Designer's conception of the main exhibition hall, one of the expo landmarks. Provided to China Daily

China Garden Museum design, a highlight of the expo. Provided to China Daily

Beijing will be starting its 9th China International Garden Expo, in the Fengtai district, in April 2013, with the emphasis on developing a friendly environment and resource-balanced approach to life, the organizers have said.

This biennial event first began in 1997 under the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development sponsorship in cooperation with local governments and has grown into an important international gathering of people in the gardening industry. It will run from April 2013 to October 2013.

This year's expo will be in the municipality of Chongqing in September. Previous sessions have been held in the cities of Dalian (the first), Nanjing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xiamen, and Jinan.

Thanks to Beijing's 40 prominent parks and 300 temples it won the bid for the 2013 expo two years ago, in December 2009.

The expo venue, in the southern part of the capital, near the Yongding River, is a key part of the government's restoration and development program and eco-friendly system around the river. The 267-hectare expo site is near the historic Lugou Bridge.

Construction work has begun and is expected to be finished by the end of next year. Some of its major elements are the following:

Garden Museum

The expo will contain the first national garden museum, with an area of about 6.5 hectares.

The China Garden Museum will use various high-tech methods to give a panoramic view of landscape gardening and the industry's achievements in China.

Exhibition Hall

The main exhibition hall has a planned area of 3.2 hectares and will describe the art of landscaping and leading technologies, new materials, and the most recent achievements.

It will also be the site of forums, seminars, business meetings and cultural shows on landscaping, the organizers have said.

Yongding Tower

The tower is another must-see item on the expo's itinerary. It is being built on Yingshan Mountain, on the expo site, as a museum at the centering of a group of other towers.

Planning Center

The west bank of the river will have an 8,000-square-meter center with the overall design of the expo and the new, eco-friendly Yongding River region.

The region is expected to be an ideal combination of traditional landscaping and modern high-tech development and a new attraction in Beijing when the expo site is unveiled in 2013.

(China Daily 08/26/2011 page7)