The taste of China cannot rely on simple nostalgia, and the taste of China that China needs now must come from the present era, and it must be related to the development of production methods and lifestyle technologies.
In the past, the high-walled private courtyard was only a form, and to explore this form, we came to understand production and understand society. However, when the old production system disintegrates and the old social relations system is reconstructed, contemporary designers should focus on the characteristics of the current new era to express Chinese characteristics.
Author Feng Yuhui, President of Central China Urban Research Institute
And there is a question involved here, that is, what are Chinese characteristics? It's not that unlike foreigners, our unique is called Chinese characteristics, which I think is a bit of an inversion. I think that The Chinese characteristics should be in line with China's specific era, specific conditions, actual needs, and can self-consistently and clearly express the actual situation of China in a certain era.
Therefore, today's Chinese flavor must be to show the Chinese the scenery seen now standing on the deep historical accumulation. Yuan imitates Song, Song has imitation sheng Tang... There are all, but these "imitations" cannot represent the taste of that era.
China's modern history is miserable and poor, almost beaten back to the Stone Age, will be invaded by culture is not a very abnormal thing, play culture to eat first, cultural development has been interrupted layered. In Chinese history, there have also been several invasions and even dominations of nomadic cultures, and the Central Plains culture has undergone several twists and turns. The White House of the United States is a neoclassical building imitating Irish architecture, a bunch of European countries from northern Europe to the Mediterranean to the Middle East, copying and copying back and forth to change not too much, who still wants to divide the owner of so-and-so culture, everyone will only say where it originated.
Yes, "better", no, means he is not popular. It is difficult for you to directly define whether it is better or not, but it is obvious that it is popular or not, and whether it is popular or not has a good relationship with your cultural connotation, not so absolute. Rome's splendid culture was also directly destroyed by the barbarians, and after the Central Plains culture was colonized by the nomadic culture, spiritual and physical double colonization, it was not still integrated into a new splendid culture.
Culture is something that does not conform to the current era, does not conform to geography, does not conform to climate, does not conform to religion, and does not come up and pats the chest to say that it is better or worse, and it is precisely this inclusiveness that makes the complex and changeable and quotation-in-character "Chinese culture" can continue to evolve and inherit in the long river of history and become a Chinese culture in the true sense!
If you believe in this inclusiveness of Chinese culture, you can see the invasion of Japanese culture as nothing more than a small melody of the evolution of Chinese culture towards a new and new Chinese culture, and the resilience of Chinese culture is precisely brought about by this inclusiveness. If it is not tolerated, it will be fragmented, otherwise it will have to shout against the Qing Dynasty and restore the light now.
Those past designs and past objects with a Chinese flavor, they were created and designed, but they were not designed to express the Chinese taste at all, some things were limited by materials, some were limited by production relations, some were to express the royal taste, some were the wisdom of the working people... With the development of the times, these designs and things, because they became the grippers of the Chinese we understood that era, became the Chinese flavor of "that era". Just as the base areas behind enemy lines have a very Chinese flavor, the people's army has a very Chinese flavor, and this anti-epidemic campaign is very Chinese flavor, these are not inherited from the deep history of the past by the Chinese people, but are newly created based on actual needs and yearning for a better life, based on existing resources and past experience. As the times roll forward, when future human beings, and even today's foreigners try to understand and taste China, these have become the taste of China in everyone's mouth.
So I think that inheritance is to learn the way of expression, the means of expression, the art of expression, and in the end, our taste today always comes from the present. I think the taste is contemporary, just like the people of Sheng Tang will not feel that their decorative design has a Tang flavor.
Chinese taste is certainly not deliberately designated by Chinese, Chinese taste is everything that China shows at every moment. As a designer who constantly learns and studies means, methods, and tools from history, and constantly applies them to the current era, and constantly has new creations that are in line with the pulse of the times, then he must be Chinese. Just like some Japanese flavors are a combination of East and West, so what, really want to combine a thing, they grow up and talk to their parents, that is the Japanese taste.