In the wave of urban renewal, what should we learn from the architects of 100 years ago?

CBN: Many exhibitions and continuous academic exchanges have attracted many people to participate and formed a group of people who are interested in the generation of Penn architects, what do you experience from this atmosphere?

Tong Ming: I think it's a good thing that everyone can discuss from different perspectives and interests. I prefer the perspective of an architect, and the essence of the role of an architect is creativity, which can transform what is happening and what will happen into the built environment. This requires not only engineering skills, but also artistic talent, innovative spirit, and innovative thinking ability. The role of an architect is not only to inherit the tradition, but also to think about how to better explore the present and the future from the tradition.

From the perspective of the global context, the 20s of the 20th century was a period of vigorous development and active exploration. Le Corbusier published "Towards a New Architecture" and designed many revolutionary works, the Bauhaus appeared, and the American architect Louis Kang, a contemporary of the Chinese students at Penn, also emerged. It was a time of vigorous development, and the social environment was changing like never before.

Looking at the first generation of Chinese architects in this way, it is a completely different perspective. Among them, there are some very outstanding figures, such as Zhu Bin, Fan Wenzhao, Tong Ning, Yang Tingbao, etc., mentioned in "The Cornerstone of Huaxia", and their architectural works are partly to meet the requirements of the owners or the market at that time, and at a deeper level, many of them are revolutionary.

Architecture needs to be innovative and contemporary, and it is a major that can have both of them. On the one hand, it is constantly pushing the boundaries of what it is, and on the other hand, it is closely related to the real life environment, which is also a starting point for our series of exhibitions and research.

CBN: Can the study of this generation lead to some buildings designed by this generation of architects that have been renovated in recent years? What should I pay attention to if I do such a project?

Tong Ming: There are not many buildings of this kind that can be seen today, and they are all very rare. We have an example. In 2012, we contacted the government of Qinhuai District in Nanjing and started the renovation project of Tong Ning's former residence. The process is very complicated, first the planning and design are submitted for approval, and then the declaration is made to the cultural relics department, and the process is step-by-step, and there are many obstacles to overcome in the middle, such as personnel changes. However, all the units involved and those involved were particularly supportive of the matter.

The Tong Ning Memorial Hall is composed of two parts, one is the former residence of Tong Ning, and the other is the newly built museum next to it. There is a small corner of land next to the former residence, and when the Tongning Memorial Hall was constructed, the district government decided to develop this land into a new museum, and the new museum and the old hall were united as a memorial hall.

The old house can only be used for visits, and there are many restrictions on its use, but the new building can provide space to present more content. Last year, the old building was restored and opened to the public. The new building is still under construction and should be completed this year. After the new museum is built, the entire memorial hall will be in a complete state, and it should be able to operate normally next year.

Such a building, the public is very concerned. A while ago, I participated in an event about Lin Huiyin in Beijing, and some viewers talked about the demolition of Liang Lin's former residence in Beizongbu Hutong, and felt very sad, saying that "Beijing should be ashamed." Built environments like this, which can record history, will become more and more important today, after all, less and less. In addition, it is particularly important that the building is not an empty shell, but has a soul. If a building can have people, a story, and a rich history, it is even more valuable. This is also the reason why it is worth spending a long time combing and digging and transforming it.

CBN: You mentioned that Penn's generation of architects is studying and working in the changing environment of the world and China, which is similar to the current environment of urban renewal. From a historical point of view, how do you see the prospects of urban renewal and the issues that need to be paid attention to?

Tong Ming: What people do now is very different from what they did 100 years ago, not to mention 100 years ago. I want to highlight some of the same fundamental factors. Urban renewal is not unique to the 21st century, and cities are facing renewal as soon as they are born. The life span of a reinforced concrete house may be 50~100 years, and the previous brick and wood structure or a more primitive house may be one or two decades, and the physical and functional life span is changing.

What we don't fit in today is that we've just gone through an unprecedentedly simple and rapid expansion phase. On the one hand, a large number of urban environments and buildings have been built; On the other hand, the original systematic and refined work has been made rough and simplified.

In the past 30 years of rapid expansion, we have experienced simplistic mass production, and all walks of life have only greatly expanded in scale, but they have seriously degraded in intelligence and thinking. It is often said that many products are much less refined than when they were made by craftsmen in the past. Fineness is the result of the unity of heart and hand, and it is a comprehensive consideration, not a repetitive simple work.

Nowadays, there are so many factors that can be considered in any urban renewal project that they can no longer be simply copied, and every site, every object, every owner, and every function is different, and it feels like facing a huge challenge.

It is important to understand that in the old days, this was the most normal state. Every job requires designers and thinkers to make a comprehensive understanding and judgment of the context and process. I feel like we're just back to normal, the last 30 years have been out of the ordinary. Can a design institute grow to thousands of people, and so many people work in a refined thinking process? This situation has also brought a lot of harm correspondingly, causing a lot of waste and gross damage to the world we live in, which is worth reflecting on.

I don't think it's appropriate to think of urban renewal as a simple repetition of past work, or as a type of work. It is a kind of work that we need to treat with our hearts and intervene with spirit. A large number of historical built environments need to be renewed, not only old houses need to be repaired, but also a large number of human factors play a role in urban renewal. In any old community or old building, the basic changes need to make fine consideration of the functional system and human behavior factors, and then feedback to the basic transformation of the building.

On the other hand, we are exposed to more operational issues in our work. We should not only care about the things that we should care about as a designer, but also care about some of the contents within the scope of responsibilities of the owner, investor, operator and construction party.

Recently, we worked on a project in Nanjing, and the amount of money invested was not enough to cover the needs of the entire neighborhood to be renovated. But on the other hand, you don't need to invest so much. If you make an area where residents normally live magnificently, and the cost of living rises sharply, you will go to the opposite of things. How to improve and control the cost at the same time is more challenging and rewarding. It may be closer to the essence to allow the failed mechanism to return to its proper environment.

CBN: How should architects work when the financial and other conditions are not as good as before?

Tong Ming: There is a process of adaptation, as I mentioned just now, in the past 30 years, we have formed a habitual model, fast-paced, large-scale, high-input to do things, and now it may be more fragmented, small-node, gradual, and operate in an uncontrollable or unpredictable way.

As a profession, how to survive in this market environment is a topic with great challenges. But I don't think the construction industry is going away. As long as people exist in the world, they must live in a building or in the middle of an environment. The identity of an architect cannot disappear, it will always appear where it is needed.

The current discussion of the transformation of architects is critical, and the idea that we can no longer work with the label or image that everyone is accustomed to – that I want to be a master, that I am a work that I will do is a work of legend – is outdated and meaningless. More attention should be paid to how to continuously provide stimulating nutrients for the living world in the dynamic process of fast-paced social development.

People often complain about external factors that constrain the profession of architecture, but in fact many architects are relatively closed-minded, unaware of the changing context and goals of their work, and hold some of the views that were popular in a bygone era. We can't face the current problems with the previous expectations, for example, in the complex urban renewal work, the simple and crude state is the best to format all the status quo and disassemble it into a flat piece of land, but this is impossible.

A truly good architectural work must come from a fierce confrontation and dialogue with real problems. I think there needs to be a process of mutual debugging, and for now, slowing down is a normal reaction. It would be better to be slower, and to be able to accept more social participation and market debugging, I think this should be the consensus of the whole society. Tokyo, New York, and Paris all experienced a short period of extreme outbreaks for more than a decade, and then faced a major long-term crisis. If you look at the historical span, it is normal, and there is no need to be overly pessimistic, but we have to adapt to this change.

(Photo courtesy of Ziyunzhai Architecture Studio)

(This article is from Yicai)