Tian'anmen Square

Tiananmen Square is named after the Forbidden City’s front gate, Tiananmen (the gate of Heavenly Peace), located at the square’s northern extremity. Built over five hundred years ago, this gate now features a portrait of Mao Ze Dong, the Communist founder of the modern state.

For mainland Chinese visitors to Beijing, Tiananmen Square will be the highlight of their tour. It epitomises China’s government, and hence its political identity over the centuries. To the North, there is the Forbidden Palace, symbolising centuries of feudal, dynastic rule. In the centre, defiantly positioned directly opposite the Forbidden City, is Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum. Every morning thousands of Chinese queue up for the opportunity to pass respectfully by his jaundiced corpse. To the square’s west is the gigantic Great Hall of the People where the National People’s Congress is held. And to the east lies the Museum of History. Respectful of the achievements of their liberating leaders, Chinese tourists will photograph themselves by each of these important monuments.

To the north of Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum on its own in the center of the square stands the “Monument to the People’s Heroes”. Although this is the least obvious of Tian’anmen Square’s architectural icons, it can be the most moving. Over the hundred year period, beginning with the Opium War against the British of 1840 and ending with the founding of the New Republic in 1949, many Chinese gave their lives in the hope of establishing an independent Chinese state. This stella commemorates their sacrifice.

It is interesting to compare the Imperial and Communist architecture in Tiananmen Square, as much to recognise the similarity of their objectives as to note the differences in their styles. The similarities are lent a special weight when we recall that in the same way that Imperial edicts were traditionally announced to commoners from Tiananmen’s balcony, so did Mao Ze Dong announce the Liberation of the People’s Republic of China from here in 1949.

One could argue that Tiananmen Square holds greater significance for the present government than it ever did under dynastic rule. For the intended confrontation between the opposed ideals of Communist and Imperial architectures – Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum was so positioned so as to block the Forbidden City’s north south axis – underlines the liberating, revolutionary ideals of the modern era. The conception behind Tiananmen’s Square design, which aims with its tall civic institutions to dwarf the Forbidden City, is to emphasise the victory of today’s government over the regressive autocracy of China’s history. Therefore the layout of Tiananmen Square, by comparing past with present, cites the inherent inequalities of Imperial rule to promote present day government.