Cross the street

Cross the street

Arcade refers to a building with a road through the building space, or a building on a street or alley, which can pass underneath.

Quick navigation

Panorama

The end of the century

Late 1980s

One autumn afternoon, when I was riding an old flying pigeon big curved beam women's bicycle past the official vegetable garden in Xuanwu District, south of Beijing, guanyinyuan, the only street crossing building in Beijing, appeared to me like a young woman with her pants stripped. Its west side had been torn down into pieces of rubble, and passers-by passed under it without any expression. Guanyinyuan tower faces south from the north. The arch made of grey bricks is about 3.5 meters high, 3 meters wide and 5 meters deep. On the top of the ticket, there is a circle of eaves with a plaque on the eaves. On the front, it reads "Jue'an" and on the back, it reads "Cihang". The upper part of the building is a large two small three Bay Pavilion Gallery building, gray single eaves tube tile, simple and simple. From the side view, the colonnade column and the side wall of the ticket hole are in a vertical line. In addition to the passage function of the ticket hole below, the guanyinyuan Cross Street building also has a unique function: it connects the upper and lower houses of the guanyinyuan through the pavilions and corridors in the upper half. The east side of the upper courtyard is about one meter higher than the west side of the lower courtyard. When the nuns of the temple were doing things, the monks accompanied by the Sanskrit sound of the chime of the bell meandered away from the building, which made the people waiting downstairs think. At that time, every Buddha's birthday and Bodhisattva's birthday, the nuns of Guanyin hospital stood on the street floor and gave medicine to the people on both sides of the street. The medicine was put in a small basket, tied with a rope and hung from the upstairs. The Buddhist world and the secular world were connected by that thin rope.

Scenes of more than half a century

The two temples of the upper and lower guanyinyuan have long been the days of ordinary people. Shortly after my unexpected visit, the whole area of Guanyuan college was razed to the ground, and reinforced concrete tall buildings rose up. In the whole city of Beijing, you will never see the second one like this again. Time has never deprived a thing of its life, but greed and power have killed it.

I found that it was nearly 20 years later that the skyscrapers hidden in the mountains of Mentougou. This discovery revives memories of the past. So, I spent 10 days looking for the crossing towers scattered in the mountain area of Mentougou. In Mentougou mountain, these street crossing buildings are large and small in size, skillful and clumsy in shape. The basic shape is gate type. The lower part is the ticket hole, and the upper part is the pavilion or hall. They are generally built at the entrance of the village where pedestrians must pass. Some of the ticket holes have been installed with gates, which open and close in the day and night, and some of them have placed statues in the upper hall for people to pray.

Junzhuang

It was a late autumn afternoon when I came to Junzhuang village at the junction of Changping and Mentougou. The Junzhuang building is located at the south end of the village. The Junzhuang village behind it is built against the mountain. The door of the Junzhuang building is blocked, and the whole Junzhuang village is under its protection. In the afternoon, the village is lazy and quiet. Two or three cool men and women are talking quietly outside the building. Inside the building, there are some stalls selling clothes and small department stores on the west side of the old and clean street. Few people buy goods, so the vendors sit in silence.

The grayish brown Cross Street building of Junzhuang was built in the Qing Dynasty. The concrete age can't be determined. The building is built of rubble, with a width and height of more than 6 meters. The entrance of the building is 4 meters high and 3.8 meters wide. On the top of the building, there are three hard mountain houses with purlin style. This house was destroyed in the fire in the early years, and then rebuilt. Its shape is relatively simple. On the west side of the Cross Street building, which is sleeping in the shadow, is a small courtyard. The Junzhuang village committee is in the courtyard. From the steps of the courtyard, you can walk to the top of the Cross Street building, stand on the top of the building and look north. The village on the hillside is spread out in front of you.

Circle door

In order to chase the direction of the sun, I came here two times one morning and one afternoon. The Cross Street building crosses a flood discharge ditch from Hengling to Dayu. The date of the building's construction cannot be examined. There was a remnant stele beside the flood discharge ditch, on which was engraved "the circle gate is the main way to and from, and the old temple of shengdijun, Wenchang emperor, and Yaowang...." Nowadays, most of the above-mentioned monuments have disappeared. About the Qing Dynasty, Shanxi Merchants paid for the renovation of the Cross Street building. The lower part of the building was built with rubble walls, and the upper part was built with three tile houses. The building is only ten miles away from Mentougou city. The surrounding terrain is flat, and most of the people living in it are no longer farmers. There are lots of weeds and rubbish under the tunnel. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, was it used to discharge water or for pedestrians? How much will hundreds of years change geographically?

Just as I was standing under the ticket hole of the crossing building, the door of a family on this side of the road opened. A woman in her 40s took out the garbage at the foot of the crossing building with a dustpan and turned back.

Qiansangyu

When I arrived at Sangyu Street building in front of Zhaitang town, it was already dark. I didn't want to disturb the farmers, so I bought bread to eat, drank the accompanying water, drove into an open courtyard on the left side of the crossing building, and curled up in the back seat to sleep.

Finally, he got out of the car and walked to the village through the ticket door. The sky was gray, and there were few pedestrians on the street. The road leading to the village was getting higher and higher. As we approached the hillside, a Catholic Church appeared in front of us. Continue to walk on the hillside, you can see flowers and madonna on the hillside from a distance, which is the holy land of the village.

The sun is getting stronger and it's time to take pictures. When I returned to the village, I went with an old man. He told me that all the people in his village believed in Catholicism. The church was built by himself two years ago, and the district also subsidized some money.

The former Sangyu Street building was built in the Qing Dynasty. The specific age can not be tested. It was rebuilt in the 1930s. Facing south, the main building materials are local rubble and gray bricks. The building is about 8 meters high and 11 meters wide. There is a circle of women's walls around the building. The stone plaque in the center of the building reads "Zizhi" and "Ningrui" in front of it. On the top of the building are three pavilions with Gables but no front and back walls. The top is covered with glazed tiles, like a head in coarse cloth and a satin hat.

On the stage of Liang Zhuang

Drive past Qingshui town and turn on the road leading to Taishang village of Liangzhuang. Take a rough asphalt road, then a gravel road. After turning two or three mountain bends, you come to an empty space. On the west side of the empty space is Taishang village crossing. The ground on the right side of the street crossing is covered with bean trees. Two men are beating beans with flail. I have seen this threshing tool on the Han Dynasty stone relief. More than two thousand years later, farmers in Taishang village still use it to work. Because Taishang village is on the top of the mountain, and there is not much harvest, flail beating bean trees is a suitable method for the local people, except for ordinary labor This method does not consume any energy.

The Cross Street building of Taishang village was originally a small-scale platform for coupons. It was built in the Qing Dynasty. It faces east from the West. There are women's walls on the platform, and a pavilion with two slopes is built on the platform. Recently, the whole cross street building in the village has been renovated, and three golden characters "Taishang village" have been built on the coupons. A shadow wall was built 7 meters in front of the building, and a large pool was built in front of the wall. There is a valley in front of it. Taishang village people's practice is obviously out of geomantic considerations, because Taishang village is on the top of a hill. Tens of meters in front of the village is a valley. A pool and a screen separate the small village facing east from the valley.

Liuliqu

Most of the street crossing buildings in Mentougou area are based on local conditions and materials. Because most of them are located in deep mountains, they are relatively simple and crude due to economic limitations. Liuliqu street crossing building, built in 1756, is the only one in the area with proper buildings and meticulous materials. In the past, on the 15th day of the first lunar month, there were lanterns and decorations on the upper floors, so it was called the lamp Pavilion for short.

Liuliqujielou was rebuilt in the late Qing Dynasty, and then in the 1990s. The main part of the Cross Street building is made of rough stone and blue brick. The width of the building is about 9 meters and the height is about 3.5 meters. Because it is located in the village where glass components are fired, its plaque is also made of glass. The front of the book "with the river", the back of the book "Lishan". Due to the superior local economic conditions, the construction of the Cross Street building from materials to labor is almost perfect. The three Bay hall on the terrace is no different from other ancient buildings. What's unique is that the glass roof on its ridge is composed of yellow and green glass components. In the middle of the ridge is decorated with an overhanging eaves gatehouse. On the gatehouse stands a treasure statue with a bottle on its back. At both ends of the ridge is a vivid shape of the kiss. On the head of the kiss is a flying dragon. From composition to firing technology, it can be called the peak of Chinese glass art.

From wanfotang to yangpoyuan

Wanfo hall, Yangpo garden and Banqiao are all existing buildings. Now they only leave a ticket door. Most of the villages in them have become ruins.

From Yongding town to the west, when we arrived at the Wanfo hall, we passed a simple ski resort. Three children about 10 years old were playing nearby. I got out of the car and asked them how to get to the Wanfo hall. One of the children pointed to the West and said, "get in the car, and I'll take you with me.". They agreed.

Chinese PinYin : Guo Jie Lou