However in years to come, the Chinese capital may surprise visitors with its blue skies and clean air.

Daan Roosegaarde, a Dutch artist and innovator, has invented a giant seven-metre-tall (23 feet) air purifier that is set to be tested this coming September in the city with 21 million residents.

By working with the 37-year-old inventor, the Chinese government is hoping that blue skies will once again come to Beijing, which is ten times the size of London and is regularly troubled by air pollution.

 Will these scenes be history? The tower will be brought to Beijing in September and will be installed in a park in the capital

The colossal device, named Smog Free Tower, is the largest air purifier in the world, claims Studio Roosegaarde.

It can collect pollutants, process them and then condenses it into cubes measuring around four centimetres (1.6 inches).

The tower, standing about two stories tall, can clean 30,000 cubic metres (1,060,000 square feet) of fine smog per hour and uses no more electricity than a water boiler, according to Roosegaarde.

He teamed up with experts and designers from his studios to make the machine over a period of two years.

The designer from Rotterdam told MailOnline that he got the idea from a trip to Beijing in 2014.

‘Two and a half years ago I was in Beijing on a Saturday looking out at the city from the 32nd floor.

‘I could see the cars and other buildings but by the Tuesday or Wednesday, the view was completely covered with smog. It was so striking and so sad.’

Now Roosegaarde is working with China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection after being invited by them to bring the Smog Free Project to China.

The first stop is the capital, Beijing, where it all started.

The device is due to go on display in a park in Beijing in September. The exact location or the date of the test is yet to be revealed.

Then after Beijing, Roosegaarde has plans to take the idea further in China: ‘It will eventually go on to four cities which are yet to be decided.

‘There will be a poll where people will be able to vote for the towers to come to their cities.’

The Smog Free Tower prototype was tested this summer in a park in Rotterdam.

The smog that was collected was then turned into rings and given out to those who had donated to the Kickstarter page, which Roosegaarde set up to help raise cash in order to bring his idea into reality.

The fundraising page managed to collect over 113,000 euros (£94,000).

He says that the rings will be sold in Beijing but they need to get the tower installed to start collecting the smog first.

‘In one day in Rotterdam we managed to make around 30 rings but in Beijing because the smog is worse, we’ll be able to make around 300 or 350.’

He says that some people give the rings to each other as a romantic gesture.

Beijing has faced increasing issues with smog over the past few years.

The capital city frequently features near the top of the list of China’s most polluted cities.

At its worst, readings of the tiny poisonous PM2.5 particles reached into the high 600 micrograms per cubic meter through the capital, as compared with the World Health Organization safe level of 25.

When a red smog alert is issued, school are forced to close and cars are called off the roads.

For residents, however, they are left trapped in their homes constantly checking the air quality to see if they can return to daily life.

The humble face mask becomes a necessity and the purchase of in home air purifiers increases.

Spencer Musick, a 28-year-old American expat who has been living in the city for the past two years, says the smog was at its worst during the winter of 2015.

‘There were several days where the air quality near my house in downtown Beijing did not go below 600. My air purifier kept turning red and beeping at me as if to say “you should not be here, leave immediately.”

‘Many people don’t realise that during the bouts of heavy smog, a psychological shroud also descends on the city.

‘People on the crowded subways are more pushy than usual. Shop attendants in my hutong who had been so friendly just a few weeks ago just scowled instead of speaking back to me.’

Min Rui, a 27-year-old Chinese journalist from Beijing, says the smog can get unbearable at times:

‘The smog last winter was really bad. I remember once I went to work at 4am and it looked like a scene from the movie Silent Hill. ‘

To tackle the city’s notorious air pollution issue, Beijing’s Urban Planning Committee announced in February that the city would build a web of five ‘ventilation corridors’.

Huge passageways, each measuring 500 metres wide (1,640 feet), will be created using parks, rivers, lakes, highways and low building blocks

Looking ahead to the future, Daan Roosegaarde, the man behind the Smog Free Tower, has big plans for tackling air pollution in China.

‘There are other projects in the works such as a bicycle that sucks up bad air and produces clean air.

‘Bicycles used to be the main mode of transportation in Beijing but now it is cars. We can bring back bicycles to the city.’

The innovator says the tower is not just a design project, it is about improving people’s way of life.

It is also hoped that they will be able to work with universities in the country.

‘The tower is important and I would love to team up with universities in Beijing and Shanghai such as Tsinghua University to help come up with a solution for air pollution in China.’

Roosegaarde hopes that in 10 to 15 years there won’t be a need for these towers.

He says: ‘There is this quote that I like by Marshall McLuhan which says: “There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.” We need to engage people with a solution.’

Air pollution has become a daily battle and for many Chinese people it is normality.

The designer thinks that people should not accept smog: ‘Luxury items used to be Louis Vuitton bags but now clean air is the new luxury.’

According to Greenpeace on July 20, air pollution levels rose in nearly a third of Chinese cities monitored in the second quarter.

Air quality worsened year-on-year in 103 cities between April-June this year in 30 percent of cities monitored.

However Beijing’s PM2.5 levels dropped 6.9 percent to 59.2 micrograms per cubic metre in the same period, year on year.

The World Health Organization’s recommended maximum is an average 25 micrograms over 24 hours and 10 micrograms over a year.

Source: Daily Mail