Artistic rendering of the North Shaolin Temple

Shaolin Temple in Henan province will spend 2 billion yuan ($292.92 million) to rebuild a temple in Jixian county of Tianjin, United Daily News reported, according to chinataiwan.org.

After several rounds of fierce competition between architects from all over the world, Liu Peisen from Taiwan won the bidding with a plan to preserve the temple's traditional Tang and Song dynasties-era (AD 618-1279) look but also use environmentally-friendly and power-saving technologies.

Shi Yongxin, the abbot of Shaolin Temple, said the Jixian county temple, also known as the North Shaolin Temple, is the oldest branch of Shaolin Temple in the historical record. The temple was destroyed during World War II.

The renovation plan will be presided over by Shi and carried out by Liu in cooperation with Tsinghua University.

(China Daily September 28, 2009)