Located at No. 86 Huating Road, Shanghai, the Garden House is an excellent historical building with a century-old history. Since last year, the old house has been transformed and upgraded into a composite contemporary aesthetic space with design art collection and cutting-edge lifestyle - WS SPACE Wuji XiaobaiLou. Recently, Wu Bin, the manager of WS SPACE Wuji XiaobaiLou and a well-known designer, was interviewed by the "Surging News Art Review", in addition to talking about the restoration concept and design ideas of this old house, he also reviewed his own design path.
"In the next five to ten years, China's good design must be born in the soil of local culture," Wu Bin said, adding that the public's demand for oriental aesthetic design will become stronger and stronger in the future.
Wu Bin has won the 24th Andrew Martin International Interior Design Award, which is the most international award for interior design and furnishing art.
Designer Wu Bin in his remodeled design of the small white building
WS SPACE no set small white building
Huating Road, located in Xuhui, Shanghai, is a small road close to Huaihai Middle Road, but quiet in the middle of the bustle, with quiet streets and alleys and few pedestrians, as if time has frozen. WS SPACE Wuji XiaobaiLou is quietly located here, originally the residence of Hong Kong tobacco tycoon Ho Ying Kit, built in 1934, is now an excellent historical building, immovable cultural relics. In November 2021, this century-old mansion was taken care of by the well-known designer Wu Bin and became a new type of art experience space, starting from design, integrating art into life and space experience. On the day of opening to the outside world, it welcomed the first solo exhibition "Wang Tiande: Three Floors" held by contemporary artist Wang Tiande in Shanghai in nearly a decade. Recently, the exhibition has just come to an end.
As a well-known designer in China, Wu Bin has won the 24th British Andrew Martin International Interior Design Award, which is the most high-level award in the world, specifically for interior design and furnishing art. The award insists on selecting a hundred designers from around the world each year to produce the Andrew Martin Design Yearbook, and from it an annual award. At present, only Wu Bin has won this award in the mainland, and two Hong Kong designers have won it before, so there are three Chinese who have won the award. The Financial Times commented: "Wu Bin is the first Chinese mainland designer to receive this honor, and this award can be said to be a badge of honor in the interior design world." Looking back on his design path, Wu Bin said: "From the initial state of learning, to the Art Deco design style period, the concept of 'modern Oriental' to the design of the current landscape view, I think all of this is actually an accident in the inevitable." Judging the future direction of Chinese design, he believes that in the next five to ten years, China's good design must be born in the soil of local culture, and the public's demand for oriental aesthetic design will become stronger and stronger in the future.
ANDREW MARTIN Yearbook
Foreign media commented on Wu Bin's acceptance of the AM Award
Dialogue | Wu Bin
The Paper: In the past two days, the solo exhibition of contemporary artist Wang Tiande launched by WS SPACE Wuji Xiaobailou has just come to an end. We know that this old house is an excellent historical building in Shanghai, but also an immovable cultural relic, how did it transform into a new type of art experience space, and what is its design concept? Can you tell us about it?
Wu Bin: The first time we walked into Xiaobailou, we hoped to start from the century-old accumulation of old bungalows, connect with the contemporary Shanghai lifestyle, and create a new type of art experience space. In terms of transformation ideas, I hope that this place is not only connected with modern functions, but also a poetic presentation. Along these lines, we demolished the original redundant building outside the house and transformed it into a lawn and a poetic gravel path, creating a feeling of emptiness in the dense area of downtown Shanghai and bringing more possibilities to change. In addition, we managed every detail in the house, including the ginkgo tree, and whenever I saw the leaves of the old ginkgo tree drifting like rain, those beautiful moments were very touching to me.
WS SPACE does not set the ginkgo biloba leaves in the small white building
"Wang Tiande: Three-Story Building" exhibition site
Overall, this old house is also considered to be "repaired as old", but this "old" is not the other "old", I hope to make good use of this century-old bungalow, do a lot of meticulous work, it seems that nothing has moved, but let the space show a very well maintained look. It is worth mentioning that the time precipitation and past texture of this bungalow are very moving. During the protective renovation, we found that there were many layers of texture inside the wall, each layer has its own historical language, so we specially retained a part of the original texture of the wall. It can be said that we have retained a slice of time for more than ninety years, and we hope that it is a continuation of a timeline, which is in the present, or in the next five years, ten years, or even longer.
WS SPACE Wuji Xiaobai Building exhibited the scene
Since the opening of the WS SPACE Wuji Xiaobai Building, it has successfully held a number of art exhibitions, fashion releases and other different theme types of activities. The renovated WS SPACE has no set of small white buildings, as a new type of art experience space, combining the century-old history of Shanghai with the traditional aesthetics of the East, curating art exhibitions and theme activities, and generating certain inspiration for modern life, which is what we want to do and what distinguishes us from other traditional galleries. I think art must come to life, it shouldn't just be in the temple.
The Paper: When it comes to design, you won the 24th Andrew Martin International Interior Design Award, which is also the first time that a mainland Chinese designer has won this award. Looking back at my own design, what changes have I undergone?
Wu Bin: Looking back at my own design, from the beginning of the learning state, to the Art Deco period, to the concept of "Modern Oriental", I think it is a process from unconscious to conscious. My first period of Art Deco design style was mainly based on my upbringing in Shanghai and the experience of studying abroad for a few years, until 2010, when I was designing my own home, I began to think about what real design should be like, and what Chinese should be like to live in the current day. I found that any kind of life is actually not much related to style, the essence of life may be to find a sense of happiness, the source of happiness is related to the origin of culture, related to your own positioning, and related to a certain sense of security. I liked the house at first sight, I could stand in the front yard and see the plants in the dining room and the backyard through the large glass window of the living room, like a glass house in the forest.
Designer Wu Bin's home Huangdu Garden was designed in 2010
So I used the concept of "gallery" at the time, and I wanted to make a white box and get rid of all the decorations and stop having any design style. I want to return to the essence of life, make all the space into a state of "nothingness", and then think about how to live here in the future. For example, I like to ride motorcycles, so I designed the basement as a place for me to meet and chat with my cyclists, where I probably want a stove... I designed all the white boxes on the top floor because I could present my past collections and travel objects here.
Designer Wu Bin's current home is the garden above Fifty-one
I think the home should have some blank space, it should not be solidified after the decoration, it is gradually plumped up as you grow, this concept is a bit like a Chinese garden. Chinese gardens are said to be alive, gardening is continuous, did not say that this garden is built to stop, vegetation is growing, the owner needs to constantly take care of, if the garden does not have a master, this garden is dead. In fact, this concept is implicitly in line with oriental aesthetics, this secret combination is not my initiative, it is my potential unconscious, because the training of ink painting in my youth and the study of painting theory have made me unconsciously return to the chinese local context in the exploration of Western design classics, and thus the "modern Oriental" design language was born.
The Paper: When it comes to the training of ink painting and the study of painting theory, it may not be possible to avoid the enlightenment of your teacher, Zhang Daqian's disciple Fu Wenyan. Can you talk about your experience studying Chinese painting with Fu Wenyan at that time?
Wu Bin: I grew up studying ink painting, and the first time I visited Fu Lao, I took Wang Meng's "Qingbian Hermitage Map" that I copied. At that time, at the head of Fu Lao's bed hung a 1:1 watermark woodcut version of "Qingbian Hermitage", and I repeatedly copied the pictures in the catalogue of the history of Chinese painting, and only after seeing it did I realize that I was only about to come. This is also fate, Fu Lao especially likes me, so I became Fu Lao's youngest apprentice, and followed him to learn painting for about a year. In 1988, I won the highest prize in the Shanghai Jingyuan Cup Youth Calligraphy and Painting Competition, when I was only 18 years old, the youngest participant.
Yuan Wang Meng Qing Bian hermitage map
Later, when Fu Lao went to the United States, there was no contact, because communication was not as convenient as it is now. But after the foundation of tradition is laid, it will not be forgotten, and further up, it is more about the accumulation of your life and the perception and understanding of the world. During my study of painting, I basically read all the main painting theories of the Chinese tradition, although it was completely aimed at the perspective of painting and the perspective of technique, but when I was doing design, I suddenly understood the traditional Chinese painting theory from another dimension, which opened up a lot of space for my design. So we have now come up with the concept of "Landscape View Design", and we are currently doing a resort hotel in Anji, and in this project, we have explained this concept in great depth. The combination of the oriental concepts we have quoted and modernism has finally formed a combination that may make you look very contemporary at first glance, but feel that it is inextricably linked to oriental culture, which is both familiar and strange.
Video: Seamless Design for ongoing Chinese Hotel Project: WOH HOTEL ANJI (01:29)
WOH HOTEL ANJI
The Paper: So looking back at your design path, from your early study of landscape painting, to the initial extensive involvement in Western art classics, to the determination of the modern Orient, and finally to the exploration of Oriental aesthetics, and the proposal of landscape design, it can be found that this is also an accident of inevitability. So what problems do you think exist in the field of Chinese design at present? What is your judgment on the direction of Chinese design in the future?
Wu Bin: Yes, in fact, among the Western artists of the early 20th century, whether it was Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus School, Le Corbusier, the main advocate of modernist architecture, or van Gogh, the post-Impressionist painter, and Picasso, the founder of modern art, they were all connected to the East. In 1954, Walter Gropius went to visit the Palace of Gui and was so excited that he sent Le Corbusier a postcard, saying: "Dear, everything we have been fighting for has found its kind in Japan. In 1955, Le Corbusier also traveled to Japan, visited the Guili Palace, and sketched a lot of architectural sketches about the Guili Palace. They agreed that Gui Ligong had modernity and was ahead of its time. Needless to say, many of Van Gogh's paintings were influenced and inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e. Picasso even believed that "there is no art in the West, the real art is in the East".
Katsura Palace in Japan
I think these things have a lot in common, and now my judgment of the next five to ten years is also very clear, I think that in the next five to ten years, China's good design must be born in the soil of local culture, and the future public's demand for oriental aesthetic design will become more and more intense, just like the state of Japan more than twenty years ago. Japan introduced Western modernism earlier than China, and this group of architects began to have a Japanese aesthetic system by the second generation. So far, Japan's most mainstream and top architects are definitely still talking about Japanese culture, and the same is true in China. When China first proposed oriental aesthetics ten years ago, it became a recognized direction. I think that for a long time in the future, what grows out of the soil of the oriental context must be a major plate that is particularly important in China, which is not the same as the inspiration of early Hong Kong and Taiwan, Hong Kong and Taiwan will always be in a relatively marginal state, and when the soil of future culture is to really grow its own things, it must be on the mainland.
It is also based on the judgment of the entire trend, and our current logic is to use some orders, frameworks, and compositions of Western modernism to convey the aesthetics of oriental artistic conception. The research on traditional processes and materials that our R&D department has been doing for the past two years is also based on such value judgments to consumers. We have been studying paper for the past two years, there are more than 100 kinds of paper in China, and during this West Bund Art Fair, one of the pieces of furniture we launched was all made of paper. This kind of research and creation doesn't necessarily have immediate benefits, but I think if you really want to play some leadership role in the field of design, you have to invest in this kind of research.
Design requires thinking about retreats, not on any one project, in order to maintain your leadership. China's market is too good, everyone is completing the case very quickly, and the design needs more thinking and precipitation, not just following the trend. In contrast, the Western market may not be as good, basically in a flat state, or even a little bit down, so their designers have more time to go through the case. Again, design requires retreats, and not everything can be focused on obtaining efficient business benefits, which is somewhat a departure from design.