Liang Chen plan is a famous plan in the history of the modernization of China's ancient capital, when New China was founded, on the protection of the ancient city of Beijing, in February 1950, two architects Liang Sicheng and Chen Zhanxiang cooperated to complete the "Proposal on the Location of the Administrative Center of the Central People's Government", that is, the famous "Liang Chen Plan", the program has 25,000 words, I briefly talk about the core idea, proposed to put the central administrative center in the western suburbs, to avoid large-scale demolition, the purpose is to protect a complete old Beijing, Leave a valuable cultural heritage for future generations.
Datong Ancient City
It is well known that in the end this plan was not adopted. The 24-kilometer-long ancient Beijing City Wall, the Andingmen Arrow Tower, the Chongwenmen Urn Wall, the Zhonghua Gate... Behind is a series of shocking figures, the pattern of old Beijing that has been maintained for hundreds of years has been completely changed, this ancient historical and cultural city, in the mighty wave of ancient city modernization, has become unrecognizable, then Liang Sicheng said: "Fifty years later, you will regret it!" ", did not expect a word.
58 years later, that is, in 2008, the ancient capital of Datong also began a large-scale ancient city restoration project, the history is strikingly similar, around 2012, the restoration of Datong Ancient City has also caused many cultural protection experts to question.
The point of doubt should be familiar to many people. Destroying the historical style, demolishing the real and building the fake, large-scale demolition, large-scale relocation of residents, huge financial pressure on investment... These voices may be very harsh, but from the perspective of experts, it is actually very easy to understand, in order to avoid Datong taking the old road of Beijing, in order to protect Datong, a famous historical and cultural city, the capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Western Capital of the Liao Dynasty, the Nine Border Important Towns of the Ming Dynasty, Datong has a splendid history, leaving a number of valuable cultural heritage, Datong Ancient City is one of them.
Datong Ancient City Wall
Of course, the restoration of datong ancient city is much more advanced than the thinking and measures adopted by Beijing when it was modernizing the ancient capital, and the situation is different.
Datong adopts the "one axis of two cities", with the Royal River as the central line, the old city in the west, and the new district in the east. The broken ancient city walls in Datong City were restored, and the old town of 3.28 square kilometers in the city was demolished and restored into a retro building complex. The intact of the ancient city wall preserved in Datong cannot be compared with that of Beijing, which was well preserved, and the ancient city wall of Datong exposed the ancient rammed earth layer, which was very broken.
This plan invested 50 billion yuan and demolished 100,000 households, including the most prosperous West Avenue and Huayan Temple in Datong that year.
Datong Huayan Temple
Nowadays, in the two historical and cultural blocks of the ancient city wall, there are many antique buildings, and experts have questioned that these buildings are of the Yuci type in southern Jinnan, not the style of houses in Yanbei, the difference is that the houses in Yanbei are shorter, while the houses in Jinnan are higher.
In 2019, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage issued the "Circular on Partially Poorly Protected National Historical and Cultural Cities", Datong was prominently listed, and was criticized as "the historical and cultural relics have been seriously damaged, and the historical and cultural values have been seriously affected", and said that if the rectification does not meet the standards, there is a possibility of being cancelled the title of historical and cultural city.
Ending with Liang Sicheng's heartfelt words: "Beijing demolished a city tower like digging up a piece of my flesh, peeling off a piece of city brick like peeling off a layer of my skin", for the ancient city of Datong, those experts' doubts may be wrong, but the starting point is always good, that is, for future generations, you can also see Datong as a famous historical and cultural city, see the old Datong, as far as possible between the modernization of the ancient city and the protection of the ancient city, to find a balance.
Do you think these doubts from experts are justified?