Materialised power and transitioning modernity: the architecture of Beijing Hotel, 1917–1974

Abstract

Located at the heart of China’s capital, Beijing Hotel comprises three adjacent buildings exhibiting distinctly different architectural languages from each other. Constructed respectively in the 1910s, 50s, and 70s, the three buildings witnessed the hotel’s drastic transformation from a French-owned commercial hotel to a national diplomatic facility under the changing political and cultural contexts of the country in the twentieth century. This article argues that the architectural design and construction of Beijing Hotel represents the interrelation and interaction of power, architecture, and modernity in modern China. Political environment and ideological concerns were largely materialised in the three buildings of the hotel from colonialism until the Cold War while, in turn, the hotel’s design process and built form also challenged and modified existing political agenda. Direct participation of national leaders in the design and construction process also largely influenced the final built form of the hotel. Meanwhile, the three buildings of the hotel represented the shifting approaches towards modernity throughout the architectural history of modern China. They shed light on what Shmuel Eisenstadt describes as ‘multiple modernities’ as China struggled to establish itself on the world stage as a modern nation-state.