A hundred years ago, the founder of the "Bauhaus", Walter Gropius (1883-1969), reversed the existing German compound word "Hausbau" (house construction) and became BAUHAUS ("bau" in German means to build, "haus" means house in German, BAUHAUS literally translates to "house"). Today, one hundred years later, the term "Bauhaus" has evolved into a proper noun, referring specifically to the famous art and design school founded by Gropius in Weimar in 1919. Between 1919 and 1933, the Bauhaus had a very significant influence on the development of architectural and craft design in the world. In the world, the influence of the Bauhaus on art ideas and art education concepts is even more timeless, and is considered to be a hotbed of European modernist architectural ideas and new art ideas.
Shanghai has always had the reputation of "International Architecture Expo", and it is also the architect's "adventurer's paradise", in which we can find various architectural trends popular in different periods, and even explore the social and cultural background of the time from the architectural style. And the Bauhaus is inextricably linked to the city we live in, Shanghai. In the midst of the tall buildings rising from the ground today, we can also encounter modernist architecture.
Huang Zuoshen and Le Corbusier
From the first half of the 20th century, modern architecture in the West began to influence the architectural style of Shanghai itself. The mixture of Western neo-classical retro style and modern architectural style together constituted the unique architectural landscape of Shanghai at that time. In the 1940s, local architects who returned from studying abroad began to be influenced by modernist architecture, especially Richard Borick and Huang Zuoshen, who officially introduced the architectural concept of the Bauhaus to China. Richard Bolik studied at the Bauhaus College in Dessau and was officially employed by the first chancellor, Grobius, in his private office. As the architect of the Sassoon family's Times company, he was the main architect of the interior design projects of the Peace Hotel and broadway building; Huang Zuoshen was the first Chinese student of Gropius, who followed Gropius to the Harvard University Design and Research Institute for further study, and after returning to China, spent two years to prepare for the construction of the Department of Architecture of St. John's University in Shanghai, officially introduced the Bauhaus modern design education system into China, and also introduced the Bauhaus as a systematic modern architectural idea and modern architectural education system into the Shanghai academic community. The encounter between the two of them burst out of the "Greater Shanghai City Plan". The plan followed the principles of modernist urban planning, starting from the concepts of satellite towns, neighborhood units, and elevated roads, and laid out the direction of Shanghai's urban development in the next 50 years, but due to the turmoil in the domestic situation at that time, the architects' blueprints were ultimately unrealized. The modernist architectural works that we can see in Shanghai today are also forced by the shortage of funds at that time, and it is difficult to see large works, and only in some inviting small architectural designs such as residences can only first show the sharp edge of modernist architecture. And this kind of free architectural façade and plane, horizontal long windows, free form, simple shape, focus on function, economic rationality, no decoration or a small amount of decoration characteristics became the new and short-lived architectural style of that era.
For a long time after that, modernist architecture was actually snubbed in China. However, we can still find the shadow of a few modernist architectural works in Shanghai, and get a glimpse of the process of integration between Chinese architecture and world architecture. Next, let's follow the ideas of the three modernist architects, trace the existing modernist buildings in Shanghai, and embark on a "Bauhaus" journey.
"Father of the Skyscraper" Louis? Sullivan
In 1856, Louis? Sullivan was born in Boston, USA. The legendary architect proposed the "Formfollowsfunction." Providing theoretical guidance for modernist architecture, he was both one of the first American architects to design skyscrapers and an advocate of organic architecture. He designed notable buildings such as the Wainwright Building in St. Louis, Missouri, the Buffalo Guarantee Building in New York, and the Carson and Piret and Scott Buildings in Chicago. In his designs, one can feel his use of natural elements, which is one of the original intentions of modernist architectural design. From the existing early modernist architectural styles, we can find the shadow of this architect.
Remy Primary School is today's No. 200 Yongkang Road (Yongkang Road was formerly known as Remy Road), which was renamed Shanghai No. 2 Girls' High School in 1952
There are not many existing modernist buildings in China in terms of quantity, such as Shanghai Remy Primary School (1933), Shanghai Hongqiao Sanatorium (1934), Shanghai Sun Keji Maternity Hospital (1935), Peking University Girls' Dormitory (1935) are relatively early modernist architectural works, these buildings are not large, but have shown in the design idea of volume combination and façade modeling to follow the internal function, that is, sullivan put forward the basic principle of "form following function". Economical, applicable, hygienic, simple, and not extravagant modernist architecture has since taken root in China.
Old photo of Shanghai Hongqiao Sanatorium
Among the first batch of modernist buildings designed and built by Chinese himself, the most distinctive and representative is the Shanghai Hongqiao Sanatorium (after which the Hongqiao Sanatorium and the Jardine Hospital, founded in 1938, merged the two hospitals into Huaihai Hospital in 1958 and officially renamed Shanghai Xuhui District Central Hospital in 1961). Built in 1934, the Hongqiao Sanatorium is built in a form that fully meets the requirements of internal functions, without any decoration unrelated to the structure, focusing on functional practicality, and simple and beautiful shape. Its architectural space, especially in terms of meeting the indoor environment and convalescent functions of the nursing home for lung disease treatment, is considered quite carefully.
The main building has four floors, a height of 2.5 meters, and the ward is all south-facing, taking care of the sun's needs of all patients. The building's flanks feature large balconies, and the floors from low to high appear in a stepped cascade, giving the building's exterior a rhythmic beauty. Since lung disease patients require special isolation, a separate terrace box is separated in front of each room. The method of window opening in the Building of Hongqiao Sanatorium draws on the style of traditional Chinese furniture, in which the architectural style of the Western fusion is inseparable from the architect's own experience. This architect was Xi Fuquan, the first Chinese architect to be directly influenced by modernism in Germany, and it was also the first architectural work he designed. In September 1922, Xi Fuquan arrived in Germany and began his study. He graduated from the Department of Architecture at Darmstadt University of Technology with a master's degree in engineering; during his doctoral studies, he was taught by Ernst Bershimann, who was proficient in traditional Chinese architecture, which not only gave him a complete education in the Western architect system, but also gained a deeper understanding of the traditional architecture of his homeland. Although his work was structurally influenced by the German architect Richard Decker's 1928 design of a hospital with a terrace in Stuttgart, he used his works to illustrate for the first time in the land of China the modern slogan: the importance of sunlight, air, and the importance of the sun to architecture.
Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier, born in 1887 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, to a family of watchmen. He was the main advocate of modernist architecture, an important founder of machine aesthetics, known as the "standard-bearer of modern architecture" and the "father of functionalism", and in 1923 his famous work "Towards New Architecture" was published, in which he proposed that the house was a "living machine". His main representative works include the Church of Longchamp, villa Savoy.
The Wenyuan Building of the Department of Architecture of Tongji University is considered to be the earliest Bauhaus style building in China
If the completion of the Hongqiao Sanatorium was the embryonic period of the Bauhaus modernist style in Shanghai, then the Wenyuan Building, the teaching building of the Department of Architecture of Tongji University, which was completed in 1954, is the real Chinese Bauhaus style architecture. The free plane, the position of the walls of each floor is determined by the needs of the interior space of the building. The free façade makes the space between the floors of the building more independent. The long horizontal windows not only satisfy the lighting but also play a unique decorative role in the outer wall. These architectural features are mentioned by Le Corbusier in "Towards a New Building" and are also perfectly reflected in the design of Wenyuan Building.
According to the overall plan of the campus of Tongji University at that time, it was envisaged that the campus would be developed and expanded to the north of the campus, and Professor Ha Xiongwen and Huang Yulin presided over the design of the Wenyuan Building, and the main structural division was Yu Zaidao. Professor Xia Jianbai, then vice president in charge of school infrastructure work, and China's astronomical survey pioneers suggested that Zu Chongzhi, a great astronomer and mathematician in ancient China, be named after Wenyuan, and the font was extracted from Mr. Lu Xun's handwriting. Huang Yulin, one of the main architects of architecture, was a lecturer at the time. He graduated from the Department of Architecture of Hangzhou Zhijiang University in 1949, was the only proud protégé of Professor Tan Yuan in the architectural design course, stayed on to teach after graduation, and came to the Department of Architecture of Tongji University in 1952 due to the adjustment of national faculties. Before the completion of the Wenyuan Building, he unfortunately died of a brain tumor at the age of 28, which was a stranglehold.
Although the completion of Wenyuan Building seems to be an epoch-making work in the history of modern Chinese architecture today. At the beginning of its construction, due to the influence of the domestic retroist architectural trend at that time, modernist architecture suffered cold reception and even criticism, especially in that special historical era. It was not until after the reform and opening up that the value of WenyuanLou in the history of architecture was re-recognized by the academic community like a phoenix nirvana, and even it was considered to be the earliest Bauhaus style architecture in China, and the only typical one.
The architectural layout of Wenyuan Building is divided into two parts: the middle exhibition hall, the classroom part and the large and medium-sized ladder classrooms, with a total construction area of 5050 square meters, and all the classrooms and office buildings are facing north and south. There are many similarities between the architectural approach and the Bauhaus school building in Dessau designed by Gropius, and Gropius's advocacy that "the beauty of architecture lies in simplicity and applicability" is also reflected in the façade and floor plan of this school building. Under the economic conditions at that time, the general campus buildings were mostly low-rise brick-concrete structures, and Wenyuan Building was due to the special functional requirements for use, the initial design requirements were to set up astronomical measuring instruments on the flat roof for teaching and research work, so the use of three-story asymmetrical split-level reinforced concrete structure, but also the most solid teaching building at that time. It adopts the "giant column" and "double column" technique, so that the side façade not only has pilasters that run through three layers, but also interspersed with small columns to bear the load. On the plane, the corridor is used as a clue, and the teaching space with different functions such as exhibition halls, ladder classrooms and ordinary classrooms is connected. The façade design uses a large area of longitudinal windows to connect the indoor and outdoor spaces, and the wall surface adopts a large glass window, and the flat and long window that emphasizes the horizontal line also adopts a wooden frame with traditional Chinese characteristics. In order to facilitate the evacuation of the flow of people, the largest number of people in the ladder classrooms are all placed near the various entrances. The men's and women's toilets are set up in the east-west connecting corridors of the lecture halls, which minimizes the interference of the small classrooms and teaching and research rooms in the middle of the building.
Classrooms use large horizontal long windows to provide plenty of light, while vertical office windows form a repetition that changes the height of the windows and the height difference between the upper and lower windows. In order to echo the entire asymmetrical building, the entire front porch of the building is also asymmetrically designed, and the canopy of the back entrance porch is designed to be rolled up in an arc. This is reminiscent of the lightweight and transparent corridors and glass curtain walls of the Bauhaus schoolhouse, as well as the unified design principles of versatility. This building allowed the Bauhaus's modernist design ideas to mature in China.
In 2007, in order to better carry out building protection and restoration, and in order to meet the needs of the present, Tongji University set up a professional team to update its internal facilities and ecological and energy-saving transformation. Just as large glass windows are also not suitable for Weimar's cold winter climate, the renovation uses advanced technologies and equipment such as ground source heat pump technology, internal insulation system, energy-saving windows and W-E glass, solar power generation, rainwater collection system, LED energy-saving lamps, cold radiation ceilings and multi-ventilation. For example, the original 8 cm external insulation layer is changed to a 3 cm internal insulation material to avoid damaging the building skin of Wenyuan Lou, and at the same time, using Wenyuan Lou's own rich geothermal energy, using a ground source heat pump, 80 pipes 80 meters deep are inserted directly into the ground to ensure the indoor temperature of Wenyuan Lou from 16 to 17 degrees Celsius all year round, which is used for winter heating and summer cooling of the whole building. This series of renovations has brought this historic protected building that has experienced more than 60 years to life, just as its appearance of Chinese modernist architecture 60 years ago set a benchmark, and today she once again provides a reference example for the renovation, protection and repair of historical buildings.
Built in Pennsylvania Flowing Water Villa
In 1867, Wright, one of the Four Masters of Modernism, was born in Wisconsin, USA. He studied under Louis Sullivan and explored the laws of modernist architecture. At the same time, as a lover of oriental culture, he drew the idea of "Taoist nature" from oriental culture, and through the design of a series of residences, he created the architectural style of "prairie school". His masterpieces include the Flowing Water Villa, founded in Pennsylvania, and the Robbie Residences at the University of Chicago, the world's premier institution of learning.
The appearance and interior of the Yao Mansion, known as the "Strange House"
Just in Shanghai, there is also such a "Taoist nature" residence, Yao House. The time goes back to the early 1960s, when Comrade Dong Biwu came to Shanghai, he asked, "I heard that you have a 'strange house' in Shanghai, where is it?" I want to go and see. This "strange house" that Comrade Zhu De instructed Dong Lao to see is Building 4 of the Xijiao Hotel, a garden house that "introduces" the flowing water of a small bridge into the living room, and a glass curtain wall connects the indoor and outdoor garden houses that solve the problem of indoor lighting. Built in 1948, the designer referred to the photos of Wright's design of the flowing water villa brought back from abroad by the owner of the house, and its original intention was to make the building and the natural landscape intimate and seamless.
At that time, the building was entrusted to the design of Xietai Architectural Office, Professor Bao Like of the Department of Architecture of St. John's University, and Li Andyhua and Wang Jili of Tongji University finally built the "strange house" without the structural drawings. Similar to other modernist structures, it is also a structurally misaligned building, with a general layout freely organized according to undulating terrain, with the main building arranged horizontally in the northern part of the base, the dining room and living room on the ground floor of the semi-basement, and the pavilion-style bar room and greenhouse flower room deep in the shade of the garden. The top glass canopy of the living room can be fully opened, and there is a small bridge flowing water, and there are fish swimming around in the pool, just like the idyllic scenery of the small bridge flowing water people. A large number of walls inside and outside are made of varnish-coated wool stone masonry, the walls are crawled with turtle back bamboo, the escalator leading to the second floor is guarded by moso bamboo, and on the half-waist platform, a pavilion-style small bar is also built with moso bamboo, with a thatched roof and rich farmhouse atmosphere. The second floor of the house has a total of two living rooms of size. There is also a swimming pool built along the undulating terrain, with huge stones at the inlet, and the ziwei tree is planted on the stone, and the flowers and branches extend straight into the pool. The sky light and clouds lingered in the middle, and there was a great artistic conception of "the courtyard is a little deeper, and the spring is full of garden".
Such a naturally designed "strange house" and its owner Yao Naichi have always had a special love for reinforced concrete structures and modern building materials. He was the general manager of the China Cement Factory before the founding of the People's Republic of China, and the "Taishan" brand cement produced in the factory was used for projects such as the Qiantang River Bridge and the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum. His father, Yao Xizhou, founded the Yao Xinji Construction Factory, built the first reinforced concrete structure building in Shanghai, and also participated in projects such as the Waibaidu Bridge, the Central Bank Building, and the French Association.
In the 1960s, Yao Zhai was incorporated into the Xijiao Hotel and became the fourth building of the Xijiao Hotel, and since then it has been closely linked to many historical freeze-frame moments.