The Origins of Beijing and Washington D.C. Imagine a country as a forest, then the capital city must be the most big and beautiful tree in that forest. And in order to truly understand how does that tree grow so big and beautiful, the only way is not looking into its green leaves or fresh branches, but digging out the old deep roots, the place where the tree originated. Beijing and Washington, two capital cities from two powerful countries that stand geographically on the opposite side of the earth. The distance make them possess different language, different culture, different politics, etc. But they serve one same goal -- to become the representative identity of the entire nation. Building a city from nothing necessarily starts with the ideology. And the very first city ideology determines the original bone, blood, and skin of the city. No matter how many years past, …show more content…
While designing the urban fabric of the Beijing, Kuai Xiang heavily applied the principles from Daoism and its two branches: Rites of Zhou and Astrology. The zoning of Beijing are followed by the Rites of Zhou’s policy: “QianTang, HouQin, ZuoZu, YouShe.” which means “Front is Hall, Back is Residence, Left is Shrine, Right is Temple.” And the “Map of Beijing in early Ming Dynasty” perfectly illustrated and obeyed this rule.
According to the historic astrology map, Beijing was geographically located on the spot corresponding to Polaris, which was believed as the center of the sky. Then the stars from the constellation of Polaris also have spots corresponding on the ground, so those spot’s overall functionality and even name are determined by those stars and their meaning. For example, the Forbidden (Chinese: ZiJing) City is on the spot of Ziwei Star, which was believed as the imperial star, and the term “Zi” of the name“Zijing” came from the “Zi” of