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Architecture has the unique ability to give people a way to look into past culture, because architecture can resist father time with its ageless beauty and charm.
The Five Roads area has hundreds of years of history; the area was originally a stretch of land with pits and ponds, at the south part of Tianjin. In 1901, it was included into the British concession. During the seven years from 1919 to 1926, the municipal committee of the British concession took the opportunity of dredging Haihe River to develop the area, filling up the pits and ponds for land and building roads there.
The evolution and development of the Five Roads area reflects the collision and blending of cultures between China and Western countries in modern times. It is historical witness of the urban growth of Tianjin.
It is impossible to trace back when the area got its name "Five Roads", which might have been established by folk stories. There are two different views as to the range of this area: one refers to the five roads, for example, Machang Road, Munan Road, Dali Road, Changde Road and Chongqing Road excluding Chengdu Road; the other refers to all the abovementioned six roads, neglecting Changde Road which is too short. The Five Roads historic area covers 130 hectares.
As Tianjin is the earliest and largest costal city in northern China, it is the place where the north met the south, where the foreigners and the Chinese coexisted. It was also where the economy boomed and market prospered as well as a close neighbor of Beijing. When many Chinese patriotic generals, important government and military officials, old and young remnants of the Qing Dynasty, Chinese and foreign industrialists and celebrated people settled in Tianjin, the Five Roads area was their first choice.
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