The Road that Shaped Beijing and Its Revolutionary Nemesis

When Kublai Khan decided to place his capital in Beijing 800 years ago, the first thing he did was to determine the city’s central axis. This magnificent stretch was designed for only one man to walk - the emperor himself.

Xiong Mengxiang, a citizen of Mongolian Beijing, describes how the Imperial Axis was determined on a North South line by looking at the shadow of a tree standing just outside today’s Tiananmen gate. According to Xiong, the tree itself became a place of worship where on special occasions people would gather and pray for this glorious organism that had determined the layout of the city.

The straight northern line had importance beyond simply defining the layout of the city - it ensured that the sun, and with it the calendar year, would revolve accurately around the capital with the Imperial palace in the very middle. The decisive role played by the line in the life of the city was why the Chinese architect Liang Sicheng gave the Imperial road the name “the central axis” in the early 20th century. 

But when the last emperor abdicated in 1912, the heavenly architectural order of the Beijing city plan was almost immediately challenged. A public road now crossed over from east to west, almost exactly where the glorious tree used to stand. This road is what we know today as the 40 kilometer long Changan avenue. 

Whereas the central axis of Beijing had represented a heavenly order, a relation between time and space that determined Imperial power, the Changan road drastically broke with this tradition. Its use was not limited to one man - instead, it was a road for the masses, penetrating the city from one side to the other. The development of the road was shaped first by a liberalized economy that needed to move things from A to B, then by Japanese occupiers, and finally by the communist vision for Beijing.

The Changanjie completely uprooted the dynastic vision of the Imperial capital. However, in more recent times, the veneration of the central axis has been reignited in acknowledgement of its deep historical and cultural meanings. This has presented the Beijing government with the challenge of accommodating both lines into the city scape.

We have made the collision of these two roads and the different visions for Beijing that shaped them our theme this winter.