eijing Record, the result of ten years of research on the urban transformation of Beijing in the last fifty years, brings to an extended Western audience the inside story on the key decisions that led to Beijing’s present urban fragmentation and its loss of memory and history in the form of bulldozing its architectural heritage. Wang’s publication presents a survey of the main developments and government-level (both central and municipal) decisions, devoting a lot of attention to the 1950s and 1960s, when Beijing experienced a critical wave of transformative events. Shortly after its original Chinese bestseller edition was published by SDX joint Publishing Company House in October 2003, it ignited a firestorm of debate and discussion in a country where public interaction over such a sensitive subject rarely surfaces. The Chinese edition is in its 11th print run and was translated into Japanese in 2008. This newly-translated English version has the latest update on the author’s findings in the area. As the only edition printed in full color with nearly 300 illustrations, the English version powerfully showcases the stunning architecture, culture, and history of China’s Dynamic Capital, Beijing. Home to more than 15 million people, this ancient capital city not surprisingly has a controversial, complicated history of planning and politics, development and demolition. The publication raises a number of unsettling questions: Why have a valuable historical architectural heritage such as city ramparts, gateways, old temples, memorial archways and the urban fabric of hutongs (traditional alleyways) and siheyuan (courtyard houses) been visibly disappearing for decades? Why are so many houses being demolished at a time of economic growth? Is no one prepared to stand up for the preservation of the city? For his research, Wang went through innumerable archives, read diaries and collected an unprecedented quantity of data, accessing firsthand materials and unearthing photographs that clearly document the city’s relentless, unprecedented physical makeover. In addition, he conducted more than 50 in-person interviews with officials, planners, scholars and other experts. Many illustrations are published here for the first time, compiled in the 1990s when archival public access was reformulated. Wang Jun, was born in 1969 in a mountainous, poverty-stricken area in Guizhou, one of China’s least developed provinces. He majored in journalism at Beijing’s Renmin University and upon graduation in 1991, he began working at Xinhua News Agency, China’s state news agency. Currently, he works with Outlook, a weekly news magazine affiliated with the Xinhua. Wang Jun’s time as a journalist coincided with an unprecedented construction boom in the Beijing. He questioned the need to do away with the ancient structures city walls, lanes and alleys known as hutong in the Chinese capital city in the midst of modernization. With that in mind, he investigated and dug deep into the labyrinth of Beijing old and new. He did research for nearly ten years and his efforts were culminated in the publication of Beijing Record in 2003. The Beijing Record became a bestseller in China and has been reprinted for eleven times. In 2008, Shukousha published a Japanese version. This newly-translated English version has the latest update on the author’s findings in the area. As the only edition printed in full color with nearly 300 illustrations, the English version powerfully showcases the stunning architecture, culture, and history of China’s Dynamic Capital, Beijing. Wang Jun’s second book, Cities as Recorded by a Journalist, published in 2008, reveals the secret of urbanization in China’s reform era — the most massive of its kind in human history. “For communication, humans rely on journalists who are faithful to facts,” wrote Wang Jun. “Barriers inherent in the human race can be overcome only in societies where journalists can work as journalists, where communication is truly possible.”
www.amazon.com/Beijing-Record-Physical-Political-Planning/dp/9814295728
