National Olympic Sports Center
3 min readThe 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 core of the Beijing City construction under the rule of feudal dynasties and being a masterpiece in China’s traditional art of architecture as well.Up to now it still erects at the center of the spatial structure of the whole city，but it is not only the art wealth of the Chinese people but has been classified as the’World Cultural Heritage’with global reputation also.
The Second Milestone is the Tian’anmen Square which symbolizes outstandingly that a new age has arrived after the founding of New China. It has gifted the middle axis of the whole city of long tradition with wholly new significance, reflecting the characteristics of’ making the past serve the present; weeding through the old to bring forth the new’ of the age in city construction and the special meaning of inheriting the past and ushering in the future in cultural tradition.
The Third Milestone, as mentioned above, is that in the beginning it was only due to the convening of the Asian Games and the construction of the National OlympicSports Center that it started showing the arrival of the age of Beijing marching towards an international metropolis. The first time I openly put forward this idea was May 14,1991 when I was making a report at the academic discussion in Architectural College, Qinghua University. At that time I only indicated it orally and did not write in the text of speech.
Now three years have passed. Facing the 21st century and inheriting the fine tradition of various master plans since the 1950s, the latest Master Plan of Beijing City has further put forward the new target of establishing the modern international metropolis under the new situation of reform and opening to the outside world andof establishing socialist economic system. It is also pointed out in the target’ to protect the famous historical and cultural cities under the consideration of the whole, especially to do this from the view of macroscopic environment of urban layout”. What was first and foremost to put forward thereon was the ‘ protection of middle axis of the old city’ and the direction that on the north and south extension lines ofthe middle axis of the old city, the following symbolic planning and design were to be made out respectively:’ the south extension line should embody the image of the South Gate of the city; along the north extension line should be retained the broad green belts, on the two sides and north point of which the public building complex should be the culmination and the termination of the city axis, reflecting outstandingly the new style and features of the capital in the 21st century’.
What should be specially noticed here is that the west and east sides of the north extension line of middle axis are the very sites of the National Olympic Sports Center and the Chinese Nation Garden under construction. As for the north point of it, it isgoing to be built into the public building complex, and its completion in accordance with the plan in the area will really be considered the Third Milestone in the history of the city’s planning and construction.
