The Beijing West Railway Station became a controversial building during the construction process, with the focus of the debate being the retro-style pavilion towering over the north station building and the huge hole in the center. Some critics say it is an architectural group that successfully combines the style and modernity of the ancient capital, but some experts say it is a "retro-retrograde" failure under the slogan "recapturing the style of the ancient capital.
Beginning in 1986, Chen Xitong, then mayor of Beijing and secretary of the municipal party committee, put forward the slogan of "preserving the look and feel of the ancient capital," which led to many of Beijing's buildings in this period being built with large roofs to give traditional elements to contemporary architecture. Contemporary Chinese architect Zhang Kaiji was a major opponent of this trend and strongly criticized it on several occasions. He believed that the Beijing West Railway Station was also one of the main extremist development moves to "recapture the style of the ancient capital", and that the use of "building hats" as a means of "preserving the style of the ancient capital" was a way of "Fake it to make it look real". In 1991, Zhang Kaiji once in a letter to Beijing Mayor Chen Xitong has mentioned the negative impact of this trend.
"...... Chen Xitong once proposed to maintain the style of the ancient capital and recapture it, the reference is right, the practice is wrong. Because his focus is not to protect the ancient buildings, but in the new building on the big retrofuturism, building small pavilions, the role is to fake, clamor. I proposed a long time ago, can not be so engaged. Beijing West Railway Station to engage in small pavilions, I wrote to him, to advise him: "'small pavilions' used too much, will cause the new uniformity, people get bored. But it turned out that a dengue kiosk was built and $80 million was spent. Instead of building a state-of-the-art train station for such a large price, a backward one was built." --Zhang Kaiji (2004) , "Interview with Zhang Kaiji"
"I would like to summarize it in a few words, 'Conscientiously protect the ancient style, carefully design the new building, and resolutely refrain from making fake antiques'. The design of the Beijing West Railway Station is contrary to modern design thinking. What is the design philosophy of a transportation facility? It is high efficiency. The train stops on the platform, and passengers can get on the train in the shortest distance, the least time, and the fastest speed, which is the principle of a train station's design." --Zhang Kaiji (2004) , "Cultural Confessions"
Former Beijing Architectural Design Institute senior architect Zhu Jialu, who served as chief designer of the construction project for the Beijing West Railway Station in the early 1990s, confessed in a 2009 interview with the media that the design of the exterior of the station had been subject to a certain amount of leadership preference
"The ethnic form was one of the requirements of the leaders from the very beginning. At first we just put two bell towers at each end of the station, but the leaders concerned didn't agree, so we changed it to a slightly smaller pavilion, which still didn't work, and the final result was this big roof that is 30 meters high." -- Zhu Jialu (2009)
On the other hand, some people have questioned the "hollow" design of the West Beijing Station, saying that it creates a certain amount of wasted space, while in fact it is a means to match the subway's pre-built works and utilize the building structure. The design of Beijing West Station is also questioned by some people as a waste of space. In fact, this is a means of utilizing the building structure in conjunction with the subway pre-embedding project. The design takes into account the fact that the Beijing Subway Line 9 will pass through the central axis of the station and will be located underneath the West Beijing Station. In order to prevent ground settlement, the high-rise buildings of the station are located on both sides of the subway line, forming a central gap. In order to improve the visual effect of the central gap, the design is based on the traditional Chinese city gate building, designed as a 45-meter-wide and 50-meter-high "doorway". Since the opening of the West Beijing Station, its quality has been criticized, exposing a myriad of problems. Because of the Beijing West Railway Station had been called Asia's largest passenger railroad station, so the Beijing public also sarcastically Beijing West Railway Station for "Asia's largest tofu dregs project".
As early as the night before the opening of the Beijing West Railway Station, the night before the opening of the operation, docked at the platform to prepare for the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the first train, due to the leakage of water hoses, resulting in the bed of the road sinking, the construction staff had to carry out overnight to strengthen the bed of the road project, to ensure that the next day the smooth opening of the train.
July 28, 1997, the afternoon of the West Railway Station area suffered from a gale, a strong cyclone led to the partial damage of the glass roof, more than 170 pieces of glass falling with the wind, smashing the broken glass. More than 170 pieces of glass fell with the wind, smashing 8 cars on the platform, but fortunately did not hurt the passers-by. A similar situation occurred again on 12 August 1998, but due to the reinforcement of the glass roof after the previous experience, the damage this time was less serious, with only eight panes of glass broken on the unimproved portion of the roof. In addition, other problems included large tears and drops in the decorative ceiling, drops in the chandeliers in the ticket hall, and arching floors.
One of the most serious problems was water leakage. Due to roof leakage, wall peeling, water on the ground, seepage traces can be seen everywhere, the most serious situation in 1997 and 1998, the microcomputer room after a heavy rain water accumulation of nearly knee; consignment office of the underground warehouse of more than 2,000 square meters of baggage room was forced to change into a depository garage, connecting the line bag warehouse of up to 500 meters of the underground passageway water accumulation of half a meter, like an artificial river; waiting room and the entry channel roof of the roof of the leakage of water in many places, the need to Plastic buckets to contain the leakage of water.
The reasons for the quality problems at the Beijing West Railway Station include a short construction period and insufficient funds, resulting in a situation where the station has been opened but the project has not yet been completed, and it was delivered for use without completion and acceptance at all. Beijing West Station Project Construction Headquarters Chief Engineer Yang Si Xin has said, Beijing West Station is a "three-sided" project, since January 1993, the station has long been in the "design, construction, operation" state; and the construction period is very tight, the Ministry of Railways in October 1995, the construction period is very tight, the station has been opened, but the project has not been completed. As the Ministry of Railways requested in October 1995 that Beijing West Station be put into use before the Spring Festival in 1996, the total construction period was more than one year earlier than the reasonable construction period, resulting in a large area of interior decoration, waterproofing, water and electricity systems, heating and air-conditioning need to be completed in less than four months to install and test, while this period is in the low temperature and severe winter, some processes such as the waterproofing test was forced to be skipped, in the season not suitable for construction to catch up with the work, the result is that the station is in a state of "design side, construction side, operation side"; and the construction period is very tight. The result was that when the station opened, there were still many unfinished projects waiting to be finalized. In addition, the arrears of the project payment of Beijing West Station were alarming. During the construction period, various manufacturers and material suppliers kept demanding debts from the general contracting unit of the construction, and by the time the station was opened for use, the station still owed more than 300 million RMB to various construction units, and even three years after the opening of the station, the arrears of more than 200 million RMB were still owed to them, and there were some vendors who sued for the arrears of payment in court, which resulted in the problems of capital that prevented the station from carrying out the work of improvement, finalization, and acceptance of the completion of the station as usual. The financial problems prevented the station from being completed, finalized and accepted as usual. The Beijing West Railway Station, which was put into operation in 1996, was only initially inspected in December 1999 by the Ministry of Railways, the Beijing Railway Bureau, the Beijing Municipal Government and other relevant departments and the Beijing West Railway Station Construction Headquarters, etc. On August 7, 2001, the Ministry of Railways and the Beijing Municipal Government jointly submitted a report on the application for the national acceptance of the project of the Beijing West Railway Station to the State Planning Commission. In December of the same year, the State Acceptance Committee of the West Beijing Station Project conducted a formal acceptance of the West Beijing Station Railway and Urban Supporting Works, and the quality of its design and construction was rated as qualified. According to the planning at that time, Beijing West Railway Station is as a set of railway station, subway station, public **** transportation, postal and telecommunication hubs, commercial services, gold fusion as one of the modern mega comprehensive three-dimensional transportation hub, multi-functional integrated center, Beijing Subway Line 7 and 9 will be in the West Railway Station underneath the through and set up a station. According to the original planning and design, the Beijing West Railway Station, this "mega comprehensive three-dimensional transportation hub" of the diversion depends on the ground and underground support, travelers were through the subway and the south and north square out of the station, of which the subway diversion of 40% to 50%, the north and south squares share about 25% to 30% of the flow of people. But the Beijing West Railway Station opened for more than ten years after the operation, Beijing subway line 7 and 9 has not been completed, the subway Beijing West Railway Station building structure is completed and vacant for more than ten years, the South Square exit system has not been activated, resulting in the Beijing West Railway Station area for many years has been faced with serious traffic problems, the North Square overload. For travelers is to face "difficult to enter the station, difficult to leave the station, difficult to pick up, difficult to park" of the "four difficult".
In early 2005, a group of Beijing Academy of Social Sciences experts launched a research on the traffic problems of Beijing West Railway Station. The study report, which took one year to complete, pointed out that the increase in bus traffic around the West Railway Station was much slower than the increase in rail traffic. From 1996 to 2004, the Beijing West Railway annual passenger traffic increased from 17.42 million to 49.06 million, an increase of 182%, while the same period of bus traffic increased from 14.2 million to 25.39 million, an increase of 78.8%; and the north and south squares of the distribution of public transport capacity and a serious disparity between the North Square of the West Railway Station, there are more than 50 bus routes, while the South Square, only 4 departure lines. Business to support the station
"CASS report" shows that, in addition to the subway, the original planning in the uncompleted project also includes the South Plaza and its ancillary facilities, the main station southeast of the area of the road and municipal pipelines, the South Station and ancillary permanent power switching station, for the North Plaza and the underground bike path and other areas of the permanent power distribution room lighting, etc. have not been completed, the motor vehicle parking facilities are seriously insufficient. As for the exit system, only 14 of the 29 elevators originally designed were installed.
A large number of follow-up projects at the West Beijing Station could not be completed, the main reason for the maintenance of the serious shortage of funds. 1996 around the time of the investor in the West Beijing Station, the Ministry of Railways and the Beijing Municipal Government on the assets of the delivery, division, the two sides to form an agreement, "all the ticket to enter the (area) belongs to the Ministry of Railways, do not have a ticket to go to the Beijing Municipality "Thus, the inbound system of the West Railway Station, i.e. the elevated waiting hall, belonged to the Ministry of Railways, while the outbound system (including the station square, transportation facilities, etc.), mainly the first and second underground levels, belonged to the Beijing Municipal Government. For the operation and maintenance of the outbound system, the Beijing Municipal Government has determined a "business for station" model, suggesting that operational assets be leased or contracted to collect rents and contractual payments, and that public welfare assets be managed through property management to collect property fees and depreciation, and that these funds be used to maintain, update, and renovate facilities and equipment in the outbound system. In this context, the Beijing Municipality established the Hengxing Group, which is subordinate to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (Municipal Construction Commission), and undertakes the three major tasks of the outbound system: to ensure the safe and smooth exit of travelers, hygiene and cleanliness, and hardware maintenance.
But the facts show that the "business for station" model has been extremely ineffective. The operating costs of maintaining the outbound system are much higher than the revenue generated by the operating assets, and in the past ten years Hengxing Group*** owed more than RMB 60 million in debt. Under the financial difficulties, in order to save costs, the quality of operation of Beijing West Railway Station was also affected. For example, before 2004, the West Railway Station exit hall perennial lights normal annual cost of 9 million yuan RMB, but the actual must be controlled at 4 million, turn off the lights to save electricity caused by insufficient lighting, and the elevator also has a limited opening to use. Underground middle a 10,000-square-meter parking lot, due to ventilation and exhaust failure, Hengxing Group can not afford to refurbish, never put into use for 10 years.
In addition, in order to improve the operating conditions through commercial contracting, Hengxing Group has opened in the exit hall of the Jinglong, Hengxing two large markets, occupying an area of 12,000 square meters, accounting for more than 20,000 square meters of the underground hall of the total area of 60%. The Jinglong Wholesale Market covers an area of 9,700 square meters and has 622 stalls; the Hengxing Market*** has 36 stalls and covers an area of about 2,300 square meters. These stalls are rented to traders for the operation of clothing, shoes and hats, daily necessities, second-hand electrical appliances, and so on. The move also further exacerbates the poor exit.
The state to raise the station
In early 2005, the then vice mayor of Beijing, Jilin presided over a meeting on the transformation of the exit system of the West Railway Station, and decided to abolish the mode of "raising the station with business" and invest in the maintenance of the station with the state's financial resources, which is known as "raising the station with the state". "
Faced with the station itself by the quality problems left over during construction, as well as the opening of the operation of a large number of unfinished "finishing" projects, the previous "business to maintain the station" mode of a very serious challenge, equipment damage in addition to the inability to adequately meet the needs of travelers, resulting in widespread complaints. In addition to the damage to the equipment not being able to fully meet the needs of passengers, resulting in widespread complaints, but also brought about the criticism of potential safety hazards. As early as February 2, 2004, the General Office of the Beijing Municipal Government issued the "Beijing Municipality in 2004 in direct relation to the people's lives in the important practical matters to be done", "improve the environment of the West Railway Station" included in the "municipal government of the 56 practical matters in 2004", requiring the elimination of hidden dangers to improve the West Railway Station. Eliminate hidden dangers to improve the environment and social order of the West Railway Station area. At that time, Beijing West Railway Station had been in operation for 8 years, and the hardware facilities of the station's exit system did not conform to the original design standards, coupled with the lack of timely repairs and replacements, which resulted in a large number of aging and serious damage to the equipment. 15,000 lighting fixtures, of which only 5,000 could glow normally; 18,000 square meters of the ground floor was partially damaged; 35,000 square meters of the ceiling ceiling of the underground leaked seriously; more than 5,000 fire sprinklers, of which 80% did not work; and the fire fighting equipment, of which 80% did not work, had been damaged. sprinklers, 80 percent of which were inoperable.
In 2004, the Beijing Municipal Government invested RMB 70 million yuan in a large-scale overhaul of 10 hardware packages such as station equipment and firefighting facilities, which was the first time that government funds were directly invested in the maintenance of the Beijing West Railway Station. Among them, 7 million yuan was spent on repairing and replacing the floor, ceiling, and lighting facilities of the station's exit system, in addition to the comprehensive renovation and updating of the 1,100-meter-long fire exhaust pipe, 120 fire shutter doors, more than 2,200 automatic alarms, more than 5,000 fire sprinklers, and more than 80 fire hydrants. The West Station, the second floor of the underground Jinglong, Hengxing two markets are also completely demolished, the underground hall to restore the original design of the evacuation function, the government funded 15 million yuan, mainly for the market investors and merchants as liquidated damages. Project at the same time will be two street bridges linked to the introduction of the main building of the West Railway Station, passengers in and out of the station can directly walk across the street bridge; in the central hall to install electronic display screen showing the first and last bus from the West Railway Station time and line; repair of the underground non-motorized path lighting system in the North Plaza and the road surface, wall surface; will be compressed in the North Plaza public transport parking lot and social parking lot north side of the green space to expand the pedestrian walkway of 1,000 square meters; in accordance with international standards to re-plan and install the exit system. The guide signs of the exit system will be re-planned and installed according to international standards, and the regional TV monitoring network will be improved. In December 2004, the whole renovation project of the exit system of Beijing West Railway Station was completed.
Since then, the maintenance of public **** assets in the West Beijing Station area has been included in the financial budget of the Beijing Municipal Government, and in early 2005, the municipal government formally clarified the mode of "using the country to support the station". The management responsibility of the outbound system from the beginning of 2005 to the Beijing West Railway Station Area Management Committee (Management Committee), and determine the West Railway Station outbound system of non-operating state-owned assets to the Management Committee; Hengxing Group also separated from the West Railway Station Management Center, to become an independent legal person, specializing in the maintenance of the outbound system. However, due to the depth of the accumulated shortcomings, "to the state to support the station" and face the source of funds and allocated into a new problem.
In accordance with the provisions of the management of funds into the management committee department budget, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Finance can only be borrowed by the management committee, the annual allocation of 11 million yuan or so, for the Beijing West Railway Station out of the station system of water, electricity, air-conditioning, heating and hardware hosting, security and cleaning costs. However, Beijing West Railway Station still has many operating assets, for example, the annual income from the parking lot and the commercial part of the first and second underground floors reaches 7 million yuan. The outbound system did not carry out asset accounting at the beginning, so it was impossible to determine the total amount of assets, and it was not completely divested of operational and non-operational assets, which led to difficulties in calculating the government's appropriations. 2005, the Management Committee, together with the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Finance and the Municipal Construction Committee, carried out a four-month research on the mode of management of the outbound system, and in September of the same year, it submitted a report "Report on the Strengthening of Management of the Outbound System of the Beijing West Railway Station" to the Municipal Government. In September of the same year, they submitted a "Report on Strengthening the Management of the Exit System of Beijing West Railway Station" to the municipal government. At the same time, after consulting with the Beijing Municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, it was established that the positioning of the exit system of Beijing West Railway Station is a social public ****service place and its state-owned assets are non-operating state-owned assets. From the end of 2005, the Beijing Municipal Audit Bureau began a six-month audit of the operation of the Beijing West Station exit system.
Subsequent projects
In early 2005, the management committee invited more than 30 experts to conduct a special study on the problems of the West Railway Station, and set up a project called "Comprehensive Planning Study on North and South Squares and Underground Spaces of the West Railway Station of Beijing", to seek for technical solutions to ease the pressure on the North Square, so as to ensure the safety of railroad passengers coming in and out of the station. In the final report, five of the eight topics for the "how to use the space of the West Station", respectively, the traffic system adjustment and transformation program, space utilization planning preliminary program, as well as environmental landscaping, visual orientation and temporary facilities program, and put forward the North Square East bus station west, the launch of the underground garage and other corrective action plan.
The West Railway Station Area Management Committee also believes that the fundamental to dredge the Beijing West Railway Station is to start the delay of ten years of the South Square and subway construction. Beijing West Station has a south and north of the two station square, the design of the distribution of passenger traffic is estimated to be the south and north of the square each accounted for 30%, the subway diversion of 40%, and at that time will be designed for the main square of the south square, many thematic buildings are designed in the south. But because the South Square has not been opened since the opening of the West Railway Station, resulting in the vast majority of the passenger flow through the North Plaza distribution, but due to the North Plaza traffic facilities supply and demand imbalance as well as passenger traffic organization is not reasonable, has led to the North Plaza is obviously overburdened with traffic order chaos, traffic conditions deteriorated. At the same time because of the initial planning and design errors, the south and north direction of the vehicle can not pass directly, and bus stops and the south square is not closely linked, resulting in has been the development of the south square and the north square is very unbalanced. Passengers, pedestrians who want to cross the north and south, you must walk through about 500 meters long underground plaza of the West Station, very inconvenient. And the South Square surrounding roads such as Guanglian Road, Maliandao Road, Station Street East, Beijing West Station South Road and other four road construction is basically in a state of stagnation, subject to demolition and relocation of the constraints of the problem, the road network for a long time is not accessible.
In August 2010, the Beijing Municipal Government People's Proposals Collection Office identified the West Station South Plaza as a key research topic, and submitted a report to the municipal leaders to accelerate the construction of the West Station South Plaza after collecting opinions from various parties. The report was valued by Mayor Guo Jinlong and other city leaders, who instructed the Office of Beijing Major Project Construction Command (Major Office) to take the lead in implementation. Major Office has organized the Municipal Development and Reform Commission, the Municipal Planning Commission, the Municipal Transportation Commission, the Municipal Housing and Construction Commission, the Municipal Finance Bureau, the Municipal Traffic Management Bureau, the Beijing Railway Bureau, the West Railway Station Management Committee, the Fengtai District Government, the Xicheng District Government, the China Railway Property Group, the Bus Group, the Public Union, the Railway Construction and Management Company, and other 15 units were held 4 times the Coordination Meeting and the on-site meeting, for the South Plaza renovation project of the early stages of the construction, construction and demolition work, traffic conduction reform The company also held four coordination meetings and on-site meetings for the preliminary work of the South Square renovation project, construction organization, demolition and relocation work, traffic guide change, subway support and other issues.
Delayed for more than 10 years, Beijing West Railway Station South Square renovation project in November 10, 2010 officially launched. The renovation includes the West Railway Station South Road, Maliandao Road, Guanglian Road, South Square Planning Road 1, pedestrian bridges, underground passages, cab stands, South Square bridge pavement and underground commercial structure reinforcement project. After the completion of the project, the South Square will divert some passengers from the West Station, thus alleviating the traffic pressure on the North Square of the West Station.On September 22, 2012, the renovation of the South Square of the Beijing West Railway Station was officially opened, and the cab dispatching station located in the northwest side of the South Square has also begun to operate.