新兴都市――北京.docVIP

新兴都市――北京 　　By Michael Wise 迈可尔?瓦尔斯 　　安徽省人事厅国际人才交流中心 陈莉 编译 　　 　　Gearing up for this summer’s Olympics, Beijing is remaking itself for the 21st century at full tilt. But there is growing awareness of the value of historical preservation. 　　为了迎接今年夏季的奥运会，北京正全力塑造自己21世纪的新形象，但是也有越来越多的人意识到了保护历史的价值。 　　 　　The highlight of a visit to the new Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall is the extraordinarily detailed scale model of the city that projects what China’s capital will look like in the year 2020. English-speaking guides dressed in scarlet-and-black silk tunics offer assistance to foreign visitors as pulsating lights flash over the exuberant mock skyline. The government-operated urban planning museum is housed in a four-story building the size of a major U.S. department store, and the model―a testament to the city’s current explosive growth―covers some 3,200 square feet. 　　Just outside the museum, which is located in the heart of the capital near Tian’anmen Square, construction proceeds at breakneck speed. Beijing’s latest transformation, driven by the turbocharged expansion of the Chinese economy and the city’s intense desire to present a new face for the 2008 Olympics, is producing a resounding clash between the past and the future. Although wall text in the museum proclaims a “perfect fusion” of the two, the rampant destruction of narrow lanes lined with courtyard houses dating back six centuries alarms many Beijingers who fear their heritage is on the auction block. 　　Yet amid the wide-scale demolition and new construction, some of the city’s most prominent historic landmarks―the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, and the Temple of Heaven―are undergoing their most comprehensive restorations ever. These, too, have sparked controversy, with criticism coming from the UN agency that oversees world cultural heritage, concerned the makeovers will leave these centuries-old structures looking freshly minted. 　　In the same way that they have invited leading foreign architec