{"id":12585,"date":"2007-05-03T21:02:13","date_gmt":"2007-05-04T04:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2007\/05\/03\/why-tiananmen-square-could-go-from-red-to-green-jonathan-watts\/"},"modified":"2007-05-03T21:02:13","modified_gmt":"2007-05-04T04:02:13","slug":"why-tiananmen-square-could-go-from-red-to-green-jonathan-watts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2007\/05\/why-tiananmen-square-could-go-from-red-to-green-jonathan-watts\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Tiananmen Square Could Go From Red to Green &#8211; Jonathan Watts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nThe Guardian reports on a radical idea by a top young architect in China for transforming Tiananmen Square:\n<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.i-mad.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ma Yansong<\/a>, an award-winning urban planner, says the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tiananmen_square\" target=\"_blank\">grey concrete symbol of China&#8217;s red politics<\/a> should be given a green makeover. To heighten awareness about the environment, he believes the Beijing square should be transformed into a park and forest. In his model, the vast expanse of paving slabs outside the Forbidden City are replaced by trees and grass. There are lush thickets around the mausoleum containing Mao Zedong&#8217;s embalmed body and a verdant entrance to the Great Hall of the People.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#8220;We want to transform this empty political square into something that can be enjoyed,&#8221; Mr Ma said. &#8220;Our aim is to propose not to criticise, to raise the issue of public space. The way we do our architecture is to show that we can come up with our own solutions. We don&#8217;t just take orders. That is why we want to show this project to the public first.&#8221;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/video\/page\/0,,2069107,00.html\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/china\/story\/0,,2072172,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">[Full text]<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\n<span style=\"color:#1919ff;text-decoration:underline;\"><br \/>\n<br \/><\/span>&#8211; See also Jonathan Watt&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/video\/page\/0,,2069107,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">video interview<\/a> with Ma Yansong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Guardian reports on a radical idea by a top young architect in China for transforming Tiananmen Square: Ma Yansong, an award-winning urban planner, says the grey concrete symbol of China&#8217;s red politics should be given a green makeover. To heighten awareness about the environment, he believes the Beijing square should be transformed into a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20,132,5],"tags":[326,5811,5901],"class_list":["post-12585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-environmental-crisis","category-society","tag-architecture","tag-beijing","tag-tiananmen-square","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO v23.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why Tiananmen Square Could Go From Red to Green - Jonathan Watts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2007\/05\/why-tiananmen-square-could-go-from-red-to-green-jonathan-watts\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Tiananmen Square Could Go From Red to Green - Jonathan Watts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Guardian reports on a radical idea by a top young architect in China for transforming Tiananmen Square: Ma Yansong, an award-winning urban planner, says the grey concrete symbol of China&#8217;s red politics should be given a green makeover. 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