Museum in Chongwenmen
Fangzhuang Civil Art Museum
Listen to this story 1 min
The story of Fangzhuang Civil Art Museum
Fangzhuang Civil Art Museum stands in Beijing’s Dongcheng District, but the only solid historical context here comes from Chongwenmen, the former gate that once marked the southeastern part of Beijing’s inner city. That gate was part of Beijing’s city wall, and it stood immediately south of the old Beijing Legation Quarter.
Chongwenmen was torn down in the 1960s, along with much of the wall, to make room for Beijing’s second ring road. What replaced that old defensive edge is a transport node: today you can still read the line of the vanished gate in the street pattern around you, with Chongwenmen Nei and Chongwenmen Wai Street running north–south through the former gate, and Chongwenmen East and Chongwenmen West Street tracing the wall line east–west.
If you are orienting yourself, Beijing Station West Street runs diagonally northwest to Beijing railway station, and Chongwenmen Station is an interchange on Lines 2 and 5 of the Beijing Subway. The name also lives on in Chongwen District, the administrative division that existed from 1952 to 2010 before being folded into Dongcheng District.
So while the museum itself is not documented here, it sits in a part of the city where the old wall, a vanished gate, and today’s transport grid still overlap.
In brief
Chongwenmen was a gate that was part of Beijing's city wall in what is now Dongcheng District. The gate stood in the southeastern part of Beijing's inner city, immediately south of the old Beijing Legation Quarter. In the 1960s, the gate and much of the wall was torn down to make room for Beijing's second ring road. Today, Chongwenmen is marked by the intersection of Chongwenmen Nei (Inner) and Chongwenmen Wai (Outer) Street, which run north–south through the former gate, Chongwenmen East and Chongwenmen West Street, which run east–west where the wall stood, and Beijing Station West Street, a diagonal street, going northwest to the Beijing railway station. Chongwenmen is a transport node in Beijing. Chongwenmen Station is an interchange station on Lines 2 and 5 of the Beijing Subway. Chongwen District, an administrative division of the city from 1952 to 2010 and now folded into Dongcheng District, was named after Chongwenmen.
Before you go
- Time to allow
- 1.5-2.5 hr
- Address
- 四区 芳群园, Feng Tai Qu, China, 100079