² According to Zhouli, a city ought to be built nine Chinese il (2.7 miles) square with three gates on each side. Surrounded by walls, an ideal city was about seven square miles, a good size for a pedestrian city. Nine major thoroughfares running north-south should intersect with nine other east-west thoroughfares; the north-south thoroughfares should be each nine-chariot wide. One the east side of the city an ancestral temple (taimiao) should be built, while on the west side there should be an altar of earth and grain (shejitan). The market-place should be situated in the north, while the imperial court should lie in the southern part of the city. These guidelines for urban construction – namely, shape, direction, numbers, orientation – were all based on traditional Chinese cosmology, the yin-yang and five-element theories, and the fengshui geomancy. Equally important, they reflected early Chinese rulers' concern over disorder in the urban society and Confucian ideas about social order and hierarchy. For a detailed study of symbolism of traditional Beijing, see Steinhardt, N. Shatzman, Chinese Imperial City Planning (Honolulu, 1990)Google Scholar; and Myer, J., Dragons of Tiananmen: Beijing as a Sacred City (Columbia, SC, 1991).Google Scholar

³ Rozman, G., Urban Networks in Ch'ing China and Tokugawa Japan (Princeton, 1973), 293.Google Scholar

⁴ Bredon, J., Peking (Shanghai, 1931), 18.Google Scholar

⁵ Dray-Novey, A., ‘Policing imperial Peking’ (unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. thesis, 1981), 246.Google Scholar

⁶ Shiduo, Fang, Beiping conghua (Miscellaneous talks on Beijing) (Taipei, 1976), 107.Google Scholar

⁷ , M. and Moser, Y., Foreigners Within the Gates: The Legations at Peking (Hong Kong, 1993), 113.Google Scholar

⁸ Shizheng tonggao (Municipal Reports) [hereafter SZTG], no. 1 (20 11 1914), 1–2.Google Scholar This publication of the Municipal Council was also known by two other names, Shizheng yuekan and Shizheng xunkan. SZTG refers to all three for the sake of clarity.

⁹ Rankin, M., Elite Activism and Political Transformation in China: Zhejiang Province, 1865–1911 (Stanford, 1986)Google Scholar; Rowe, W.T., Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796–1889 (Stanford, 1984)Google Scholar and idem, Hankow: Conflict and Community in a Chinese City, 1796–1889 (Stanford, 1989).Google Scholar

¹⁰ The typical subsidy offered to any project would be a third or a quarter of the operating cost. To recognize people dedicated to public service, the president of the Republic would personally award those who contributed over 1,000 silver dollars to street paving with honourable plaques, and gold or silver medals. For those who contributed less than 1,000 silver dollars, similar awards would be conferred by the Ministry of the Interior. Usually a private sponsor was the commercial proprietor on a busy street, or a charitable foundation. Between 1914 and 1918, private donors built 1,442 metres of streets, all of macadam, at a cost of 13,701 silver dollars: Jingdu shizheng huilan (Overview of Beijing city administration) (Beijing, 1919), 375–6.Google Scholar

¹¹ Chang, Sen-dou, ‘The morphology of walled capitals’, in Skinner, G.W. (ed.), The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford, 1977), 75–100.Google Scholar

¹² Siren, O., The Walls and Gates of Peking (London, 1924), 130.Google Scholar

¹³ Myer, , Dragons of TiananmenGoogle Scholar, introduction.

¹⁴ Like an heirloom, the pick has been carefully preserved after Zhu Qiqian's death in 1964. In the early 1990s, Zhu Haibei, Zhu Qiqian's son, donated the pick, together with a commemorative photo album depicting the rebuilding of Qianmen project, to the Architectural Library of the College of Architecture at Qinghua University in Beijing.

¹⁵ Oral history interview with Zhu Haibei, transcripts in author's possession. See also Zhu, Lin, Koukai luban de domen: zhongguo yingzao xueshe shilueGoogle Scholar (Knocking open the door of Luban: a brief history of the Chinese society for architectural study) (Beijing, 1995), 7.

¹⁶ Zian-yien, Chow, ‘Public works in the city of Peking’, The Chinese Social and Political Science Review (1923), 103.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Rothkegel did admit, however, that some details in the completed work were less than perfect, but he blamed the Chinese builders, the construction team of the Municipal Council, for arbitrarily modifying his plan.

¹⁸ SZTG, 3 (10 12 1914), 16.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Beiping tebie shi gongwu ju gongwu tekan (Special issue of public works undertaken by the public works bureau of the special city of Beijing) (Beijing, 1929), 59.Google Scholar

²⁰ Shiren, Wang and Fuhe, Zhang, Zhongguo jindai jianzhu zonglan: Beijing plan (The architectural heritage of modern China: Beijing) (Beijing, 1993), 8.Google Scholar

²¹ Qiqian, Zhu, Huyuan wencun (Collected works of Zhu Qiqian) (Beijing, 1991), 52.Google Scholar

²² Jingdu shizheng huilan, 262.Google Scholar

²³ Ibid., 268.

²⁴ Ibid., 268–70.

²⁵ Three types of property could be condemned. The first, official and semi-official land and property (such as ancient buildings) received no payment. The second and third, private corporate property (including temples and churches) and private individual property would receive payment: Gamble, S.D., Peking: A Social Survey (New York, 1921), 235.Google Scholar

²⁶ Jingdu shizheng huilan, 367.Google Scholar

²⁷ China Number Two Historical Archives, 1001/2898.

²⁸ Jingdu shizheng huilan, 235–7.Google Scholar

²⁹ Shiren, Wang et al. , Zhongguo jindai jianzhu zonglan, 11.Google Scholar