Thirty years’ watching the changing face of Beijing

Beijing's development and change has expanded well beyond the central business district, but for photographers there are the sweeping lines of Zaha Hadid's Galaxy SOHO and the later Wangjing SOHO. Wangjing is an area to watch. Since the neighborhood is closer to Capital Airport, there is more room for expansion, with a host of new buildings completed or still rising. Similarly, the high-tech areas around Zhongguancun which once were countryside south of the Old Summer Palace. Such areas also provide quality, modern living in environments that couldn’t be more different from the city's earlier courtyard hutong dwellings.

Rail travel has been a lifetime passion for me. In 1987 I arrived at Beijing's main railway station, and over the past three decades have witnessed quite stunning changes — both in the trains themselves and the railway stations. In July 1996, coming from Northeast China on a very rainy morning I stepped down onto a small, open-air station: Beijing South. Apart from the name, there is no comparison to the vast, modern and easy-to-use terminal, where the world's fastest passenger trains whisk passengers to Shanghai in under five hours.

Again with transport infrastructure, Beijing's main airport which was considerably expanded before the 2008 Olympics is now operating at capacity, or even beyond! Next year, 2019, it will be complemented by a vast new airport with eight runways in suburban Daxing southwest of downtown.

When I first came to Beijing 31 years ago, it felt like everything moved slowly. Indeed, with nine million bicycles on its streets the city had the reputation for the quietest rush hour in the world. Though bicycles are still present in the form of rentals, the city's avenues have now been taken over by cars in ever-increasing numbers — a situation I never thought I would come to witness.

So much has happened to Beijing since my first stay in 1987 at the Friendship Hotel in Haidian, when horses were pulling carts on Zhongguancun South. As I write this, it feels like I have only just started talking about the changes I have witnessed and documented in this city which has become my home, and whose streets I walk daily. This is a city that has vastly modernized, but one where I can still find great beauty and tranquility.