2003 Urban Design
Beijing and Bangkok: A Tale of Two Walled Cities

Massive population growth and exponential urbanization rates of developing countries are causing unprecedented environmental disasters. Beijing is being covered under the sand of the rapidly expanding Gobi Desert, while Bangkok, situated only a couple of meters above sea level, witnesses increasingly serious floods due to land subsidence.

The governments of both metropolitan areas have planned (and partially implemented) vast symptomatic protection measures to combat those lethal environmental threats. An enormous system of dikes and flood walls is under construction around Bangkok. Beijing will be protected from the sand by a network of tree belts. The mantra of Economic Progress dictates ad hoc political decisions to defend the places of human and economical accumulation from the nasty consequences of the problem, instead of structurally preventing the corruption of the natural environment. Bangkok and Beijing are in a state of warfare with their environment; scientists are warning that the proposed walls will disrupt other ecosystems, that the battle will shift to other terrains.

The King’s Dyke around Bangkok and the Great Green Wall around Beijing can also be read as expansion belts. However, implemented in different city planning models, both concentrical systems suggest the outer limits of the city. The wall outlines the city and its inhabitants more clearly against the rural background. The wall decides who will be protected and who won't, regardless of questions of responsibility for the causes of the problem.

A visit to the metropolitan regions of Bangkok and Beijing will offer me an idea of the dimensions of those huge environmental engineering works and how they affect the urban, suburban, and rural landscape.

I will explore both city regions by bicycle, at an average speed of 15 miles per hour, visiting a range of places from the city core to the countryside. In this sequence of places, I will try to find and document similarities and conflicts between local micro scale flood and dust protection solutions (the house, the street, the neighborhood, the village) and the government-driven protection program (the region, the country). In the end, the King’s Dyke is not more than an endless row of sandbags, and the Great Green Wall not more than an oversized line of trees.

China and Thailand