Central Radio & TV Tower

Stand at the foot of this tower and tilt your head back. The concrete shaft rises straight up, pale and smooth, until it seems to narrow into the sky. Traffic hums along the road behind you. On a clear day, the light catches the upper pods and turns them a soft silver. On a hazy day, the top can fade into the air, as if the tower has no end. Either way, the first thing you feel is scale.

This is the Central Radio and Television Tower, in the western part of Beijing. It stands in Haidian District, close to the Western Third Ring Road. Haidian is the city's university and technology district. Its campuses, research institutes and office towers spread out to the north and west. The tower was completed in the 1990s, and for many years it was the tallest structure in the capital. Its total height is just over four hundred metres.

It helps to remember what this tower was built to do. It is not a monument first. It is a working broadcast mast. Its job is to send television and radio signals across Beijing and the surrounding region. Before towers like this, signals came from lower masts that city buildings could block. Height means reach. A transmitter placed high above the rooftops can send a clear signal much further across the flat North China Plain.

The 1990s were a decade of fast change in China. Television sets were moving into ordinary homes in great numbers. The country was opening its economy, and Beijing was growing outward ring by ring. A tall, modern tower carried a message as well as a signal. It showed a capital that wanted to look forward. In many cities around the world, towers like this became symbols of a modern skyline. Beijing wanted its own.

Now look at the shape. The design is simple and vertical. A single tapering shaft rises from a wide base. High up, the shaft carries enclosed levels that hold the observation areas and other facilities. Above them, a slimmer antenna section continues toward the sky. There is little decoration here. The power of the design comes from proportion and repetition. Your eye follows the long vertical lines upward, and the tower seems even taller than it is.

Here is a detail that many visitors miss. Although the form looks modern, the design draws on older Chinese ideas. Some descriptions compare its rising lines to traditional ornamental columns and to the slender shapes of classical Chinese architecture. Look at the base, too. The lower structures are arranged with care around the shaft. In Chinese building tradition, careful balance and orientation carry deep meaning. Even a broadcast tower here was planned with that language in mind.

The main reason most people come is the view. A fast elevator carries visitors up the shaft to the observation level, more than two hundred metres above the street. The ride is short, but your ears may notice the change in height. When the doors open, the city spreads out below in every direction. Beijing is a wide, low city in many places, so from up here you see how far it really stretches.

On a clear day, look for the green spaces first. Yuyuantan Park lies close by, with its lake shining among the trees. Further east, the dense centre of the city begins. With good visibility, you may pick out the line of hills to the west and northwest. These are the Western Hills, where emperors once built summer retreats. On many days, though, the air softens the distance into a blue-grey haze.

And here is a second surprise. The tower also has a revolving restaurant high on the shaft. The floor turns slowly as you eat, so the view changes from one direction to the next. Over the length of a meal, the whole city passes by your table. Revolving restaurants were a popular feature of broadcast towers around the world in the late twentieth century. This one keeps that tradition alive, and many Beijing families mark special occasions here.

If you step onto an outdoor viewing area, the experience changes. Up here you feel the wind, and you hear it moving past the concrete. The sounds of the city become a low, distant murmur. It is a good moment to think about the tower's working life. Somewhere above and around you, transmitters are still sending signals to homes, cars and phones far below. The tower is not only something to look at. It still works every day.

Back at ground level, the area around the tower tells its own story. This part of western Beijing combines wide roads, government buildings, parks and residential blocks. Nearby, the China Millennium Monument marks the arrival of the year 2000. Yuyuantan Park is a favourite place for local walkers, especially in spring, when its cherry trees flower. Early mornings bring people practising tai chi, the slow traditional exercise, and older residents walking together.

It is worth comparing this tower with the Beijing you may have seen elsewhere. The Forbidden City spreads out low and wide, in courtyards of red walls and golden roofs. Its power comes from horizontal space and careful order. This tower expresses power in the opposite way, through height. Together, they show two different ideas of the capital. One belongs to emperors and ritual. The other belongs to the age of broadcasting, when a single signal could reach millions of homes at once.

Before you leave, walk a little way from the base and turn around. From a distance, the full outline of the tower comes back into view. Notice how the sky changes behind it. At dusk, the light fades and the tower's lights appear one by one. The traffic keeps moving along the ring road. Overhead, the signals keep travelling. Take one last look upward. Then let the city carry you onward.