneity

Conclusion

Bibliography

List of Figures

Notes

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before. However, most of the experiments and efforts have been done to build a better urban life. The Chinese urban planning work started late while the cities are rapidly developing. Chinese cities, especially Beijing as a unique case, are facing huge urban issues and problems that one of which is ‘Spontaneity’. This phenomenon is bringing increasing effects on urban planning and urban life. This paper focuses on series of spontaneous experiments in Beijing, with the introduction of the Chinese urban planning procedure, to better understand how spontaneity affect Chinese urban planning work. And to make planners aware of spontaneity.

Keywords: spontaneity, people-oriented, China, urbanization, commercialization, diversity

successive reconstruction work influenced the other place around. Some local government willing to have private developers to take the construction work. Many urban planning failures saw the losing confidence of citizens. People have different points of view in different positions. There are much more complicated economic and social conflicts than visual aesthetics in the city. In the project-based planning, urban life is tragic missing. We can make a good design of project but couldn’t make a better design of life. The urban planning decision need to be done by someone who really understand this place. From functional division to people-oriented, the changing urban planning theory shows the changing focuses in urban plan making. It is surprisingly to see that urban plan making is no longer a process of a group of people which are professionals and governments, but involved citizens and the whole society.

The cases here I am presenting are the neighborhoods which seem to be quite innovative in terms of features and factors involved in the emergence and developing process, which make this experience rather unique, and which are called in this research ‘spontaneity’.

What makes this experience unique and worth to investigate is a combination of elements of interest: firstly, Beijing, also China, growing very fast these years, especially after the Olympic Games in 2008 more people in the world come to visit, study, settle, and do business here. Beijing is becoming much more diverse and pluralistic and is actively adjusting its urban plan and policy. During this time, many of the spontaneous neighborhoods and districts emerged and started to

chapter, I reviewed the development of urban planning and discussion. What is the changing focus of urban planning. Why the urban planning theory changes and how these theory influenced urban planning. By reviewing these theories to remind us in which aspect we need to study and research more. The chapter also points out the word, the phenomenon of ‘Spontaneity’, which is not new but quite innovative and influencial these years. With the question 'what is spontaneity and why should we focus on this phenomenon?' to get closer to the experiments. The second chapter generally introduced the background of Chinese urban planning method, procedure, guiding lines, main targets and review the changing ideology of China in sixty years(from the set-up of People's Republic of China to recent years). How China developed itself in urban planning by learning from the advanced western countries. And specifically introduced the background of Beijing, its complicity and diversity, as a research base. The third chapter lists the spontaneous case studies in Beijing and with Zona Tortona as a successful case study. With the introductions and explanations of these cases, to know better of spontaneous urban transformation. How it emerged and developed, and its success and decline. The forth chapter gets more into spontaneity itself, that is how spontaneity change the city, urban planning work and the decision making. Reflecting the attitude of both the municipality and citizens. Based on the case studies and pointing out the questions.

Hundred Years’ of Urban Planning

1.1 Urban Planning and Discussion

Cities experienced a great change since the modern Industrial Revolution, and unprecedented wealth has been created as well as series of urban contradictions. In the 16th century, a ‘Socialisme Utopique’ (1516) has been pointed out by Thomas More, which emphasized the scale of city should be restricted in case of the segregation of the rural area. Other Utopian socialisms Tooomaso Campanelta and Robert Owen proposed the public ownership of property. Those utopian socialism theories see city as social economy and trying to adapt to the new changes.

The modern urban planning ideology originated from the early industrialization in the late 19th century. The western countries were in pursuit of utopian socialism and sprout up series of ‘City Beautiful Movement’ which consist of the origin of the contemporary urban (1890s-1900s) planning ideology. In nearly one hundred

years, the western modern urban planning ideology and theory went through great changes and development. In 1898, Ebenezer Howard proposed ‘Garden City’ theory. In his book <Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path Towards Real Reform> (1898) he emphasized that there, under the condition of industrialization, exists the contradiction of city and livable living condition, and city isolated from nature. He holds that the reason of excessive concentration of urban population is so called ‘magnetism’ that absorb people, and if the magnetism could be restrained and controlled on purpose, the unquestioning urban extension will not continue(Howard,1898). He advocated rural and urban combination.

In the early 20th century, because of the undesirable extension of big cities, the decentralization and restriction of population in big cities became the prominent problem. After Howard, his supporters proposed building ‘Satellite Town’(1922) outside the big cities to restrict the scale of city and to have people decentralized. Some attempts had been test during this period. The first was called commuter town of Paris(1912-1920). The Greater London Plan(1949) hold by Patrick Abercrombie firstly constructed 8 satellite towns. The third generation of satellite town was Milton-Keynes in U.K. In the development of second and third satellite town, the satellite town became more and more independent and complete and can separate as a new town close to the city.

In 1925, Le Corbusier aggressively brought the industrial thought into urban planning. He admitted the power of modern technology, in his opinion, the main problem of big cities was the great density of population in the city center; and the existing urban road system and urban planning couldn’t adapt to the developing urban traffic(Corbusier,1925). He proposed to solve such problems as lack of green places, sunshine and

In August,1933, the document was produced as a result of the Congrès internationaux d'architecture moderne (CIAM) which took as its theme ‘the functional city’ and focused on urbanism and the importance of planning in urban development schemes. The four keys to urban planning are the four functions of the city ‘Dwelling, Recreation, Work, Transportation’，which had been pointed out in the <Charter of Athens>. The Charter states that each city should have a planning scheme, and should cooperate with spatial planning and national plans, and protected by policies and regulations.

The most prominent achievement in the Charter of Athens was the functions of city, and it also emphasized that :"The architect engaged in town planning should determine everything in accordance with the human scale."(Charter of Athens, 1933) To be mentioned, this people-oriented consideration is a mechanical relation which is establishing on the basis of a function division and a static planning structure.

It has been proved that the pursuit of sectorization sacrificed the urban organism and neglected the multi-relationship of people while urban planning should try to create a comprehensive and multi-functional living condition.

In 1934, Eero Saarinen published his book <The City: Its Growth, Its Decay, Its Future> in which he suggested the ‘Organic Decentralization’ in regard to the ‘malady’ brought by the excessive expansion of big cities. The organic decentralization is not a concrete or technical instruction scheme, but a philosophical reflection on urban development(Saarinen,1934). It is a result of a study and meditation of urban development issues of European and American cities, and on a base of the experiences of former and contemporary urban planning theories. Saarinen thought, some big cities continue

extending while slums, which he called ‘tumour’(1934), emerged and expending inside the city. Thus, city could be seen as a constantly growing and transforming organism. Urban construction is a long and tardy process, and urban planning is dynamic. In his opinion, the way of dealing with urban problems is the same as dealing with human disease(Saarinen,1934). He studied the urban problem in the way of studying biology and somatology. He believed that city is consist of ‘cells’, and cells should have interspaces. The organisms grow by constantly cell reproducing, and each cell spreads to its interspaces which spare for the cell reproduction. The interspaces protect the organisms as well as providing a flexible growth. The ‘Organic Decentralization’ is dividing the distensible city into pieces, and each piece has its own center and can be distinguished into different functions.

In the meantime, Frank Lloyd Wright suggested the opposite theory of spatial concentration, which is spatial decentralization in his published book <Broadacre City: A New Community Plan> in 1935. His book fully reflects the American planning theory he advocated which emphasize the personality of the citizens and oppose the collectivism. He thought mega city will die and American people will go back to village, and families need to have enough places away from others to keep themselves inner-stable(Wright,1935).

In 1956, the ‘Situationist’ Constant Nieuwenhuys perceived and designed the New Babylon, and the goal was the creating of alternative life experiences. It represents a kind of expression of urban space. By New Babylon, Constant underlined the coexist urban space of individuality and collectivity. He criticized the modernistic planning methodology and considered that this parochial functionalism and mechanical methodology lack of the consideration of complex factors in the process of urban development, for instance

conclusive factors of urban planning for a long period after the 1960s, and large-scale functional division and inherent land use property is the regulation of each urban planning. Constant poignant indicated that the modernistic urban planning method is no longer applicable, in that such functional-division predominant planning method neglected social and cultural background. Guy Debord and other Situationist International authors considered that the rapid construction after the second world war made the modernistic planning method with gasping wholes everywhere, and the urban lives has been an excessively organized but fragmentary object while urban life itself unfortunately absent(Debord,1967).

In this scene, the freedom of human beings has been enlarged, and human choices and social behavior in the city has also been greatest considered and restored. The changes of life style and behavior became the new principle of defining the urban spaces and architectures. In the meantime, the European architects also penetratingly realized the emphasis on human beings, as individual freedom to make choices and to live, and the social urban form shaping in such freedom and autonomy.

The book < The Death and Life of Great American Cities> published by Jane Jacobs in 1961 was seen as an earthquake in the field of urban planning. She criticized the top principles that pursued by planners at that time. She connected the large area of green spaces to the increase of crime rate; she impugned modernism and the modern city advocated by Le Corbusier as a destruction of urban diversity. She criticized the extensive urban transformation is for politician and real estate to earn profit by sacrificing the interests of citizens. The extermination of slums in the city center swept out the

urban proletarian into suburbs where they built the future slums( Jacobs,1961). Jane Jacobs reminded the planners that the most important work is for whom the planners should but not what they were discuss before. The time 1970s saw the western social unrest, the physical form research of F Gibberd and Kevin Lynch was left out and criticized by urban planners. The main issue that criticized was for whom the urban design is focusing on the creation of beauty. Whether urban design neglected the most important part that is the citizen. In 1987, Allan Jacobs and Donald Appleyard mentioned that the new goal of urban design should be set as: livability; identity and control; access to opportunity, imagination, and joy; authenticity and meaning; open communities and public life; self-reliance; and justice, in the published book < Towards an Urban Design Manifesto>. Then after 1990, urban design has been seen as a tool to solve the urban social problems.

The whole 1960-1970 paid a greater attention on urban planning in social conflicts than any other periods. One of a more significant would be <Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning> published by Paul Davidoff. His discussion on planning decisions and culture, and to protect the benefits of different groups especially the disadvantaged groups played an important role in urban planning development. Then in 1972, in the book <Social Justice and the City> David Harvey pushed the urban sociological theory to a high gear. In the late 1970s, urban planning theory goes to the deeper analysis and criticize of society, economy and politics.

Until 1980s after the Second World War, the interdisciplinary of urban planning extended and started to focus more on economy, sociality, humanity, environment and other aspects. In December 1977, during the conference of CIAM singed the <Charter of Machu Picchu> which criticized and reflected

that <Charter of Athens> is still the basic instrument of urban planning, but with the progress of times and the new challenges of city, the guiding ideology is no longer adapt to the current urban development. And what <Charter of Machu Picchu> suggested was rationalism excluded and couldn’t classified through logic.

In 1980s, Poste Modern Planning started to influence the whole planning field. This theory emphasized city is a pluralistic space which humans are the main body. Post Modernism theory put forward five principles:1. Social justice. Social justice is as important as market outcome. 2. Consensus should be reached after the discussion of different political groups. 3. Citizenship. The inclusive ethic should be set up. 4. The idea of community. Advocated the bottom-up approach of community management and the human oriented urban planning. 5. From public interest to civic culture. The public interest should be more into “Citizen Culture”(Sanercock,1980). The Post Modernism is quite inclusive that promoted the pluralistic development.

Sustainable development is the main topic of the twenty-first century. In 2006, “Landscape Urbanism” emphasized the importance of urban landscape(Waldheim,2006). But was criticized as staying on the surface of landscape planning not mentioning the real sustainable. Sustainable development in this period is more about environment and resources.

In 2007, the ‘Temporary Urbanism’ pointed out that urban spaces could be used as temporary function to satisfy the citizens in culture and material. Other theories of ‘Political Urbanism’, ‘Network Urbanism’, ‘Radical Urbanism’, ‘Exotic Urbanism’ and ‘Editing Urbanism’ etc. in this period are more concentrated on the urban changes and urban life.

In the development of urban planning theory, we saw the changing focus from functionalism to people oriented. Along with the scientific and technological progress, city life faces growing problems. City, as the purveyor of urban life, is not only provide its physical function but has to meet to the spiritual needs. Recreating the urban life becomes the main part of urban planning work and as a part of the social aspect in sustainable development.

1.2 Urban planning challenges in the twenty-first century

Urban planning faces new challenges around the world. For one of them in the twenty-first century is finding a balance between matters common importance and creating freedom whenever possible. Cities continues to grow and struggle with the task of absorbing immigrations, offering spaces to engage citizens and at the same time to become more sustainable. (Harvey,2008) In general, the urban living space should adapt to the demands of occupants. The complexity of changeable urban life led to another possibility: it implies another social experience, another practice, another sense of social presence and another way of urban planning. On the contrast, the modern planning neglects the different preferences between individual and community.

The way of spontaneity in the city is indeed shaped by its occupants, in a never-ending process of transformation, growth and adaptation(Urhahn Urban Design,2012). Individuals and groups re-use or re-organize spaces in apartment blocks, workplaces, parks and streets-or on the grounds of wind farms and companies. Urban planning professionals, government and real estate market work closely together, but with a different focus. The new

only the bigger partners. It’s the time for the city users. By changing the city to change the urban context, as a distributed result of urban resources, this transformation comes from the collective force of reshaping urbanization process. The most significant and the most easily neglected is creating the individual freedom of our city and ourselves. The changing in social structure will certainly change the urban structure and living behavior. Nowadays, humans as independent individuals in society, when their extent of freedom and liberation getting much higher, what would be the development of urban spaces? What would be the future of cities?

1.3 The changing focus in urban planning

City is the result of the human civilization. The American modern philosopher Lewis Mumford said:“ The city is a special structure that is dense and compact, which is designed to spread the fruits of human civilization." With the feature of eclectic, all-inclusive, constantly updated in Urban area and promote the improvement of human social order.

In 1800, only 2% of the world population lived in the city. Until 1950, the number increased to 29% and now, there are more than a half of the world population lived in cities.

In the rapid urban development of today, human urban lives are facing series of challenges of which are, high density of urban life, lack of resources, environmental problems, cultural friction, social conflicts, etc.

Habitat Organization in 1996 emphasized: "Our city must be places where human beings lead fulfilling lives in dignity, good health, safety, happiness and hope. " However, the origin of the challenges that the city faces today, either the traffic congestion and environment pollution, or criminals and conflicts, is the unbalanced relationship between people and environment, people and people, and mental and material in a long-term, that lead to the reverse of urban living quality and civilization.

From the ‘Utopia’ to the ‘Ideal City’ in 18th Century and then the ‘Garden City’, a sequence of theory and model are invariably based on the harmonies and balance of space, cosmos, spiritual life and substance breathing. Hundred years of research and exploration in planning theory witness the changing focusing from functionalism to people-oriented.

Many kinds of problems can be solved by science and technology in the twenty-first century, thus, how to satisfy the growing need of citizens became the most important issue for urban planning. The requirement of citizens reflected not only on the attitude to the urban places but also on the initiatives that they did to their living conditions.

The spontaneous urban transformation is achieving an increasing awareness from the society and the question of who plans and how to plan are continuously being the main problem for us. It is surprisingly and delightful that we see many of the citizens have participated in the urban planning work and discussion, but not only the planners or professionals and even politicians, urban planning has infiltrated into each citizen’s life. From each single path, each unique district and any tiny scene of life, we recognized how creative we are as citizens. Our spontaneity is moving forward little by little the urban renovation, sometimes slowly but meaningful.

Spontaneity has a number of characteristics. It happens or done in a natural, often sudden way, and it is not planned, therefore, it does not require any prior thought. There is no discussion needed, at least nor with many people. In principle you can’t impose spontaneity(Boer and Beekmans,2012) Spontaneity is a higher state that planners don’t participate in, and neither should they. It either happens or it doesn’t, unexpected and uninvited. The spontaneous city is often described in relation to the public domain. That is not true. In fact, the spontaneous part of society really takes place in the private domain, away from the eyes of society. People are all busy creating, beautifying or improving their houses or backyards. You can’t just go out and occupy the public spaces. If we were to filter out all the public spaces and only look at private ones, we would be looking at a completely spontaneous city(Boer and Beekmans,2012). A more spontaneous planning is one that leaves space in the planning process for citizen outbreaks. In the ambition to give spontaneity a new place in society, we have to focus not on the physical, built-up environment, but on individuals, because only they are really able to be spontaneous. It is not about the spontaneity of the intervention, but about the spontaneous social interaction it brings out.

It is the easiest thing in the world to seize hold of a few forms, give them a regimented regularity, and try to palm this off in the name of order. However, simple regimented regularity and significant systems of functional order are seldom coincident in this world. Spontaneity breaks the urban planning regulations. As is mentioned by Jane Jacobs “cities have the capability of providing something for everybody only because and only when, they are created by everybody.(Jacobs,1961)” The best course of action is typically to allow individuals to plan for themselves. The problem of economic

planning is we should focus the question on who should plan rather than planning or not.

It is so easy to blame the decay of cities on traffic or immigrants or the whimsies of the middle classes. The decay of cities goes deeper and is more complicated. (Jacobs,1961) We think more about what we want for cities but not what a city should work, that is the forms in which money is used for city decline today. This must be converted to instruments of regeneration from instruments buying violent cataclysms to instruments buying continual, gradual, complex and gentler change. China always see economy as the dominant regulation of urban planning. Removal and construction in huge scale, rapid urban transformation and urbanization, society is hardly adapted itself to it, nor do the environment. The city tends to be more diversity but commercialized as well. Spontaneity is how citizens are trying to orientate themselves into their lives or to say it is a resistance, by showing their creativity.

The sudden transformation of suburbs or abandoned urban places into spontaneous urban functional spaces reawaken a dormant place, bringing new entrepreneurial economies, cultures, and attractions and speed up the urban transformation and urbanization.

Spontaneity is not a phenomenon that we could approach in an extreme way, neither to encourage nor restraint. The public relation is formed in a long time. Any changes of a single relationship in the whole social network may not alter the entire public relations, and the more complex of this network, the more stable the public relation will be. What’s more, this stabilized public relations is formed under close communications and mutual attractions of citizens. Each individual has its own choices to build connections with others around, thus, the entity, which may also represent the instability, together make a balance and surely decrease the conflicts.

Urban Planning Situations in China

2.1 The Chinese urban planning development in modern and early modern history

The Chinese urban planning development in early modern history origin in 1840 from The Opium War. After more than a hundred years’ changing and development, China gradually built its urban planning system. More than 60 years past since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, urban planning work experienced from the start up to turbulence until recovery and reconstruction, urban planning thoughts and policies experienced a rapid development and evolution. This can be divided into six periods:

Period 1840-1939, Intertwine the Chinese and Western planning theory.

The Opium War in 1840 destroyed the traditional Chinese urban planning ideology and efforts but brought the western urban planning thoughts, systems and related urban construction activities as well. Many of

the Chinese cities became colonies or semi-colonies and were planned by western countries, such as the ‘Urban Plan of Qingdao’ was made by German in 1910.

Since the national government settled the capital in Nanjing in 1927, the political situation was for some time temporary stabilized and the urban planning and construction obtained a relatively stabilized development. In this period, China followed the western urban planning methods while at the same time combined indigenous culture. From passively accepted to actively learned the western planning methods and management, the urban planning development experienced a long process and still in an enlightenment stage.

Period 1939-1949, The Urban Planning Law

In June 1939, the national government, by learning from the western countries and summarized experiences of itself, established the first urban planning law in the early modern history. This <Urban Planning Law> was simply and unclear but determined the function division in <Charter of Athens> as the main idea. It preliminary defined the establishment, authorization and implementing of planning and made clear the responsibility of each institutions. Even though the law was not implemented because of wars, this could be seen as moving forward to the modern city.

Period 1949-1984, Interim Procedures of Urban Planning

In October 1949, the People’s Republic of China established. Urban planning as the basis of urban construction and development, with the national transition and social transformation, entered into a new period. Urban planning of China in this period is the continuity and reification of national economy. The first three years were the recovery of national economy when establish the socialist system. In the ‘First

Five-Year-Plan’ in 1953, China focused on the industrial construction, especially heavy industry. In July 1956, the <Interim Procedures of Urban Planning> was enacted which represented the urban planning work was offi cially launched. This was the first urban planning relevant document. Learned from the former Soviet Union, the planning formulation was divided into master plan and detailed plan.

Th e urban planning was closely bound up with national economy development especially industrialization in this period. Due to the wrong guiding ideology of Chinese government and the natural disaster in the late 1950s, the urban planning work was announced to stagnated for 3 years. Until 1972 reforming the urban planning policy and management, the planning work restarted. After the ‘Great Cultural Revolution’, the national economy moved to a period of restoration and development(Zhou and Gao,2016). On the conference of national urban work hosted in Beijing in 1978, emphasized the importance of urban planning and commanded the planning work in diff erent levels.

In the reform and opening period, the great change of economy and politics promoted the changes of urban planning guidelines. In October 1980, the National Construction Committee hosted the ‘national urban

planning work’ in Beijing, which was seen as the turning point of Chinese urban planning work. The conference made clear the functional importance of urban planning in national economy and social development. In December the same year, the enacted <National Urban Planning Summery> made clear the main idea of the planning in this period is the blueprint of urban development. The urban planning design work back on track and the urban planning management regulations completed.

Period 1984-1990, The Urban Planning Ordinance

On the third conference of national city wok in 1978 drafted <The Urban Planning Act>. Before the officially enacting, since the urban transformation work in 1980s just started, the state council decided to standardize urban planning and construction in the form of administrative rules and regulations. Thus, on January 5th 1984 enacted <Urban Planning Ordinance> as a transition of <Urban Planning Act>. In the ordinance standardizing master plan and detailed plan and established graded examination and approval system. And the planning permission system had been improved.

Period 1990-2008, The Urban Planning Act

In 1990s, the urban planning gradually accommodated to the marketization and legislation of the reform and opening-up policy and entered a reconstruction period. With the growing problems of urban environment pollution and the destruction of the ecological environment, sustainable development became the main idea of urban planning while to protect and improve the environment became the essential task of it. In December 1989, < The Urban Planning Act> was officially enacted, which is the first national law in urban construction area since the establishment of China. In this period, new changes, which national and spatial urban planning system, were added to the

urban planning system. Some big cities added regional planning to adapt to the accelerated development. In 1991, for the fi rst time the detailed plan was split into regulatory plan and site plan in <Urban Planning-making Method>. Hence, formed the ‘three stages, fi ve levels’ structure of urban planning system. Th is included each level, which are national, spatial, and regional, corresponding urban system plan, urban master plan, regulatory plan and site plan. Besides, established ‘one submission and two licenses’ regulation which means each application of new project construction must have project site submission, land construction license and project construction licenses altogether.

Entered into 21 Century, the industrialization and urbanization of China moved into the fast development period. In the process of fast promotion of economic society and urbanization some problems accumulated, including the big gap between urban and rural areas, unbalanced urban development and spatial development, ecological environment deterioration, exacerbation of social justice, etc.

Period 2008-recently, Urban and Rural Planning Law of People’s Republic of China

In October 2007, the 30th conference of the National People’s Congress approved the <Urban and Rural Planning Law of People’s Republic of China> to meet the new requirement of development. The biggest diff erence between the new and the old planning law is the emphasis on urban and rural overall development. In the new planning law established the urban planning system of China, which include urban system planning, urban planning, town planning, rural planning and village planning. The Chinese urban planning work fi nally on track.

By the retrospect of Chinese 60 years’ planning transition, we see the deficiencies. Firstly, the urban planning system need to be optimized. Although in the <Urban Planning Act> cleared the planning system, contradictions appear in practice. In the national level include national economy and social economy planning,

functional planning and land use planning, but they contradict or couldn’t connect with each other and lack of the effective integration of urban planning in national level. Besides, in the planning practice, different planning levels crossover other levels. Secondly, urban planning regulations and legislations need to improve. The urban planning still has problems in practice. Public participation is called for in recently years, though this part has been put in the law and regulations of planning, but seems to involve citizens still need a long time. Nowadays, almost all the urban planning practice are top-down procedures, non-transparent decision making, and the public participation is more educational and consulting but not substantive. During the rapid development of social economy, many of the demolish work are revolted by public and relevant laws are established, yet in many aspects citizens are excluded. 2.2 The procedure of urban plan making in China Each level of urban plan is authorized by local government and must be approved by the upper level. There currently are two stages of planning stipulated in <Urban Planning Act>. They are master plan and detailed plan. The planning period of urban and rural master plan are twenty years, including urban development and allocation, function division, land use plan, traffic structure and other prohibitions and restrictions. Kinds of subject plan such as conservation of historic cultural cities are also included in the master plan. This kind of subject plan is to supplement and embody the master plan. Subject plan is an important part especially for big cities like Beijing and Shanghai for the reason of city itself the complexity, diversity and variability. In this case, the subject plan is a changeable and flexible regulation for city to fix according to the actual conditions (Urban and Rural Planning Law of People's Republic of China,2007).

economic development plan. Public participation is emphasized in the <Urban Planning Act>.

2.3 The guiding ideology and goals of Chinese urban planning

The Scientific Outlook on Development is the general guiding ideology. This guiding ideology infiltrate into each aspect of the Chinese development.

People-oriented. People-oriented is a very important point of urban planning and construction, including to meet people’s growing needs in economy, culture, education, communication, etc., and at the same time to coordinate the development and life, to keep balance of the society and to reconcile the contradictions.

Sustainable development. In general, the sustainable development in urban planning embodied on the consideration of resources and environment and to meet the needs of urban development without harming the future development. Energy saving and emission reduction, and environmentally friendly are the two main policy of China in recently years.

Harmony and livability. Harmony embodied in several points: Firstly, the harmony of people, city and environment. Urban development should not harm but to protect the environment. Secondly, the social harmony that is the harmony of people. This include social justice and liberal democracy. One of the main problem that urban planning must solve is to create a stable social order. Livability represents on safety, employment and residence.

With the gist of the scientific outlook on development, idea of people-oriented, set up a sustainable

development, and to create a livable life is the guiding ideology and goals of Chinese urban planning. After 60 years’ development and exploration, by learning from the western developed countries and combined with the diversity and complexity of its own, China is making itself livable and renovated. Nowadays, the residential problem obtained the greatest concern from the society by which the issue is land in China is so expensive and tense. When people excessively pursuit the right of land use, in the meantime, they neglect the living quality. The theme of the EXPO 2010 in Shanghai was ‘Better City- Better Life’ which aims to attract widespread attention of urban problems and quality.

2.4 The urban planning implementation and management

The executor of urban planning work is local government at each levels. Which means, the local government must invest and provide infrastructure, using various funding resources, organizing urban constructions and should responsible for the failure of urban plans.

In the planning method of Chinese cities, the urban construction and development should make overall plans of rural areas and economic social development. Recently, big cities of China are more aware of this such as the villages around Beijing has a rapid development. With the emergence of numerous of art districts and antique shops, promoting the economic development and the rural is not exactly the typical one with agriculture.

The set-up of urban new area and development zone are under the construction area of master plan such as Zhongguancun in Beijing. The transformation of old urban districts should preserve the culture and

thus land is under strict control and the old districts are under transformation, including improving the living conditions and demolishing for new projects or reserve for further development. Beijing recently approved a regulation about the demolishing and construction which aims to protect the rights of citizens. The construction projects can start only with the ‘one submission and two licenses’.

The Spontaneous Experiments

3.1 Spontaneous transformation in ancient China During the mid-Tang to the Song Period, the urban fabric of major Chinese cities experienced a dramatic transformation as a result of political reforms and a great population and economic growth. The system of separate residential court yards was gradually decreased. From the mid-Tang period, business premises started to emerge in many residential court yards. Subsequently, various shops spread throughout cities and replaced the previously tightly controlled market wards. Song era cities began to form a flexible urban fabric. We can recognize the flourishing and spontaneous formed commercial street from the famous paintings of Zhang Zeduan, the Qing Ming Shang He Tu[1]_{(Figure:6) (Along the River during}

the Qingming Festival), which present an expressive urban life in the Kaifeng, the capital city during the Northern Song Dynasty. ( 960-1227 AD)

The growing urban economy constantly attracted populations, as people abandoned their farms to become

[ 1 ] : A l o n g t h e River During the Qingming Festival is a painting by the Song dynasty artist Z h a n g Z e d u a n ( 1 0 8 5 – 1 1 4 5 ) . I t captures the daily life of people and the landscape of the capital, Bianjing, today's Kaifeng, from the Northern Song period.Successive scenes reveal the lifestyle of all levels of the society from rich to poor as well as different economic activities in rural areas and the city, and offer glimpses of period clothing and architecture.

merchant or to acquire sufficient education to become scholar-officials. As a result, economic growth in fact loosened and decentralized the government control over urban space, this is what we called today the bottom-up approach.

In Song-era urban society began to pursuit and accept the new opportunities and lifestyles. Expressed in architecture, the merchants’ houses began to flank the main urban streets. This represented a clear break with tradition, that is during the earlier Tang dynasty, upper-class and middle-upper-class dwellings were typically hidden inside walled compounds and gated wards. While during the Song period, many residents tended to extend their homes and shops right onto the public avenues, thus, mixed public and private and activated the urban life. This is the very ancient spontaneity.

3.2 Background of Beijing

3.2.1 The urban development of Beijing

Beijing, as the capital city of China and the world’s second largest economy and with the largest population, has become an important international city. In the past decades, this ancient capital has taken on a new look into a modernized, vibrant and the fastest growing city in China.

From year 2000 to 2010, the population increased 42% to twenty million, while the population growing rate of China is only 6%. One-third of citizens in Beijing are the new settler from other cities, while in year 2000, the proportion was just one fifth. The typical bicycle city is now replaced by stream of up ground and underground traffic. In 2002, the registered vehicle of Beijing has reached to 1.9 million, while until 2012, the number has

in less than 10 years ago there are just 2 metro lines. In 2000, Beijing received 2.5 million international visitors the whole year, but now the number is more than a double. Also, Beijing has the world’s second busiest airport.

Beijing is the special epitome of China. The past 30 years, especially the last 10 years, saw the unprecedented high-speed economic growth as well as urbanization process. In the first decade of 21 Century, the urban population of China has increased from 36.22% to 49.95% of the total, and the annual rate of urban population growth is 4%, which means 210 million Chinese people has become the new settlers of urban areas. In 2011, for the first time, the population of urban area surpassed the rural area in China.

As the biggest city of China, as well as the fastest growing city in the past decade, to be real international the primary issue that Beijing has to face is whether Beijing needs further expansion? The answer could be yes or no. On the one hand, the high housing price, congested traffic, the air pollution and shortage of resources caused by urban expansion warned us Beijing cannot afford the rapid change. Considering the highly centralized resources and multi opportunities in economic, culture and politics, on the other hand, it is hard to restrain this extensive urban expansion. Meanwhile, Beijing is still one of the most popular city around international enterprises. Until the year 2010, 256 of the world’s 500 greatest enterprises invested 598 projects in Beijing, and 47 of world’s top 500 Chinese enterprises has settled their headquarters in Beijing. Yet, Beijing cannot become an international city only by attracting the world’s top enterprises, it should also be satisfied by the citizens, by offering a comfortable and enjoyable living condition. Citizens of Beijing need

more participations to the public events, urban planning and management procedures.

In 10 years, China achieved an urbanization result which spent developed countries to achieve in decades. As a megacity, Beijing keep absorbing population and expanding urban area, and also as a developing city, the public facilities unable to keep pace with the rapid change. From 1973 to 2008, the urban area of Beijing has increased by 30 sq.km.. Since the urbanization push the city into much bigger and more centralized, the migration of population become much intensive. In those population, 78.4% has moved to suburb, 14.3% moving between city and downtown, and 7.3% has moved to outer suburb(Gloable city initiatives,2012). Since the region differences and the unbalanced distribution of resources, the social contradictions become more intensified. The city of Beijing need multicenter to meet the needs of citizens in each area. To escape from the problems of centralized planning, Beijing followed the principle of redistributing resources and function in urban planning. This is very typical in most of the Chinese cities. The whole city is the arrangement of functions and land uses, the similar functions are quite concentrated, which is also one of the main reasons that Beijing is facing a heavy traffic congestion.

3.2.2 Beijing and Urbanization Process

Beijing has escaped from material deprivation. The thriving and modern it represents has narrowed the gap with western countries but still far behind in other aspects. The urban transformation we are undertaking nowadays is not about a street or a building but something deep in social structure, that is a more diverse, contained and creative city. The base is to transform

boundaries or statistic data. City is not existing for gathering and creating wealth, but for a better life.

The urbanization process of Beijing could be distinguished into three periods. From year 1978 to 1990 is the slow development of urbanization; from year 1990 to 2005 is the uniform development period; from 2005 till now is the rapid development of urbanization. Besides, the urbanization of population is increasing, which nonagricultural population is the most converted and the secondary and tertiary industries converted slower. The built up area presented a ‘firstly increased then decreased’ situation. The decrease of the first industry shows that, for some reason, some people moved back to suburbs from the city.

The economic urbanization of Beijing maintained a rapid development. Thanks to the readjustment of industrial structure, parts of the secondary industries were moved out of Beijing, while the third industry develops rapidly.

The spatial urbanization of Beijing is chaotic. The unplanned urbanization contributed a lot to this situation. Starting with the construction of the third ring road and the satellite town, Beijing experienced a high speed urban development and the built up area maintained a growth. Meanwhile, the per capita public green areas and road areas saw a significantly decrease. Which means that environment was neglected during the urban development, and this also became one of the key issues in constructing new towns.

The social urbanization received a stable and rapid development. But since the increasing number of residence, the medical level stayed in a lower growth. The social urbanization development is quite unbalanced.

The growing economy and population promoted the urbanization process in Beijing during the first and second period. At the meantime, Beijing was expending much bigger and more active in development. In the third period of urbanization, the population experienced a moving back to suburbs due to the development of satellite town.

Since the reform and opening-up policy, the suburbs of Beijing achieved a better development and gradually formed a nonagricultural industry. The urbanization process of suburb area improved a lot.

Comparing to the average level of China, Beijing has been in the lead of urbanization since 2008. But the urbanization of Beijing is, in practice, the urbanization of suburb and village. Essentially because the population movement.

While some urbanization of suburb areas in Beijing is a passive development. This mainly influenced by the city center that the urban population moved to suburb area and the population in suburb area meet a high raise(Tang,2011). Another type of this phenomenon is more initiative, mainly because the suburb itself has a better development.

In 2007, the local government of Beijing approved the document of developing, including Tongzhou, Shunyi, Miyun, eleven new towns which is different from the theme of satellite towns. The document of <New Town Plan of 2005-2020> emphasized the functions of the new towns, such as Tongzhou is aimed to build a Creative and Cultural Center where located Songzhuang Art Village.

This document is also to regulate the spontaneous transformation of suburb area. And the new concept of developing eleven new towns is different from the satellite town which means the transformation and

To be mentioned, during this process, citizens were not involved in the discussion and decision making and none of the feedbacks had any acceptance. The developer and local government are still the dominant power in any project decisions even though they would not live in that place and don’t need to take any consequences.

3.2.3 Beijing and industrialization process

In the 1950s, Beijing made the urban transformation plan. The primary goal was to transform Beijing from a consumer city into a large industrial city. On the morphology, Beijing become a mono-centric city; on the industrial structure, Beijing follow the industrialized way of Shanghai. About one fourth of the citizens has changed to working class.

On the blueprint of year 1954, industries covered the western, eastern, north-eastern and north-western Beijing, and in the following decades, Beijing formed a complete industrial layout: cotton manufacturing in the north, electronic industry in the northeast, machinery and chemical engineering in the southeast, metallurgy and machinery in the west(Wu,2013). Until 1979, Beijing became the second largest heavy industrial city. Chimneys were the characteristics of the city.

In the early 1980s, as the political center, Beijing started to move its develop priority from industry to economy. Thus, industries around Beijing disappeared, instead was residential. 798 Factory is one of these industries under transformed and it is now becoming creative cultural industry. At the meantime, suburban areas are growing. At the beginning of 1990s, Beijing set two urban planning strategies. Firstly, urban scale is no longer

expanded. Secondly, the urban construction focus moves from city center to suburb. Hence, satellite towns grow around the city, and highways were built to connect the city and satellite towns. But at that time, satellite towns were not independent from city, millions of people move everyday from city to suburbs by those highways and main streets to work and entertain. Traffic congestion and environment pollution become the major problems. By the reason of not independent satellite town, in the published document < Beijing General Urban Planning (2004-2020)> emphasizes the urban spatial structure of Beijing is ‘Two Axis, Two Belts, Multi Central’ which focus on the construction of more independent new town. 'Two Axis' refers to the Changan Street and the north-south line in the middle of the Forbidden city. 'Two Belts' refers to the east develping belt which including Huairou,Miyun,Shunyi,Tongzhou, Yizhuang, Pinggu, and the west develping belt of Yanqing, Changping, Mentougou, Fangshan, Daxing[2] _(Beijing

General Urban Planning (2004-2020)，2005).After 50 years‘ development, the city manager finally found out the right developing way of Beijing. Unfortunately, the layout of this city has finalized during the construction of satellite towns in 1990s and almost unchangeable. On one hand, the population is concentrating, on the other hand, the city is expanding. By metro and express way, people residence in suburb travel between the city and the new suburban town, losing time and lives on the way in between. Thus, in the ‘Twelfth Five-Year-Plan’, the major task is to solve the population and traffic congestion. Series of solutions such as low-end commerce moved out, raising the parking fee in downtown, etc. Those measures seem useful and helpful in a short time, while in the long term these are not solutions. [2]: Miyun,Huairou, Shunyi,Tongzhou,Yi zhuang,Pinggu,Yanq ing,Changping,Men tougou,Fangshan,Da xing were the exurbs of Beijing, but now have been included in the districts of Beijing city.

3.3 The Spontaneous Experiments in Beijing

Beijing, as an old city, is in its strongest willing to renovate. This kind of renovation is not superficially demolishing and reconstruction of architectures, but including recreating the old life of Beijingness and redistributing urban functions. It is a new urban structure in the rapid economic development. In the project based development, Beijing experienced an unbalanced development. However, the changing urban situation encouraged also citizens to show their creativity.

3.3.1 Sanlitun Bar Street and Commercial District

Sanlitun was an old street closely located to the Forbidden City[3]_{, but has been known by tourists and}

visitors as bar street and fashion zone these days. It has become one of the most popular fashion and commercial district in Beijing. This kind of transformation in Sanlitun and the place around is a typical spontaneous experiment.

Location

Sanlitun located in the Midwest of Chaoyang region in Beijing, the name was given by the location is of 1500 meters to the inner city of ancient Beijing (known as the Forbidden City now). But it is more famous for Sanlitun Bar Street after. It has become one of the most popular and flourishing Nightlife street among the celebrities and most especially the foreigners that settled in Beijing. The old Sanlitun was just a village while from 1958 constructed the residences and in the 1960s changed the name of ‘Dongfengshuoli’. The name ‘Sanlitun’ was given in 1977 together with the change ‘Sanlitun Street’ of the east street. Most of the architectures around are in 1950s of red walls, ridge roof and in the layout of Siheyuan[4]_.

[3]:The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty—the years 1420 to 1912. It is located in the centre of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. It served as the home of emperors and their households as well as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government for almost 500 years. [4]:A Siheyuan is a historical type of residence that was commonl y found throughout China, most famously in Beijing. In English, siheyuan are known as courtyard houses o r , l e s s o f t e n , Chinese quadrangles. The name literally means a courtyard s u r r o u n d e d b y buildings on all four sides.

The emergence and transformation process

After the Korean War in 1953, Sanlitun started to settle the residence of government entity which until 1958, three courtyards of troops and a courtyard of garrison command settled here. The First Embassy District moved from the Legation Quarter to Sanlitun in 1959. In 1962, the North Embassy District constructed in Sanlitun area which finally make it a special place in the city, that different yards of countries were fenced and with armed twenty-four hours’ safety guard. In the late 1980s, an appeal of the economic entity development was made by the local government to the public, which then sprout up amount of commercial streets. A well-known street of selling car spare parts and apparel trade emerged closely next to the Embassy District. But the car spare parts sold there were quite low-end that seemed like reselling of the old parts. From 1960s to 1970s, diplomatic apartment complexes were completed. The year 1989 saw the first bar of Beijing in Sanlitun South Street. Until 1995 opened another in Sanlitun North Street, because of the location which close to embassies, an increasing consumer demands was called for. Starting from 1990s, continuously emerged bars along Sanlitun Street and has been recognized as a new kind of lifestyle by citizens and tourists. To be mentioned, the other stores around converted the business scope into bars. From the year 1997 to 2003 is the Golden Age of Sanlitun Bar Street and the region of that place gradually transformed into an important district of expatriates for shopping, entertaining, and social activities.

Inside the Sanlitun area, nowadays, places ten vertical streets and twelve horizontal streets, with more than twenty bars in the 260 meters’ bar street but influenced three kilometers around converted to bar commerce, where 40% bars of Beijing located here.

No one could ever set an accurate business position of Sanlitun. Because of the well-known of the function Bar Street, most of the embassies changed the doorplate form ‘Sanlitun Street’ to ‘Sanlitun Bar Street’(Su,2008). Stores in the streets and corners are selling traditional and national stuff which are not easy to find in other places, that attracts young people. For citizens, the atmosphere of both shopping and bars is colorful, lazy and unique.

Sanlitun became the earliest ancestor of bar culture, and it is said Sanlitun breed and promote the fashion industry of Beijing. While after 2003, the SARS epidemic, with the rise of Houhai Bar Street, the situation of bar streets changed unaware. The advantage of Sanlitun Bar Street is not distinct. Because it is totally spontaneous without any plan and management mechanism, citizens complained about the noise in the nights and the traffic congestions and the security problems once became the key issues. In June 2004, a document <A Notice of Beijing Housing Demolition> was published, noticing that the south street of Sanlitun started to demolish, which represented that Sanlitun has made a sortie to a multi commercial place, and it was under government.

The first Apple Store of China settled in Sanlitun in 2008 made many of the fans came. Up to now, with more than five hundred enterprises and seventy more embassies living in, Sanlitun area fully demonstrates its value and gradually changes into a fashion center.

In decades, the huge ups and downs in Sanlitun area basically because of the Bar Street. The Sanlitun street was a very traditional and typical Beijing street, though experienced great changes, some residential buildings of 70s and 80s are still preserved until now. Many architects

Figure 12: Sanlitun bird view

Figure 13: Sanlitun

Figure 15: Sanlitun deplomatic quarter

Figure 16: Sanlitun bar street during nights

have showed great interests in transforming the Sanlitun area and many projects were made during these years but very few of them were really operated. It is believed that the vitality, confidence and the enthusiasm from each single citizens values the most, then the biggest problem for architects and planner would be how to keep this alive.

Before the ‘New Sanlitun’, the 3.3 Building was the most impressive project, while after the open up in 2004 the glory of the old times didn’t continue. The ambitions of reviving the shopping street somehow failed.

It is not easy to form a mature district especially a ten years’ district like Sanlitun. The demolish and construction work destroyed the old street fabric, and the old Sanlitun became into another configuration which based on shopping malls. The urban transformation of Beijing can obviously be seen as isolated, that the shopping malls are like islands being isolated from others around and attracting people but have no connections to other shopping places around, differ from the streets could walk around into different stores. It is a memory of the old Sanlitun district with traditional living activities.

3.3.2 Nanluoguxiang Commercial Street

Nanluoguxiang is a very old alley locates inside the second ring road of Beijing. As a part of the ancient town, Nanluoguxiang was surprisingly transformed into a well-known commercial street and attracting visitors all over the world. Living with the most attracting place, the citizens around are still keeping an old lifestyle. The traditional neighborhood and spontaneous transformation together make Nanluoguxiang a unique place.

Location

Nanluoguxiang is a narrow alley known as Chinese name Hutong, located in Dongcheng District, is an old part of the Beijing city center. The alley itself is approximately 800 meters long, running from East Gulou Street in the north to Di'anmen East Street in the south. The neighborhood contains many typical Hutong. It was constructed together with the Great Capital of Yuan Dynasty and enjoys a long history over 740 years. Its structure of alley is unique in Beijing.

In recent years, the area's hutongs[5] _{have become a}

popular tourist destination with restaurants, bars, live music houses, coffee shops, fast food and souvenir shops, as well as some old Siheyuan associated with famous historic and literary figures.

In 1990, Nanluoguxiang was selected into the first 25 historical and cultural conservation areas by municipality of Beijing. From 2002, bars appeared in this old alley. In 2006, government of Dongcheng District launched a commercial transformation here.

The spontaneous transformation process.

In 1978, with the policy of reform and opening-up, the local government encouraged individual operation of businesses. Gradually, individual businesses appeared along the old alley. Because it is an old living quarter, there accumulated popularity and life basis, and with all kinds of shops. In the last century in 90s, Nanluoguxiang achieved a better development and, at the same time, has been approved as the first batch of conservation area of heritage. From the year 1996 to 2006, Nanluoguxiang experienced twice renovations, which reconstructed sewer system, improved street situation, and greatly improved the environment. From 2006 to now days, Nanluoguxiang has become a cultural-commercial street with hundreds of shops and visitor flow of over ten

[5]:Hutong is a type of narrow streets or alleys, commonly a s s o c i a t e d w i t h northern Chinese c i t i e s , m o s t prominently Beijing.

In the end of 2012, Nanluoguxiang metro station of line 6 came into operation and has brought here more business opportunities and larger passenger flow. In the May Day holiday of 2014, the single day footfall of Nanluoguxiang surpassed that of the Forbidden City. It is going to replace Sanlitun Village and Houhai to become a new modern landmark of Beijing.

In its commercialized development

As to the evolution of commercialization, the attitude of citizens differed. Many of the young people like the way that Nanluoguxiang is, crowded and lively. But also because of the noisy during the night, the native old citizens are distressed. Commercialization take away the harmonious life in the old court yard, neighbors are getting alienated from each other. And even though some of the old architecture have been preserved, the previous habits and customs are missing(Wang,2016). In 1949, there were over 7000 Hutongs of all kinds in Beijing. Until 1980s, only about 3900 Hutongs left, and now there are less than 1300, and many of them now only leave a name as a street or new district. In recent one or two years, with the rapid transformation speed of old towns, Hutong in Beijing are vanishing with a speed of 600 per year. Here, private residence is being transformed into new buildings and stores are being renovated and decorated. Everyday, projects of moving, demolishing and constructions are all in process.

Urban transformation never stops but in this sense, Nanluoguxiang is lucky by its spontaneous self-transformation.

The extension of metro line 6 withdrew 62 doorplates and some court yard were removed for parking lots. Low-end stores eliminated, distinct but small shops

Figure 19: Nanluoguxiang Hutong bird view

Figure 20: Nanluoguxiang Hutong Figure 21: Nanluoguxiang Paifang

Figure 23: Nanluoguxiang Hutong Figure 24: Nanluoguxiang crowded visitors

were merged. News of demolishing and construction of Nanluoguxiang never ends under the government control.

At the midnight of 25th April 2016, Nanluoguxiang announced to stop receiving tourist groups and initiatively repealed the 3A title[6] _{to protect the citizens}

and heritage. The future never knows.

Visitors are willing to see such traditional and typical Beijingness lifestyle and at the same time could do shopping and make it more interesting. Unban renovation is essential for future development, thus a self-organized way would be more advocated. Every effort has been done to recreate the traditional urban life while life cannot be created, and the old Beijingness architectures and commercial activities can make a perfect combination. Nanluoguxiang returned the original condition of city life, that is what visitors and citizens would like to see. City, especially an old city of Beijing, need such places of cultrual and historical phenomenon which rooted in the very basic urban life but not created by urban design.

3.3.3 Houhai Bar Street

Every great city has a water resource, Shichahai is the one in Beijing which Houhai is the largest of the three lakes of Shichahai. Since the ancient times, neighborhoods around has become a popular place of commercial and entertainment. The transformation into bar district of Houhai is unexpected but welcomed.

Location

Houhai refers to a lake and its surrounding neighborhood in Xicheng Distict of central Beijing. Houhai is the largest of the three lakes of 146.7 hectares, along with Qianhai and Xihai that comprise Shichahai,

[ 6 ] : T h e q u a l i t y of scenic spot is ranking in five levels, which the highest is AAAAA and the loest is A.

Figure 26: Houhai,bars

Figure 28: Houhai,night life

Figure 29: Houhai ,night life