During the summer of 2025, I completed a professional internship with the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP), a non-profit organization guided by the Beijing Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau. CHP is committed to supporting the public in protecting cultural heritage, promoting community participation, and ensuring the transmission of technical knowledge in heritage conservation.
My internship mainly focused on surveying and documenting a traditional Beijing courtyard house (siheyuan) and researching its historical evolution since the mid-20th century. In addition, I conducted extensive fieldwork on traditional courtyard gateways (menlou), with special attention to their decorative brick carvings and conservation status.
The most memorable component of my internship was the comprehensive survey of a traditional siheyuan located in Beijing’s central district. Originally established in the Qing Dynasty, this courtyard served as a high-status gentry residence, with over fifteen interconnected rooms and a well-organized functional layout around a central open space. Unlike many courtyard houses that were demolished or altered due to urban planning adjustments and real estate pressures in the socialist and marketization-reform eras, this particular property was preserved first as a residence for senior military officers during the socialist construction period, and later retained as an asset of a gigantic state-owned real-estate enterprise.
In carrying out the survey, I applied methods including producing CAD drawings, measured sketches, and photographic records that were acquired in HSPV courses such as Documentation, Research & Recording and Digital Media. Complementing the physical survey, I conducted archival research and oral history interviews to reconstruct the neighborhood’s plan in the late 19th century and to trace social histories of the courtyard’s mid-20th-century occupants. These methods reflected skills that I gained from Material Histories & Ethnographic Methods, and Documentation coursework, while also requiring adaptation to the particularities of Chinese archives and property records. The project culminated in a presentation of my findings—both the documentation outcomes and the historical research narrative to CHP directors and real estate managers, which provided an opportunity to translate academic knowledge into professional heritage advocacy.
Alongside courtyard documentation, I conducted large-scale field photography of traditional menlou (gatehouses) within innermost Beijing. The goal was to assess the conservation of their brick-carved decorations and their embedded wooden pillar structure. These records will support CHP’s ongoing initiatives, including the development of technical manuals for courtyard repair and public outreach campaigns to enhance awareness of heritage craftsmanship.
Working at CHP exposed me to a diverse community of professionals and stakeholders: foundation founders, university faculty, conservation engineers, local officials, real estate managers, and citizen volunteers. This network illuminated the complex stakeholder dynamics underlying heritage preservation in Beijing, where governmental policies, market forces, and community interests converge.
The internship also deepened my understanding of the differences in archival practices between China and the United States, particularly in how property transitions, photographic records, and historical maps are accessed and interpreted. This comparative perspective broadened my methodological toolkit and sharpened my critical awareness of preservation practice in cross-cultural contexts.
Most importantly, the internship reinforced my long-term aspiration to contribute to the protection of Beijing’s historic environment. By engaging directly with documentation and recording, archival research, and public works, I felt closer to my goal of becoming an active preservationist who bridges technical skills with community-centered heritage stewardship.
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