The 2022 Beautiful Space Summit | 30 years of contemporary Chinese architecture to see the future of urban and rural planning

On January 21, 2022, at the "2022 Beautiful Space Summit" hosted by the Economic Observer, we observed the 30 years of contemporary Chinese architecture from a cultural perspective, looking forward to the urban architecture in the future stock era and the theme of upcoming rural construction.

Commentators:

Wang Mingxian, a famous critic of contemporary architecture, former deputy director of the Institute of Architectural Art of the China Academy of Arts, and chief expert of the Natural Architecture Studio of the High-tech Innovation Center of the Central Academy of Fine Arts;

Zhou Rong, famous architectural critic and associate professor of the School of Architecture of Tsinghua University;

compere:

Dr. Xue Jiang, Ph.D. in Exhibition Planning and Visual Communication, Cafa Academy of Fine Arts, and Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of Frontier Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University.

The rise and challenge of contemporary architecture in China

Xue Jiang: China's urbanization process has gone through 30 years of history, and there have been many achievements, but there are also many problems. Globally, the future direction of globalization is also rethinking, and climate change and double carbon emission reduction are invisibly affecting the design of public buildings. In which direction will the building go in the future, and what kind of development will there be in the future?

Wang Mingxian: Urbanization began in 1992, and the germination of contemporary architecture in China also began at that time. 30 years of development, at present, Chinese contemporary architecture has almost a place in the world, and 30 years of Chinese contemporary architecture is also a record of China's reform and opening up.

In the past 30 years, we have seen relatively few works of the first 20 years, but in the past 10 years, there have been a lot of excellent works, which is rare. This phenomenon in China is very complicated, on the one hand, there is richness and complexity, on the other hand, there are many problems, such as some cities with a thousand cities, and even the emergence of various ugly buildings.

Zhou Rong: Looking back at the 30 years of Chinese architecture, it is true that like other industries in China, it has experienced a state that can be said to be almost pre-modern, and can quickly enter the modern discourse system. In the modern discourse system, from very weak, both theoretical and practical aspects are in the blank stage, but about ten years, there is a state of Jedi counterattack, from the mid-to-late 90s to around 2008, Chinese architecture is actually in the West of the modern architecture influx of a large number, bringing a series of collisions and challenges.

But some up-and-coming young architects, especially those who had studied abroad and returned home, survived and struggled to survive the onslaught of Western architects, and after about a decade or so, they almost gained a foothold.

Judging from this tribute to Chinese contemporary architecture, we find that most of the works accounted for 70 to 80% of the works emerged after 2015, and it is less than 10 years now. The curve of Chinese architecture from passive resistance, to strategic stalemate, to rise is very steep. The overall strength of Chinese architects has now begun to have, and they can compete for a place in the international architectural arena and the arena. I think that's a very welcome look.

Just now, Teacher Xue's question said that under our new contemporary theme, especially double carbon is the top priority at present, under such a theme, can we compete for carbon discourse power in the field of international architecture, and we can carry out such a discourse power battle through our new architectural practice, I am still optimistic.

Today, the size of the entire economy has occupied the second largest pattern in the world, but the pace of urbanization is slowing down, and the scale of production is rapidly declining. In this case, in the future, Chinese architecture can enter the process of having a foundation, experience, and opportunity to enter the process of producing fine products.

On the cultural and social issues of double carbon, Chinese architecture still has a lot of debts, which is where Chinese architects can show their ambitions in the future. Whether it is elastic buildings or resilient cities, the field of double carbon will be a very important and successful place in the architectural world.

Xue Jiang: Just mentioned the development of architecture in the context of double carbon, in the cases selected in tribute to the 30 years, it is rare to see new architectural works related to double carbon and environmental protection. What stage are we in at the moment, and are there any more distinctive buildings emerging?

Zhou Rong: In the selection process to pay tribute to the 30 years of architecture, there is no lack of ecological and environmental protection themes, including low-carbon works, which may just be that we did not point out at that time. For example, the Lianzhou Museum of Photography uses a large number of locally dismantled waste materials, as well as local materials, which have made great contributions to energy conservation and emission reduction, which is an obvious double-carbon theme.

The Dune Art Museum is to protect the only remaining coastal natural sand dunes in North China, burying the building in the ground, of course, this kind of covered building itself has a very obvious advantage in energy saving, and it also plays a role in protecting the natural ecology.

The third is the Xiaoyuan Art Museum designed by Teacher Dong Yugan, which also uses the local factory building, converts the original boiler room into a café, and uses the original road and bridge pipes to make the Chinese garden-style small bridge flowing water conception. But since the cultural and social themes of these buildings are very distinct, there is no overemphasis on the technical contribution.

Wang Mingxian: And I think the requirements for double carbon, in fact, our selection is mainly for the cultural point of view, the humanistic point of view, so we do not take the double carbon as the main evaluation. But many works actually do this, such as the earliest, Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu, the second phase of the Xiangshan Campus of the China Academy of Fine Arts, which is actually very concerned about sustainable development. In fact, the theory of recyclability of Chinese architecture, ancient Chinese architecture is demolished, the old one is demolished to continue to build a new one, and the campus of the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts is also rebuilt with demolished old bricks and tiles.

The latest is the Jingdezhen Royal Kiln Museum in ZhuYi, which can not use air conditioning, ventilation and lighting is very natural, in fact, it is also very clever to integrate the double carbon requirements into it.

Let the design really enter the lives of the people

Xue Jiang: In the past two or three years, the new crown epidemic has continued to develop, and everyone is talking about the housing of the future people, the lifestyle of the future people, and the design of the future housing.

Wang Mingxian: Architecture and the city are linked to the way of life of the people, but why there are few houses in this selection, there are also reasons, it is reasonable to say that the house is associated with the lives of the people, it is a large amount. In the process of urbanization in China in the 1990s and the development of real estate in China, architects had limited voice and volatile space. Because China's young and middle-aged architects do not do a lot of residential design, they do more cultural buildings, because cultural buildings are more likely to develop relatively, and the so-called interference of Party A will not be so much.

I think that in the next step, China's thoughtful architects will do a lot of experiments in the house, which includes new aesthetic ideas, and the house should be more simple and mainly based on the function of life. This may be the need for the progressive development of society, the developer to truly serve the people, such a building can appear.

Xue Jiang: This question was raised to Teacher Zhou, the recent development of the Internet, big data, and the Internet of Things, the Internet has produced a new format, that is, all kinds of formats are emphasizing sharing, co-construction, and co-construction. In the context of the new Internet, how can the future development of architecture enable these innovative individuals in society, or collectives, to participate in the construction of future cities, or architecture, what do you think of this problem?

Zhou Rong: In the whole Chinese construction industry, an industry with a super large output value, the building materials industry and the construction industry are actually separated, which are two completely parallel tracks, almost non-intersecting.

The cultural circle of construction and architecture, or design, also has a considerable degree of intersection. So I think in such a divided, isolated state, many young people, especially young people who do not have a particularly strong resource ability, have almost no ability to radiate this creativity to the construction industry and to the building materials industry through individual efforts.

The construction industry itself has been high in costs for a long time due to its low technological content. A large number of people rely on manpower, a lot of dependence on traditional reinforced concrete, steel, glass, expensive materials, resulting in urbanization to bring happiness to the lives of ordinary people has not really appeared.

Aesthetic cognition and urban rebirth

Xue Jiang: Architecture as a constituent element of the city or society, the aesthetic of the building itself will affect the society or the city, for example, a building looks very good, but it is not good to look at it if it is not coordinated with the atmosphere. How to think about architecture through the output or production of cultural knowledge, to shape the entire city and even the entire society, to cultivate a very harmonious or good, aesthetically relatively high atmosphere?

Wang Mingxian: Not only cultural scholars think so, but architects also think so, because architecture has never been a single building, it is all associated with the environment and the city. A good building plays a very important role in the development of the whole city.

Just talked about the impact of Internet companies on architecture, which can not be ignored, in 1999, 2000, the cross-century time the architectural community raised a question, saying that digital architecture came out, and the physical building may die out in the future. But now, after 20 years, physical buildings are still developing, especially in China. I want to be associated with the whole city, with the whole ecology, with human science and technology.

As the growth of the city, the product of the collusion between the architect and the people is not the architect's own thoughts, nor the people's thoughts, but the result of everyone's collusion, and what is needed most now is an understanding of the city and the understanding of architecture, which is very important.

Ancient Chinese poets like Wang Wei and Su Dongpo have deep achievements in architectural gardens, Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber, professional knowledge is unattainable by most architects, but our current cultural people have an extremely superficial understanding of architecture, and the understanding of architecture is also very sad, I think it should now come from the enlightenment of Chinese architectural culture, or the great discussion of Chinese architectural aesthetics, so that people can truly understand the city, understand architecture, and understand the living environment.

Urban planning innovation in the stock era

Xue Jiang: Today, a large number of cities, especially in Chinese cities, architecture has entered a state of blooming flowers, in the case of the existence of various buildings, as a certain city or a certain region, how to do urban planning in the future?

Zhou Rong: In the initial stages of early urbanization, China's urban planning was formatted in a unified way, a bit like the way of large-scale industrial production, and indeed reached an unprecedented efficiency in human history. But today, China's space production has entered a stage of relative saturation and even local surplus. At such a stage, the marginal effectiveness of urban planning itself in spatial production will be diminished. In today's diminishing marginal benefits, the traditional urbanization model has definitely failed, including the current urban planning profession is no longer available, now called land spatial planning.

Most importantly, the city's large-scale transition from the incremental era to the stock era, the city now needs to be intensive farming, meticulous craftsmanship, space refinement transformation, urban continuous renewal, is the main topic of our current urban development. To enter a lot of more refined urban planning, especially the one-matter-one-discussion urban planning, with a high degree of flexibility and interactive capabilities, this is a very important turn.

Wang Mingxian: Cyberspace, I think it will play a big role in the future urban planning, urban design, and urban development of China or the world. Space has been digitized, which is the future direction of China's urban development.

From the perspective of China's future urban planning, on the one hand, there are many problems, but many new tools have been opened, such as big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, which provide a lot of convenience for modern urban planning, and we are exposed to things that were previously impossible to reach, which will make great changes in urban planning.

Local culture and cultural roots

Xue Jiang: After the state proposes to revitalize the countryside, a large number of rural road infrastructure transformations will be carried out. How to avoid the mistakes originally made in the city, the problem of a thousand cities, or a thousand villages. Second, to today's urban development for more than 30 years, all the way through, the experience of urban transformation in the future rural transformation process, including what architects can do in this field?

Wang Mingxian: The countryside is a very important subject, and this is almost the last spiritual home we Chinese, if we destroy it, we may end up homeless, which should be a very worthy problem.

Now architects are gradually moving here, and many young architects will do a lot of architectural experiments. Young architects have a lot of resources, a lot of design, I think the countryside is best to have their place to use, they find the roots of Chinese culture in the countryside, find the resources of local culture, this is a good design point.

Xue Jiang: Regarding rural construction, I went to many places to investigate and stayed in Tibet for five years. We found a phenomenon in Tibet, Mr. Dong Xiwen created a large number of oil painting designs in Tibet just after liberation, the Tibet Autonomous Region made three posters similar to the present, propaganda posters, distributed to the people of Tibet, the original people have never seen modern art, are thangka traditional art.

Later, I found that after sixty or seventy years, I went back to interview many herders at that time, as well as the current painters, and they said that Mr. Dong Xiwen opened our modern art education, so that we realized that there is another art form in the world, there is a cultural form, and many people have changed to become artists because of this.

In the process of going to the countryside to investigate, we found that the state invested a lot of money to build a new house where they lived, but there was a lack of cultural activity places and high-end cultural places in the countryside, and most parents or children had not been to art galleries or museums, because they were far away.

The second is that even after they come to the city, they dare not go in, they think that art galleries and museums have thresholds. How to crack this problem, the countryside has lived in a very good house, but about the export of culture, really let the rural people can experience, watch the more cutting-edge art and culture these things. In this regard, how do we dig.

Zhou Rong: Under the situation of the rise of the Internet, the city and the countryside were originally very far apart, and now it will be very close to the Internet, and the example of Dong Xiwensheng in Tibet just cited is very good, it is directly created in the local area, touring the exhibition in the local area, creating a cultural atmosphere, the culture is very important is not the content, it is the atmosphere problem, more people maintain continuous appeal.

First of all, there must be space, there must be continuous content, and more importantly, there must be intergenerational inheritance of culture, that is, willing to continue from the elderly generation by generation, including the generation of the next generation can be passed down, this is a system of culture can maintain vitality, because it must be internalized as a part of life. Rural construction needs some more intuitive, more attractive such a place.

The future of rural public education

Xue Jiang: Now there are many spaces for rural construction and transformation, and I have been to some villages and have built very well, but often the difference lies in the concept. After the hardware is built in the future, how should the future public education in the countryside be done?

Zhou Rong: If you are a really socially responsible architect, you must put yourself flat, rather than doing rural construction with a downward attitude.

When architects are designing, few people realize that they go in with a strong value proposition, and if they want to force them into the countryside, they will often have big problems. So I think we should not only study the abstract problems of the countryside, but also feel it realistically. At such a time, it is better to talk about social responsibility in the abstract than to really enter the countryside and fit in with the fireworks of the people, which is a kind of social responsibility.

Wang Mingxian: I think the problem of rural construction is two parts, the first is that the whole countryside should be a museum and art gallery without walls, so that children in rural areas can see such old buildings from an early age and have artistic influence from an early age. On the other hand, I hope to truly use a new artistic concept to guide the development of the countryside in the future and inspire the artistic self-confidence of rural children. How to emphasize people's self-confidence and give full play to people's creative potential should be the most critical issue in rural beauty.

In the 80s, There was almost no sound in Chinese contemporary architecture, and it was only in the 90s that contemporary architecture began to develop, and I think that in the past ten years of development, contemporary architecture has developed very rapidly, even exceeding the literature, art, and film just mentioned. Architects like Wang Qiu'an are rooted in the countryside. There is also Taiwanese architect Xie Yingjun is also rooted in the countryside for a long time to make some good buildings, I think in the end the construction of Chinese countryside is likely to play a role in the world.

Ruralism is likely to be the academic focus of China's future rural development in the world.