Believe it or not, the futuristic "Water Cube" or the national aquatics center which is a centerpiece venue of the upcoming Beijing Olympics, was built 100 meters north of its originally planned site, to keep intact a 400-year-old temple.

With a history of more than 3,000 years and having served as the national capital for over 800 years, "Beijing is striving to balance the relationship between cultural heritage preservation and urban development," said Kong Fanzhi, director of the Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage at a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday.

Kong said that site selection of the Olympic venues had taken cultural heritage protection into full consideration, with officials from the cultural heritage department involved in the selection process at a very early stage.

"We avoided to build the Olympic venues in the cultural-heritage-concentrated old city, and instead chose the areas between the north fourth ring road and north fifth ring road, where cultural heritages are relatively scarce, to build the Olympic stadiums and village," Kong said.

The original site of the Water Cube was abandoned for the protection of the Beidingniangniang Temple, built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), said Kong, adding that the temple was renovated and is now open to the public.

In one of the two Olympic Media Villages, there also lies a well-preserved ancient temple. The Amitabha Temple, originally built in the Ming Dynasty, is located in the heart of the North Star Media Village, which accommodates more than 6,000 media people from all over the world.

The temple was restored twice in history, first during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and then in 1923, but later was dilapidated. It was not until the start of the preparation for the Beijing Olympics that the temple received another major renovation.

According to Kong, in the run-up to the Beijing Games, the host city had spared no effort to protect its cultural heritage -- not only the ancient buildings on the ground, but also "hidden relics" lying underneath.

Over the years, the Beijing Cultural Heritage Administration has unearthed a large number of cultural relics from beneath the sites of 18 Olympic venues. In one such case, a large quantity of potteries from the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 A.D.) were excavated from the site of the Olympic shooting range.

Learn from Europe

In the field of preserving old cities and cultural heritages, many European cities are more experienced than Beijing, said Kong, citing Paris and Bremen which have successfully retained their medieval looks.

"One important experience we learn is that we should guarantee the authenticity of a historical heritage, which means when renovating it, we should not make it brand new, but should try to maintain its original look," Kong said.

Another experience is that to just preserve the historical heritage itself is not enough, its surrounding areas also need to be protected.

Take the Forbidden City as an example: Apart from the buildings inside the walls, its buffer areas are also preserved. For this end, many areas around the Forbidden City have been turned into public parks in which no modern architecture is allowed.

Huge financial input

The Beijing municipal government has significantly intensified its financial input in cultural heritage protection over recent years.

"Before 1990, government earmarked just one million yuan for restoring cultural heritages every year. From 2001 to 2008, however, the government was allocating 110 to 150 million yuan every year to protect the cultural heritage," said Kong.

From 2008 to 2015, the local government will input another 1.2 billion yuan for preserving cultural heritages.

The money was spent to protect the completeness of the axis of the old Beijing, and renovate major heritage sites like Shichahai, Nanluogu Alley, Nanchizi, Qianmen and Liulichang.

"Siheyuan", or the city's traditional residential courtyard, and "Hutong," the narrow lanes between lines of such courtyards, were also well preserved.

To date, the government has marked out 33 "historical and cultural preservation areas" in the city, putting 1,974 hectares of urban space under protection.

"And we try to let common citizens share the benefits of cultural heritage preservation. Up to now, 33 museums that display the city's rich cultural heritages are open to the public with free admission. Those heritage sites still charging the visitors do that only to control tourist flow and reduce human impact on the relics," he said.

Both the number and height of new buildings in the old city area are subject to government-set ceilings, according to the official.

The old city, covering an area of 62.5 square kilometers, has been put under a comprehensive protection, while areas outside the old city are allowed fast urban development, Kong explained.

"We try to balance old city preservation with urban modernization by adopting different development strategies and goals for the old and new areas," he added.

(Xinhua News Agency July 31, 2008)