Beijing is always referred to as Old Beijing, and Siheyuan, otherwise known as Quadrangle, a type of housing unique to the capital, can best display the city's age-old history and unique culture. However, in face of the speeding urbanization, one and another quadrangle were pulled down and were replaced by towering mansions. Renowned writer Shu Yi once said in an article: "the residents of Beijing, those who are on business trip to Beijing and the overseas visitors to Beijing, all get dumfounded with the same question: Can Beijing still live up to its name?"

As scholars and researchers stand out to protect the old yards, this problem is also highlighted at the ongoing meeting of China's top legislature and top advisory body. Our reporter Yan Yinan takes a look.

Different from the western Detached House which places the residential building at the center of the yard, Beijing's quadrangle is a kind of Courtyard House, with houses around a quadrangular yard.

The special dwelling building, however, are considered having a history longer than that of Beijing since it became an ancient capital 850 years ago.

For many people, life in the quadrangle means a heavenly childhood. Shi Yan, 23 years old, had lived in a quadrangle before he was six years old.

"The children living at the yard are about the same age. We were never running short of games: we set devices to capture sparrows and played rubber-band skipping with girls. In the yard, there was rockery and several big cotton rose hibiscus trees, I still remember the beautiful flowers of the trees. After dinner, while us children were playing around, adults were able to walk around the yard and chat with each other."

However, the expanding population has led the pleasant dwelling house astray. A quadrangle was used to house one family at the beginning of the founding of People's Republic of China in 1949, but gradually it became shared by several households to several dozens. Quadrangles have fallen off to compounds. Filthy, crowded, with lagged off facilities and various odds and ends piling everywhere, it is no longer a pleasant courtyard. As this granny puts it:

"I've been living here for nearly half a century. There lived around 30 households, each room holding a family. The piling-up goods makes the yard even more crowded. My eight-year old granddaughter lives with my husband and I, she doesn't like here. She can't bear the winter. When wind blows, we could feel it running through the wall into our house. I want to move out from the yard."

This, to some extent, pushes city planners to demolish these old houses and set up modern buildings to meet the needs of dwellers and for a further development of the city.

However, despite all these praises and complaints, the quadrangles, having existed for such a long time, do have its incomparable advantage as a residential house?

Shu Yi has been a member of China's top advisory body: Chinese Peoples' Political Consultative Conference for two successive sessions, and has made several proposals, calling to protect the old architecture.

"The quadrangles could shut out noise and dust and it could create its own climate; we could plant trees and flowers in the yard and could get close to nature whenever we want. In the downtown areas, it is quite relaxing and peaceful to live in quadrangles. We couldn't help but admiring the ancient architectures for their advanced concept in environment."

He says the deteriorated condition of the quadrangles cannot be blamed by quadrangle itself.

"It's not because of the architecture itself, it's because it shoulders too much population and is overused. We do not need to pull them down, the first thing to do is to lower the population rate, and then equip it with modern household facilities, such as heating and electronic systems and broadband channel. Its original charm could be restored."

It is sad to see when there needs a decision between urbanization and old houses, old houses were forced to give way.

The large-scale disappearance of quadrangles began in the 1990s when the municipal government adopted the housing renovation policy that allowed developers to replace the old and sometimes derelict homes with new high rise buildings.

With large number of quadrangles pulled down, hutong, an ancient city alley linking quadrangles and bungalows, is also disappearing at a fantastic speed. An official statistics show there were over 7,000 hutongs in Beijing in 1949, but the number shank nearly a half to 3,900 in the 1980s; and now, the number keeps falling, with about 600 hutongs disappearing every year.

Shu Yi says he is heartbreaking seeing such larges-scale renovation.

"Some of the quadrangles need to retain as it was, some needs repairing, and some needs renovation, we can't use bulldozers everywhere."

Just like Shu Yi, a great number of scholars, researchers and various NGOs all joined the team, calling the government to take effective measures to retain and protect these precious legacies of Beijing.

Their efforts are not in vain. Not long ago, the municipal government of Beijing adopted a preservation and rehabilitation plan, listing 25 blocks, and about 600 quadrangles into protection. The areas listed into protection now accounts for about one third of that of the old city.

But Shu Yi says the protection is far from enough.

"The protected zone shouldn't be restricted to one district, or one lane, it should be covering a large area, and within this area, no high buildings are allowed to set up and the old lanes and quadrangles should be arranged and retained as they were." 

(CRI March 14, 2004)