前门的面子工程
ANCIENT QUARTER MAKES WAY FOR MODERN ANTIQUITY
这个是标准的经济发展和文化继承关系的例子。有意思，以后看最后结果怎么样。
作者：英国《金融时报》王明(Mure Dickie)
2008年6月18日 星期三
对于身兼北京奥组委主席的北京市委书记刘淇而言，拥有数百年历史的前门地区的改造工程，将是8月奥运盛会召开之前，北京文化遗产与建筑保护史上一个出色范例。
刘淇去年曾表示：“这一地区正在受到保护。一旦改造完成，前门大街将成为兼具明末清初风格与现代内涵的首都街区。”
但在主张保护传统的人士心目中，情况却并非如此。他们惊愕地看到，在天安门广场附近这个以北京古老的“前门”命名的著名商业和居民区，成片的建筑已夷为平地。在高高的铁皮围栏后面，前门地区的老居民已陆续撤离，昔日连缀相接的院落也已拆除殆尽，以便给SOHO中国(Soho China)牵头的零售及住宅开发项目让路。SOHO中国是一家在香港上市的房地产集团。
批评者们认为，这种做法意味着，在北京的许多地方，那些希望体验北京传说中的著名古迹的游客，将只能看到一个几近主题公园式的仿古复制品。
张伟（音译）是前门地区的一位居民，也是一名主张保护传统的人士。他说：“这一改造工程，意味着我们失去了许多出色的旧住宅和一些精美的老建筑。取而代之的，将是一些砖瓦覆盖的水泥钢筋制成的仿制品。”
2008年奥运会加速了一波建筑热潮，前门地区改造工程就是其中的一部分。根据一些估算，在上世纪80年代初北京引以为豪的3000条旧胡同中，保存至今的只有不足500条胡同。
负责前门地区改造工程的SOHO中国与政府官员，对2002年出台、理应具有约束力的《北京历史文化名城保护规划》置之不理。该规划要求以“院落”为单位逐步更新危房，维持原有街区的完整性和风貌。
中国国务院还批准了紧邻前门大街东侧的鲜鱼口街区的保护方案，于2005年下令“任何个人或单位”都不得擅自对该地区进行改造。
然而，SOHO中国公布的开发计划并没有提及这份保护方案。相反，据该公司知情人士称，SOHO中国是在执行北京市官员拟定的一套方案，试图以一种带有历史启迪意义的“风格”对该地区进行改造。
至于前门改造工程是否符合保护规划的要求，SOHO中国以及负责前门改造工程的崇文区副区长周永明都拒绝置评。不过周永明表示，在决定建筑的拆除和保留时，政府官员咨询过“大量专家”。
周永明表示，政府绝对是在依法办事，这一点尽管放心。
去年完成了17亿美元首次公开发行(IPO)的SOHO中国，目前正在等待许可，购入前门改造工程控股股权。
前门保护区现已拆迁完毕，一些过去住在那里的居民抱怨道，政府发放的补偿金不够，而且在他们拒绝搬迁时，强行拆毁了他们的房屋。王薇（音译）表示：“他们赶走了这里的私人业主……把土地用于商业开发。这绝对算不上是修缮或保护。这可不像社会主义国家，这让人感到比一窝强盗还要坏。”王薇没有工作，她的房子也被拆除了。
王薇正准备和其他居民一道起诉市政府。他们当中的一些人曾经世世代代居住在这里。
主张保护传统的人士声称，在SOHO中国拟定开发的地区，拆除传统建筑的行为仍在继续。过去， SOHO中国以知名建筑师的作品为特色的独特开发项目一直受到人们的称赞。
“我不知道他们为什么想参与这个项目，”迈克•迈耶(Mike Meyer)表示，“他们为什么想盖一个……仿古购物中心？”迈耶根据在前门地区的生活经历写成了《老北京的最后时光》(The Last Days of Old Beijing)一书，该书将于本月出版。
中国官方媒体本周称，在前门大街沿线改造项目的建筑中，“保存并恢复原貌的占76%”。然而，担任政府顾问的王世仁表示，这一数据包括新建钢混结构购物中心，它们的装修风格都符合前门大街的风貌。
一位了解SOHO中国改造方案概要的人士表示，其设计师的目标，是要进行一番富于想象的诠释。对于批评者而言，这意味着一锅大杂烩：想象出来的古旧风格，配以经过粗陋改造、脱离了居民集体记忆的老建筑。张伟说：“前门已有600年历史，但如今，前门文化已被改造得荡然无存。”
译者/李晖
ANCIENT QUARTER MAKES WAY FOR MODERN ANTIQUITY
By Mure Dickie
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
For Liu Qi, Beijing Communist party chief and senior Olympics organiser, the redevelopment of the Chinese capital's centuries-old Qianmen district is a shining example of cultural and architectural conservation ahead of the August games.
“This area is being protected. When it is complete, these will be Beijing streets from the late Ming or early Qing Dynasties that also have modern content,” Mr Liu said last year.
That is not how it looks to conservationists who have watched aghast as swathes of Qianmen, a famed commercial and residential quarter near Tiananmen Square named after Beijing's old “front gate” have been levelled. Behind high steel walls, the area has been cleared of residents and large parts of its patchwork of courtyards demolished to make way for a retail and housing development to be led by Soho China, a Hong Kong-listed property group.
It is an approach critics say means visitors seeking to experience Beijing's fabled antiquity will in many places see little more than a theme-park pastiche of the past.
“This reconstruction has meant the loss of wonderful old houses and some wonderful architecture, and its replacement with fake things [made] of tile-covered steel and concrete,” says Zhang Wei, a resident and conservationist.
The redevelopment of Qianmen is part of a wave of construction that has been accelerated by the 2008 Olympics. By some estimates, less than 500 of the 3,000 ancient alleys Beijing boasted in the early 1980s have survived.
In Qianmen, Soho China and officials responsible for the project have waved aside a supposedly binding 2002 government conservation plan that required the retention of the area's integrity and “texture”, with any development to be undertaken on a courtyard-by-courtyard basis.
The conservation plan for the neighbourhood just east of the main Qianmen avenue, known as “fresh fish mouth”, was approved by the State Council, China's cabinet, which in 2005 ordered that it could not be changed by “any individual or work unit”.
However, the plan is not mentioned in Soho China's published blueprint for the area. People close to the company say it is, instead, working to a scheme drawn up by local officials that will seek to recreate the area in a historically inspired “style”.
Soho China and Zhou Yongming, the district vice-governor responsible for the Qianmen project, declined to comment on whether it met the requirements of the conservation plan. However, Mr Zhou said officials had consulted “numerous experts” in deciding which buildings to demolish and which to retain.
“The government is absolutely acting according to law. You can rest assured of that,” Mr Zhou said.
Soho China, which held a .7bn initial public offering last year, is waiting for permission to buy a controlling stake in the Qianmen project.
Some people who lived in the cleared Qianmen conservation areas complain that government officials offered inadequate compensation and used force to demolish their homes when they refused it. “They drove out the private owners of the property . . . and transferred the land for commercial development. This absolutely does not count as renovation or preservation,” says Wang Wei, an unemployed woman whose home was demolished. “This doesn't feel like a socialist country, it feels worse than a nest of bandits.”
Ms Wang and other residents, some of whom had lived in the area for generations, are trying to sue the city government.
Conservationists say demolition of traditional buildings has continued in areas earmarked for development by Soho China, which has in the past been praised for its distinctive development projects featuring work by noted architects.
“I don't know why they would want to get involved in this project,” says Mike Meyer, author of The Last Days of Old Beijing, a book based on experience living in the Qianmen area to be published this month. “Why do they want to build . . . a fake antique mall?”
State media this week claimed that 76 per cent of buildings along the redeveloped stretch of Qianmen's main avenue had been “preserved or restored to their original style”. However, Wang Shiren, a government adviser, said this figure included new-built concrete and steel shopping centres decorated in a style that fitted the image of the street.
One person briefed on Soho China's plans, said its designers were aiming for an imaginative interpretation. For critics, this spells a mish-mash of imagined antiquity, laced with old, crudely renovated buildings stripped of the collective memories of its inhabitants. “Qianmen was 600-years-old, but now its culture has been reset to zero,” Mr Zhang says.经济观察,前门的面子工程
