Tiananmen City Square, Beijing, China.

Tiananmen is one of the world’s largest city squares, covering an area of 440.500m². It was designed and built in 1651, on the former area occupied by the Tiananmen gate (literally the “Gate of Heavenly Peace”). The actual square is the result of Mao’s determination in transforming the space into a spatial manifestation of power through additions of buildings and monuments with political significance. Tiananmen square today, in contrary, is witnessing its depoliticizing. Slogans calling for class struggle have been removed, fountains for special occasions installed, a flag ceremony introduced explicitly for tourists and two 4,000m² strips of formerly hard paving have been rendered into lawns. Is it justifiable to depoliticize a public space to make it more attractive? #publicspace #squares #politics #history #tiananmen#mao #collectivememory #cityexplorations #beijing#china #eastasia