Gt; Aman at Summer Palace (www.amanresorts.com) > Commune by the Great Wall (www.communebythegreatwall.com) ARCHITECTURE

In the 1950s Beijing jumped straight from being a walled city packed with the unique, ancient architecture of the Ming and Qing dynasties to the bleak buildings and vistas of Soviet-inspired socialist-realist design. Now, it’s making another leap by throwing up the kind of daring, avant-garde structures that many cities shy away from.

Besides obvious sights like the Forbidden City or the Temple of Heaven, the best of Beijing’s traditional architecture are the courtyard homes that can be found in the city’s hutong (alleyways). These homes are built on a north–south axis with living quarters wrapped around a small courtyard. All are built in strict accordance with feng shui principles to ensure the qi (energy) can freely circulate. There are no outside windows, so when the red courtyard gates are shut, it becomes a private world.

Every Ming and Qing building, no matter how big or small, is built along the same principles, though wealthier people added more courtyards and rooms. You could even describe the Forbidden City as the biggest courtyard house of them all.

There are only a handful of buildings that predate the Ming dynasty in Beijing, and all have been rebuilt many times since. It’s the same story with the surviving Ming structures around town, as fire, war and weather have taken their toll over the centuries.

But following the Communist Party’s takeover of China in 1949, Beijing underwent immense changes. Socialist-realist architecture was the big thing and architects from the old Soviet Union descended on the city to help their ‘socialist brothers’ modernise the capital, by fashioning a sombre skyline dominated by Stalin’s so-called ‘wedding cake’, or tiered, buildings.

The vast edifices that line Tiananmen Sq are the prime example of this style of architecture. The hulking China National Museum opened in 1959 and was built to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The Great Hall of the People, on the opposite side of the square and also built in 1959, is the most imposing structure left over from this period. Thankfully, the Sino-Soviet split in 1960 put an end to the attempt to turn Beijing into Moscow. For more details on modern architecture, see.

Locals call it ‘big shorts’; outsiders marvel at the style and grace of the CCTV building
KEREN SU/LONELY PLANET IMAGES

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