According to China Daily, the average Chinese building lasts 30 years; this is compared to 74 years for those in the US and an incredible 132 years for buildings in Britain.NJ

Mr Shan Jixiang, boss of the Chinese Heritage bureau attributes this fact to a trend of feverish development which not only flattens valuable and historic city centres and districts to make way for many 'superficial' skyscrapers producing identikit cityscapes. Importantly, this also wastes huge amounts of resources and pushes up prices of raw materials.

"Bulldozers have razed many historical blocks," Shan Jixiang said this week. "The protection of cultural heritage in China has entered the most difficult, grave and critical period."

"Much traditional architecture that could have been passed down for generations as the most valuable memories of a city has been relentlessly torn down," he said. He warned that without support, even more of China's heritage could be extinguished.

The China Daily reported that in Beijing alone, 4.43m square metres (1,100 acres) of old courtyards had been demolished since 1990 – equivalent to around 40% of the downtown area.

Another planned development will require razing large swaths of land around the capital's Drum and Bell towers, until now a largely untouched district.

While many residents want improved housing, complaining about dilapidated buildings and shared public bathrooms, campaigners say it is possible to upgrade traditional homes instead of simply knocking them down.

Shan warned that small and medium-sized cities were throwing up high-rises and skyscrapers in a bid to imitate metropolises, rendering too many cityscapes "rigid, superficial and dull".

He also said many buildings had been demolished while they were still usable, adding: "That is a disaster for both the environment and resources."

Last year, cultural heritage officials warned that urban development had destroyed tens of thousands of historic sites in the past three decades.

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