A leader in China Daily last week protested against that a couple of courtyard houses are about to be torn down in a protected area. Can’t begin to express how heartbreaking it is to see some of the old quarters in Beijing being demolished. Not only are century-old buildings with original architectural features being crushed to grovel. Over-sized roads, skyscrapers, and pompous fake Greek pillars are being built in their stead, keeping nothing of the fantastic small-scale environment that is so lovable and typical of the Beijing hutongs.

On a short visit to Beijing last year I was looking for one of my favourite restaurants and ended up staring at a pile of bricks.
Another guy turned up at the same pile and after a while I asked:’ A restaurant. Used to be right here, right?’
He said: ‘Right. Was looking for that one too. Swear to God, it was here just three months ago’.

We fell silent, gave the pile of bricks a nostalgic look and loomed away.

Believe me, I’m a fan of both modern and historical architecture, but for the past fifteen years the city planners of Beijing seem to have had very little going for them. Looking out the window this very moment this is what I see:

Skyscraper looking like toilet roll with brown lid on top, skyscraper looking like huge parking house with two cranes on top, four East-block style skyscrapers in grayish beige, a brown-and-beige skyscraper with seventies air traffic control tower (or so it seems) on top. And yes, this is a posh part of town.

After a while your vision of what is beautiful and exciting architecture tends to get a bit distorted. Walking home from a couple of friends’ house late last night I stopped to admire a very geometrical framing of an entrance. I found it overwhelmingly appealing, when it hit me that in Berlin or Rome I would discard it as typical neo-fascist style, obsessed with order, deprived of any charm. So now it seems like being in constant chaos is turning me into a fan of nazi-neat symmetry.

Spent the cab ride home worrying about it.