


Dr. Michael Petzet Président, International Council on Monuments and Sites The Summer Palace: an imperial garden in the shadow of power pylons The Summer Palace of Beijing, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1998, is being threatened by the frenzy of construction within its buffer zone, and especially by the erection of high voltage electricity transmission lines in February 2005. More than 10 power pylons over 30 metres in height are now polluting the views of the Summer Palace. First constructed in 1750, destroyed by warfare in 1860 and rebuilt between 1888 and 1898, the Summer Palace is world-renowned for its beauty, scale and splendour. It occupies an area of 293 hectares and features over 3000 different structures of imperial landscape gardening. It is situated in the north-western suburbs of Beijing, around 15 km away from the city centre. In December 1998, the Summer Palace was formally inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. As the representative of Chinese landscape gardening, the Summer Palace’s design and layout clearly illustrate one of the fundamental principles of this art – the fusion of the garden with its surroundings. The aesthetic value of the Summer Palace does not solely derive from its own design, but also from its harmony with the natural surroundings of the Western Mountain within 10km2 of the Summer Palace. Hence the preservation of the Western Mountain area is indispensable to the maintenance of the Summer Palace itself. In recent years, with China’s rapid and sustained economic growth, the construction of new buildings has increasingly expanded into Beijing’s once quiet suburbs. Additionally, with a population of 15 million inhabitants, the demand for electricity has continuously outstripped the existing capacity of supply. Thus Beijing’s local government has, together with the Beijing Electricity Corporation, started on a grand scale extension of the existing infrastructure in recent years. In early 2004, the construction of a high-voltage electricity transmission line in the north west of Beijing was commenced, placing 20 power pylons within the 3 km radius of the Summer Palace (see figure 1). The power pylons are 34 metres in height, each supporting round 30 transmission cables. Together, these cables form a dense web that overshadows the view of the mountains and streams that form the backdrop of the Summer Palace (see figure 2 and figure 3). The Wen Wei Po (a newspaper in Hong Kong) first published an article on this matter on 4 July 2004 (see figure 4), which was followed by a number of subsequent reports in local newspapers. Under increasing public pressure, the Beijing Department for Environmental Affairs held a public hearing on 13 August 2004, at which both representatives of the Summer Palace and those of ordinary citizens expressed concern about the visual pollution caused by the transmission lines. Regrettably, the Beijing Electricity Corporation and Department for Environmental Affairs deliberated evaded this question, persistently focussing the transmission lines’ compliance with permitted levels of electromagnetic radiation. Following the public hearing, the electricity company, in a laughable attempt to settle public criticism, painted green the nearest 3 pylons to the Summer Palace. Following continued pressure by the public, the electricity company finally removed those 3 pylons and ran the transmission lines under ground. However, this has not eliminated the visual pollution of the Summer Palace. In fact, the only acceptable solution to this problem is if all pylons within the buffer zone were removed and all the transmission lines were moved under ground. Only then can the world experience the beauty of the Summer Palace to a satisfactory extent. Figure 1: Northward view from the Summer Palace Figure 2: View of Summer Palace from the north side of the buffer zone Figure 3: Article of the Wen Wei Po on the effect of power pylons on the Summer