Eastday-Anger at demolition of renowned architects' home

BEIJING - The latest demolition of a siheyuan, the traditional
Chinese courtyard home, in the capital's Dongcheng district,
has triggered a huge public outcry, as it once belonged to two
architects famed for protecting the country's ancient
buildings.

Residents at the Beizongbu Hutong in Beijing's Dongcheng
district on Saturday talk about the demolition of Liang
Sicheng's former residence to a reporter with China Central
Television. 

Between 1931 and 1937, Liang Sicheng (1901-72) and his wife Lin
Huiyin (1904-55), both regarded as among the most distinguished
modern Chinese architects, lived in the courtyard house located
at 24 Beizongbu Hutong, Dongcheng district. It was here they
finished their groundbreaking study on traditional Chinese
architecture.

Liang and Lin probably never imagined that one day their home
would meet the same fate as many other ancient buildings in the
country had faced - being demolished to make way for real
estate development.

Over the past decades, high-rising office buildings, apartment
blocks, and sprawling shopping malls have mushroomed in the
heart of Beijing, replacing the maze of siheyuans and hutongs -
the narrow lanes that used to characterize the city.

In 2009, some parts of the courtyard were demolished to make
way for a commercial development project, but the cultural
authority stopped the demolition in response to public anger.
Since then, the site has been designated as a cultural relic,
though a low-level one, requiring approval from the cultural
heritage authorities for any redevelopment.

However, what remained was "furtively torn down" during the
recent Spring Festival.

"When I was at home on Thursday, I read a post on a heritage
protection forum, which said Liang and Lin's former home had
already been destroyed," said Zeng Yizhi, a cultural relics
protection activist.

Zeng, who lives in Heilongjiang province, asked a friend in
Beijing to visit the site to confirm the news.

"When I found the news was true, it broke my heart," Zeng said.
"Liang and Lin made such a great contribution to the protection
of Chinese ancient buildings; if their home can be torn down,
then developers can do the same thing to hundreds other ancient
houses in the country."

Zeng reported the situation to the Beijing municipal
administration of cultural heritage and the Dongcheng district
cultural heritage committee submitted a report to the municipal
cultural heritage bureau on Saturday. In the report the
committee quoted an unidentified developer saying that the
demolition was "in preparation for maintaining the heritage
site".

"The developer should have consolidated the ancient buildings
instead of pulling them down." Zeng said. "According to the
law, even if the courtyard was a dangerous building that needs
repair, the project should have been carried out by a
certificated construction company, which wasn't the case."

Media reports named the developer as Fuheng Realty, a
subsidiary of China Resources.

The municipal government has said that Liang's residence will
be rebuilt and that it has ordered the developer not to remove
anything from the rubble.

"But if we replace every ancient building with a new replica,
we will end up with a pile of meaningless fake antiques," Zeng
said.

"Protected relics cannot be rebuilt once demolished, according
to international cultural heritage protection principles," Chen
Zhihua, professor with the School of Architecture at Tsinghua
University, and a former student of Liang and Lin, told
reporters.

"Building a replica only makes things worse. So I suggest that
the government build a monument or a park on the original site
in memory of Liang and Lin," Chen said.

As of 5 pm on Sunday, an online survey by the popular
micro-blogging site Sina Weibo showed that 90 percent of the
8,360 participants said Liang's siheyuanshould not be
demolished because it is of great historical value.

An unidentified executive with China Resources' Beijing branch
told Xinhua on Sunday that his company "could not agree" that
the demolition was against related regulations.

Liang is considered "the father of modern Chinese architecture"
for his pioneering role in advocating the preservation of the
country's ancient architecture.

Liang was particularly known for his proposal with another
architect Chen Zhanxiang to preserve the ancient city of
Beijing and build a complete new city to the west of it after
the Communist Party of China made Beijing the capital of the
new republic.

But the country's leaders back then opted to build a political,
economic, and cultural center within Beijing's historical core.
Traffic jams, air pollution, and disappearing ancient
architecture linked to poor urban planning in recent years have
led more and more people to feel nostalgic for Liang's
ill-fated plan.

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Eastday-Anger at demolition of renowned architects' home