If Going to China - Photograph the Hutongs!

[bmattock]

I spent a week in Beijing on business in 2002, so didn't see much, but did manage to spend an afternoon touring a hutong near Tianeman Square - it was fascinating. Now the hutongs are disappearing:

http://english.cctv.com/program/cultureexpress/20060331/102160.shtml

Photographers record life
Source: 03-31-2006 17:19

Photographers in China are flocking to the old and historic alleyways of Beijing known as "hutongs". They're recording their images, as more and more structures are torn down to make room for high-rise buildings.

Every weekend, hutong fans get together to document the fast-disappearing traditional Chinese housing.

Photographer Wang Wei said:"We want to use our cameras to record the historical changes of Beijing as much as possible for future generations and research."

Beijing had over 3,000 hutongs in 1980, but now 40 percent of them have disappeared.

Beijing is currently being transformed into an international city for the 2008 Olympic Games. A construction boom is escalating the destruction of traditional housing that once spanned almost all central areas of the city.

Residents of hutongs complain about bad living conditions - they lack central heating, plumbing and electricity.

Architectural experts have argued that the buildings and alleys should be preserved like any other national heritage sites.

Photographer Cao Xue said: "Old hutongs should be removed, since they are blocking the development of the city. But some Chinese-style courtyards and hutongs of fine quality should be preserved."

Last December, the Chinese government enacted a regulation to reinforce the protection of cultural relics, including hutongs. But the demolition of the old buildings and rapid construction of new commercial buildings shows no signs of weakening.

Editor:Wang Ping

So if you get a chance, record a hutong - before they're all gone.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[dexdog]

Michael Reichmann (spelling?) of Luminous-Landscape.com has several photos of these types of areas on his site. Some great stuff of a guided photography tour that he led to China in 2005. IMHO, Luminous Landscape is a great site, although purists might be warned off because the photographs are taken mostly with digital cameras. Still, the guy is a very skilled photographer, and has a talent for composition.

 

[bmattock]

I was similarly dismayed by the Lufthansa shopping center next to my hotel, but took great solace in the Palace. As a foreigner, I could ony gape at the history; at China's year-on-year GDP increase, I can only gasp.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[jan normandale]

Bill I shot the Hutong areas around Beijing in 2004, there is a problem. All Chinese hutongs are really squares joined together and the squares all face inward. Result.. mostly walls along streets that they create. Hutongs are being leveled rapidly as new highrise accomodation is built.

Interestingly the Chinese are also concerned (just like North Americans concerned with their architectural heritage) and have begun challenging the demolition of these historic residential areas. Result? The professional class of Chinese are ' gentrifying' the hutongs.

I don't think they will really all dissappear. But large scale demolition and razing is happening for certain

 

[bmattock]

The advantage of centralized planning is that when a country decides to 'Get 'er done' such as for the Olympics, they can make things happen quickly and inexpensively (comparatively). There is no 'eminent domain' problem to consider, as I understand it.

In the US, when a municipality, state, or the federal government wanted to make use of private property, they had to formally condemn the property, make a good faith effort to pay the owner the 'going rate' for the property, and then they could take it - but it had to be for the public good and use.

Recent Supreme Court decision now holds that cities can 'take' private property and sell it to another private party - which in the city's opinion will do a 'better job' of using the property the way the city wants it used. Case in point - taking a strip of houses used as rental property and selling them to a developer to build a hotel.

Ironic - as communism embraces certain aspects of capitalism, capitalism begins to embrace certain aspects of communism. Funny old world.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Fitz]

Bill,

I would like to know how to contact this group of photographers in Beijing. I took a guided tour of the Hotong for about 4 hours. My Chinese colleague had never been before and he enoyed the visit as much as I did. Of course many photos were taken between film and digital.

I plan to return and stay at a bed and breakfast hutong.

This is a very interesting topic.

On another topic, I hired a driver for the day to go to the Great Wall and Forbiden City. If anyone is interested I think I can still find his contact info.

- Fitz

 

[jan normandale]

totally OT but maybe not, I think you are discussing the recent situation in CT where a developer and the municipality have joined forces to demolish and then develop a new project. To do it they are expropriating the the homeowners residences within the project's footprint.

I was frankly astounded to see and read about this one.

Maybe I better start photographing the American hutongs ie residences near shopping centres in the US .. they could be the 'endangered species' LoL!

 

[tedwhite]

When I was a kid (17) I was in Shanghai for several months. I wonder if the French quarter is still there. I remember Avenue Joffre, where I met a White Russian girl refugee. She was terrified at what would happen to her family when the revolution succeeded (which, obviously, it did). I remember the Bund, but I also remember the horse-drawn wagons going round each morning, gathering up the bodies of those who had frozen to death, or starved to death, or both. Those were, as an understatement, trying times.

One of my many dreamt of goals is to return to China one more time and with a camera.

 

[jan normandale]

Ted, do it before the Beijing Olympics in a couple of years. Stay in a B& B in one of the hutongs near the Palace/Forbidden City about $80 a nite for pretty good basic/clean accomodation. Not Four Seasons tho.

When I was a kid (17) I was in Shanghai for several months. I wonder if the French quarter is still there. I remember Avenue Joffre, where I met a White Russian girl refugee. She was terrified at what would happen to her family when the revolution succeeded (which, obviously, it did). I remember the Bund, but I also remember the horse-drawn wagons going round each morning, gathering up the bodies of those who had frozen to death, or starved to death, or both. Those were, as an understatement, trying times.

One of my many dreamt of goals is to return to China one more time and with a camera.

 

[stet]

isn't there a Hutong photo in Bystander, as one of the earliest street photos? I vaguely remember it, but I don't have mine with me.

 

[jan normandale]

Bystander? Don't know it Stet. But I don't know lots of things

btw; hows the pho?

isn't there a Hutong photo in Bystander, as one of the earliest street photos? I vaguely remember it, but I don't have mine with me.

 

[jrong]

Looking at that photo of the Shanghai Bund, what disturbs me most about rapidly re-developing Asian cities is that they are fast becoming sterile clones of one another. All the colourful waterfront shots of glass skyscrapers at night are starting to look more and more like each other (Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore etc). In London, certain politicians are intent that the east end of London is developed in much the same way (as well as any spare bit of space remaining in the Square Mile). If anything, we are converging on glass-and-steel, architectural sterility.

My 2 cents only, of course.

Jin

 

[zuikologist]

Looking at that photo of the Shanghai Bund, what disturbs me most about rapidly re-developing Asian cities is that they are fast becoming sterile clones of one another. All the colourful waterfront shots of glass skyscrapers at night are starting to look more and more like each other (Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore etc). In London, certain politicians are intent that the east end of London is developed in much the same way (as well as any spare bit of space remaining in the Square Mile). If anything, we are converging on glass-and-steel, architectural sterility.

My 2 cents only, of course.

Jin

Jin

It will be even worse than you might expect. Upcoming environmental legislation in London will require almost all new large buildings to use renewable energy sources, including wind power, solar, ground source heat etc and minimise energy waste. The wind map of London is already being set up, so expect many buildings to be similar shapes and to be orientated to maximise wind power or solar heating.

 

[EmilGil]

Ted, do it before the Beijing Olympics in a couple of years. Stay in a B& B in one of the hutongs near the Palace/Forbidden City about $80 a nite for pretty good basic/clean accomodation. Not Four Seasons tho.

I hope you mean 80Y (RMB), not $80 (USD)!!!

I stayed in a hostel in one of the hutong areas last year at about this time, I think I payed around 60Y for a bed in a four bed room, excluding breakfast.

 

[Avotius]

ive been taking these photos for the last two years

 

[stet]

Bystander? Don't know it Stet. But I don't know lots of things

btw; hows the pho?

what's up jan --

Bystander is a photo book on the history of street photography. Great book, and I learned about it here. There's an old hardover edition that's sorta pricey, but the paper edition is revised to include more from the 70s and 80s, and you can find it online for ~US$10.

Pho? None of that. Thais can't really do Vietnamese food justice, and no Vietnamese eateries here are Vietnamese-run. Unless you were referring to pho-tos. 😛

*rick

 

[richiedcruz]

I was in Beijing this Christmas, and took a hutong tour that required riding in a rickshaw. Total ripoff, of course, and it was absolutely freezing. I could feel this chill right through my parka and insulated overalls. But I did get to look inside one house and talk to the owner. My only problems was the lack of a 25 or 15 lens, I was out of tri x and was using Lucky brand film, and my father was so desperately bored that he practically dragged the tour guide and I in and out of there in a matter of minutes.

Some pictures I took, however, did turn out, and if I ever get around to buying that scanner I've been meaning to buy I'll post some.

Richie

 

[RML]

I first visited Beijing in 2000 and at that time people were already warned about the hutongs disappearing. I can understand why Beijing tears them down and replaces them with new, fancy skyscrapers. After all, every modern city did pretty much the same thing. Or else got there city's hearts bombed out during WW2. Even here in Amsterdam (and those who ever visited Amsterdam know we have plenty of old buildings left) there are greedy project developers who just love to tear down our city's historic buildings and replace them with cheaply made, crudely built, expensive apartment blocks so they can make a profit.

Nothing lasts forever, and maybe it's better that way.