User:WikiApollo/sandbox



Hi.My name is "WikiApollo". I live in Milan. I like A.C. Milans

Design works

 * Monument of Wang Guowei, 1929
 * Hall and Library in Jilin Provincial University, 1930
 * Geological Building and female dormitory Peking University,1934-1935

In around 1950, when he and his wife were both appointed to the groups designing the new national emblem. They urged that the emblem should have Chinese characteristics, not a hammer and sickle. They succeeded and in the end a representation of the façade of the Tiananmen in red and gold became the emblem that is still used today.In 1951, they were commissioned to design the Monument to the People's Heroes, which was to be erected in the center of the Tiananmen Square. Liang's advice that it should resemble the stone memorial stele universally found throughout China swayed the design group.


 * Mausoleum of Ren Bishi,1952
 * Mausoleum of Lin Huiyin,1955
 * Jianzhen memorial hall,1963

Urban planning of Beijing
Liang's biggest ambition was to preserve Old Beijing, which had served as the capital city of the Jin, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, in its entirety. Under the Communist government, he was named Vice-Director of the Beijing City Planning Commission. In his early recommendations to transform Beijing into the new national capital, he insisted that the city should be a political and cultural center, not an industrial zone. He later put forward a proposal that a new administrative center for government buildings with a north-south axis be established west of the Forbidden City, a significant distance from the ancient Inner City. In 1950, after he was committed as the vice director in Beijing City Planning Committee. Liang and another planner Chen Zhanxiang worked together for the new government and eventually submitted a report “Suggestions on the location of central government district”, which is referred as the "Liang-Chen Proposal" (梁陈方案) in the Chinese architectural field. In this proposal, Liang Sicheng and Chen Zhanxiang proposed different locations for the city center to the west of the Forbidden City, east of Gongzhufen and west of Yuetan. They listed their arguments in the "Suggestions on the location of central government district", which could also be seen in the letter Liang wrote to the Prime Minister of China Zhou Enlai at that time. Briefly, they demonstrated 5 key focus aspects on the new planning proposal of Beijing :

1. The best location for the central government district in Beijing (East of Gongzhufen, west of Yuetan Region)

They proposed sub-centered districts with different functions and connected to these districts with green belt areas among them, which they believe will reduce the distant to work and leave more urban space to recreation activities. Apart from the idea of moving the central offices outside from the Ming Dynasty old town, the other main idea is to set up a new axis on the south-north direction on the west side of the old city of Beijing. On the northern part are the central government office and the southern leave to the business offices area. In the original master plan before the Communist Party government took over Beijing, the western urban region of Beijing had already been developed as an important sub-center to the west of the old city. There were already good foundations and preparation work had been done already by the previous government, such as requisition of land and replacement of the local residents. What’s more, this region can provide better green space to the citizens naturally since it next to the Babao Shan. Last, they listed every item on the budget to prove their proposal is economically practical.

2. Residential area and working area connection

The new center can create a better connection between the living and working. Since there is not enough space for residential space in the old city anyway (130000-190000 houses), the only suitable location to new development for a new residential area is new government center, which will be combined with residential area serve for their staff. It’s a more smart and energy efficient solution to mix the living and working space together, considering the distance from the working place and living place. Otherwise the government staffs (at least about 30,000 people) will have to travel on the average distance of 7.5 km everyday just to get to work from home in the same hour.

3. Balance the development of whole city

Inner city of Beijing needs to be redeveloped in more balanced and organized way. One thing is an over develops inner city will conflicts between inner city and suburbs. Another is too much population density will case many urban problems such as transportation, urban slum, and garbage management etc., therefore the population density inner city should be reduced graduate. During 19 century, there are many European cities had over developed in the city center cased a tons of trouble and spend millions of money to make it right afterwards.

4. Control the traffic capacity within the city

Unbalanced development in the city will lead to unbalanced transportation. Transportation will focus on the several major roads in Beijing, which will bring the unbearable situation for such a huge city. If take Chang’an street as example, “A big event in the Tiananmen Square could easily paralyze the traffic of the city”. The city should increase the efficiency of the traffic by reducing the capacity on traffic, not the other way around. The city could plan a new structure to solve the traffic problem and reduce the traffic capacity from the source. Residents in Beijing in the future will not have to take hours to workplace since they live close to where they work. It’s a time, money, energy saving solution to find a new center for the city.

5. Protect the architecture heritage sites

Beijing is a city full with culture and architecture heritage. Not only the Forbidden City, but also tons and millions of Palaces, Villas, and traditional courtyards of the royal families and officers are all the precious fortune for the entire human being. Those are all important heritage site and need to be protected very carefully. For the urban structure point of view, Beijing has the unique Hutong system which connects the various small valleys into major roads. All of those heritage sites are from different periods in the history, and make Beijing a unique city itself. Those heritage sites need to be appreciated and opened to the public, turning them into parks and sounded by public spaces. The new constructions with new materials and new technologies are not adaptable in the context of old Beijing which is composed by mainly 2-3 stories wooden buildings, perhaps more suitable in the new city structure.

He advocated that the city walls and gates be preserved, and that the roadways around the ancient city be built with chicanes, so as to slow motor vehicle traffic to help insure additional safety of ancient structures. He even published an article entitled "Beijing: a Masterpiece of Urban Planning", hoping to win the support of the general public. Unfortunately the Liang-Chen proposal was not accepted by Beijing. Despite his best efforts, most of Beijing's ancient gates and city walls were torn down. The original footprint of the Old Beijing City Wall have become largely built-over with an inner-city highway known as the 2nd Ring Road, with a few of the original ancient city gates still standing. There were two major reasons that the proposal failed. First, opponents to the "Liang-Chen proposal" argued that there were not enough funds to build another center in Beijing, however Liang and Chen had already demonstrated it would cost more to demolish and resettle the original residents. In 10 October 1956, Beijing's Party Secretory Peng Zhen said on the standing committee meeting: it’s difficult to build inside the urban area of Beijing because of the relocated householders, if only we build outside the urban area, things would be much easier. The second was more political, as Soviet consultants saw the Beijing City Wall as an obstacle to the modern industry, and believed that the capital of China should be the industrialization model of all Chinese cities. The Soviets even discussed tearing down the wall of the Forbidden City in the 1958 to achieve this.

For the valuable Chinese city wall from the Ming Dynasty in Beijing, Liang-Chen proposed to build a ringed park system around the city wall, proclaiming that "this green system is not only a recreation area for the citizens, but also a unique urban space in the world.". The wall would be a buffer zone for the future urbanization in Beijing, as well as civic park space for leisure and recreation. The green belt around the city wall, the upper wall space, and the lower waterfront space beside the moat, could become a compact system which serves the citizens' urban life. However, this idea was not applied in Beijing but is adopted 30 years later in another walled city, Xi'an. Starting from 1980s, the Xi'an city municipality initiated a "Wall Ring Park" project for the Xi'an city wall.

Publications

 * Herbert George Wells,The Outline of History, transl. Liang Sicheng, 1932,(《世界史纲》)
 * Qing Structural Regulations,1934,Society for Research in Chinese Architecture(《)
 * History of Chinese Sculpture, 1985,China Architecture & Building Press(《中国雕塑史》)
 * Architecture History in China,1998, ISBN 978-7-5306-4168-2(《中国建筑史》)
 * A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF CHINESE ARCHITECTURE: A Study of the Development of its Structural System and the Evolution of its Types, Liang Ssu-Ch'eng; edited by Wilma Fairbank MIT Press, 1984,ISBN 978-0-262-12103-3
 * Complete Works of Liang Sicheng,2004,China Architecture & Building Press(《梁思成全集》第一卷至第十卷)
 * A Pictorial illusion on principle in Qing Architecure,1981,ISBN 978-7-302-13229-5,Tsinghua University Press(《则例图解》)
 * Footnote on ,1981,China Architecture & Building Press(《注释》)