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Robert Adams, Lee Ambrozy, Yung Ho Chang, Chen Ling, Jeremy Chia, Cui Kai, Dong Gong, Dong Yugan, Mario Gandelsonas, Han Tao, He Jingxiang, Hu Yan, Hua Li, Huang Wei Wen, Huang Wenjing, Jiang Jun, Jeffrey Johnson, Michael Kokora, Kengo Kuma, Andrew Lee, Joan Leung Lye, Li Han, Li Hu, Li Shiqiao, Nartano Lim, William S.W. Lim, Liu Jiakun, Liu Kecheng, Liu Yichun, Long Ying, Ma Qingyun, Robert Mangurian, Meng Yan, Ou Ning, Mary-Ann Ray, Daan Roggeveen, Ruan Hao, Eunice Seng, Shi Jian, Victor Su, Sun Yimin, Wang Fei, Wang Shu, Wang Yan, Shirley Woo, Wu Gang, Wu Liangyong, Xu Tiantian, Rocco Yim, Yu Kongjian, Zhan Yuan, Zhang Ke, Zhao Liang, Zhou Yi, Zhu Tao, Zhu Xiaofeng, and Darren Zhou
AA Asia Monograph 12/13
THE SOCIAL IMPERATIVE
WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY
H. Koon Wee
This book contains multiple short critiques, reflections, and manifestos, affording each contributing architect and intellectual the time and space to imagine new social paradigms in China. Emerging from a tumultuous history of high culture and complex territorial conditions, there is nothing straightforward about the social development of China. The complexity of the social practices developed by architects and shapers of the built environment can be explained in part by the last three decades of an intensified adoption of the market economy by the Communist Party of China, after an equally short three decades of closed-door communist control. There is no political meltdown like the democratization of the former Communist Bloc, but there is a constant managing of discontent and resistance across China. At the apex of the many creative and intellectual forces in China, architects harbor and give form to many tactics of resistance. Unfortunately, architects are also the instruments and minds complicit with profit-mongering developers and governments, pursuing unchecked urbanization, degradation of the environment, exploitation of the marginalized, and the creation of a very inequitable China.
Architecture and the City in China
H. Koon Wee's work focuses on the transcultural theories of design, especially in the questions of society and design in Asian cities. He is the editor of Singapore Dreaming: Managing Utopia, and author of a forthcoming monograph entitled The Other Factory: Late Industrial Forms and Organization in China. He founded the Cities in Asia Program at the University of Hong Kong, and was formerly Adjunct Professor of the Metropolitan Studies Department at New York University. As registered architect and founding principal of SKEW Collaborative, Koon was recognized in the recent Fifty-under-Fifty: Innovators of the 21st Century monograph juried by Stanley Tigerman, Ralph Johnson, Jeanne Gang, Marion Weiss, and Qingyun Ma.
THE SOCIAL IMPERATIVE Architecture and the City in China edited by
H. Koon Wee
This publication is the culmination of a three-year study of social issues in the architecture and cities of China. It involved visits to sites undergoing massive change, discussions and debates among architects and critics, reflections by practitioners about their own work, and activists lobbying for social change. Supported by the non-profit AA Asia, the contents relied heavily on original input and exchanges between architects and theorists committed to China, from Asia and beyond. Since the 1990s, AA Asia remains one of a few unique think tanks committed to the study of architecture and cities in Asia. As an advocacy with strong academic roots, it seeks to establish the differences across various postcolonial and Asian contexts, and recalibrate the role of architecture in a technocratic era dominated by the global economy. Cover art: the Chinese title she zai bi xing is a neologism based on the Chinese proverb shi zai bi xing, which means an imperative. She replaces shi in the neologism in a turn of phrase, where the social is invoked. Xing is highlighted in red to evoke the role of social action in this book. The colors and textures refer to specific revolutionary and cultural signifiers of China.
ATR045_Cover+.pdf 1 17-6-18 上ĺ?ˆ11:08
Robert Adams, Lee Ambrozy, Yung Ho Chang, Chen Ling, Jeremy Chia, Cui Kai, Dong Gong, Dong Yugan, Mario Gandelsonas, Han Tao, He Jingxiang, Hu Yan, Hua Li, Huang Wei Wen, Huang Wenjing, Jiang Jun, Jeffrey Johnson, Michael Kokora, Kengo Kuma, Andrew Lee, Joan Leung Lye, Li Han, Li Hu, Li Shiqiao, Nartano Lim, William S.W. Lim, Liu Jiakun, Liu Kecheng, Liu Yichun, Long Ying, Ma Qingyun, Robert Mangurian, Meng Yan, Ou Ning, Mary-Ann Ray, Daan Roggeveen, Ruan Hao, Eunice Seng, Shi Jian, Victor Su, Sun Yimin, Wang Fei, Wang Shu, Wang Yan, Shirley Woo, Wu Gang, Wu Liangyong, Xu Tiantian, Rocco Yim, Yu Kongjian, Zhan Yuan, Zhang Ke, Zhao Liang, Zhou Yi, Zhu Tao, Zhu Xiaofeng, and Darren Zhou
AA Asia Monograph 12/13
THE SOCIAL IMPERATIVE
WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY
H. Koon Wee
This book contains multiple short critiques, reflections, and manifestos, affording each contributing architect and intellectual the time and space to imagine new social paradigms in China. Emerging from a tumultuous history of high culture and complex territorial conditions, there is nothing straightforward about the social development of China. The complexity of the social practices developed by architects and shapers of the built environment can be explained in part by the last three decades of an intensified adoption of the market economy by the Communist Party of China, after an equally short three decades of closed-door communist control. There is no political meltdown like the democratization of the former Communist Bloc, but there is a constant managing of discontent and resistance across China. At the apex of the many creative and intellectual forces in China, architects harbor and give form to many tactics of resistance. Unfortunately, architects are also the instruments and minds complicit with profit-mongering developers and governments, pursuing unchecked urbanization, degradation of the environment, exploitation of the marginalized, and the creation of a very inequitable China.
Architecture and the City in China
H. Koon Wee's work focuses on the transcultural theories of design, especially in the questions of society and design in Asian cities. He is the editor of Singapore Dreaming: Managing Utopia, and author of a forthcoming monograph entitled The Other Factory: Late Industrial Forms and Organization in China. He founded the Cities in Asia Program at the University of Hong Kong, and was formerly Adjunct Professor of the Metropolitan Studies Department at New York University. As registered architect and founding principal of SKEW Collaborative, Koon was recognized in the recent Fifty-under-Fifty: Innovators of the 21st Century monograph juried by Stanley Tigerman, Ralph Johnson, Jeanne Gang, Marion Weiss, and Qingyun Ma.
THE SOCIAL IMPERATIVE Architecture and the City in China edited by
H. Koon Wee
This publication is the culmination of a three-year study of social issues in the architecture and cities of China. It involved visits to sites undergoing massive change, discussions and debates among architects and critics, reflections by practitioners about their own work, and activists lobbying for social change. Supported by the non-profit AA Asia, the contents relied heavily on original input and exchanges between architects and theorists committed to China, from Asia and beyond. Since the 1990s, AA Asia remains one of a few unique think tanks committed to the study of architecture and cities in Asia. As an advocacy with strong academic roots, it seeks to establish the differences across various postcolonial and Asian contexts, and recalibrate the role of architecture in a technocratic era dominated by the global economy. Cover art: the Chinese title she zai bi xing is a neologism based on the Chinese proverb shi zai bi xing, which means an imperative. She replaces shi in the neologism in a turn of phrase, where the social is invoked. Xing is highlighted in red to evoke the role of social action in this book. The colors and textures refer to specific revolutionary and cultural signifiers of China.
THE SOCIAL IMPERATIVE
FOR MY TWO Es, MOTHER, AND FATHER
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The Social Imperative Architecture and the City in China All rights reserved © of the edition, Actar Publishers © 2017 by H Koon Wee © of the texts and images, their authors First edition 2017
Published by: Actar Publishers, New York, Barcelona, www.actar.com Graphic Design: Lam Lai Shun Translation: H. Koon Wee Distribution: Actar D, Inc. New York 440 Park Avenue South, 17th Floor 10016 New York NY T +1 212 966 2207 F +1 212 966 2214 salesnewyork@actar-d.com Actar D, Inc. Barcelona Roca i Batlle, 2-4 08023 Barcelona, Spain salesbarcelona@actar-d.com Printing: Tiger Printing, Hong Kong Printed in Shenzhen, China
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ISBN 978-0989331791 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Library of Congress Control No.: 2016953801 1. China – Architecture – Design Theory 2. Social Mobility – Labor 3. Socialism – Architecture 4. Urbanization 5. Urban Planning – Renewal – Heritage 6. Habitation – Housing 7. Aesthetics – Rationalization 8. Identity – Tradition – Resistance – Culture This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in data banks. For any kind of use, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained.
Publication of this book was made possible by a grant from AA Asia. Frontispiece: Photographs of the word chai (demolish) written over properties slated for demolition in Beijing. First published in “City of Walls,” AA Asia Monograph 8, 2008. Images courtesy of Colin Choo.
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THE SOCIAL IMPERATIVE ARCHITECTURE AND THE CITY IN CHINA edited by H. KOON WEE
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CONTENTS FOREWORD | WILLIAM S.W. LIM
1
De-Haussmannization — Rethinking History and Tradition — Reforming Hukou
with Urban Agriculture — New Energy and Creative Sustainability — Social and Urban Sustainability
01 SPATIAL LIMITS OF SOCIALIST CHINA | H. KOON WEE 6 INTRODUCTION: SPATIAL LIMITS OF SOCIALIST CHINA
8
Social Upheaval and the Advent of Social Science — Social Action and Production of Social Spaces — Defensive Social Management
LIBERATED LABOR AND SOCIAL MOBILITY
12
Participation and Upward Mobility of the Ninety-Nine Percent — Racial Myths and Favoritism — Superstructure of Architecture—Production Functions of Labor — Exploitation of Labor in the Economy — Portrayal of Labor
SOCIAL CONTROL AND MODES OF RESISTANCE
22
Society Must Be Defended—Control and Discipline — No Place for the Discourse of Race and the Complex Geography of War — Urban Governance and Surveillance — Ground and Resistance — Bourgeois Human Rights and Traditional Interpretations
— Public Space and Women — Economic Experiments and Resistance as Heterotopia — Agency of Consumption — Borrowing of Public Resources under Duress
MEDIATED MASSES AND NETWORKED BODIES
32
Poorly Understood Consumerist Culture — Digital Networks and the Threat of
Social Connectivity — Media and Art in Service of Society — Communication and Interdisciplinarity — Technical Coordination and Socially Enacted Spaces
RATIONALIZATION AND SOCIAL AESTHETICS
40
Revisiting Techno-economic Coordination — The Impossible High-rise Form — Modernist by Design and the Limitation of Symbolism — Power and Bureaucracy of the Civil Service
— Vocationalization of Education and New Pedagogical Directions — Aesthetics of Utopia — Rhetoric of Tradition and Aesthetics
CONCLUSION: SOCIAL SCIENCE AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCT OF SCIENCE
50
History Replayed: Reconstruction of Society and Perverse Realms of Building
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02 MOBILIZING
52
INTERVENTIONIST CITY | MENG YAN
54
Voids and Topography as Remedial Action — Infills, Contours, and the Village Scale — Messy, Filthy, and Inclusive
SOCIAL HOUSING AND REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT FOR A LIVABLE CITY | HUANG WEIWEN
60
From Self-Organized and Communal to the Commodity Market — Comprehensive System and Subsidies — Structural Imbalance and Shortage — Low-Income
Communities — Basic Principles of Affordability and Livability — Real Estate Mechanism in the Making of a Livable City
DISABLED PERSON, DISABLED CITY, DISABLED ARCHITECTURE | ROBERT ADAMS
67
Chromo Sapiens and Heterogeneous Spaces, and Polychromatic Objects and Landscapes
— Models of Engagement and Communication Infrastructure — Otherness and Alterity: Courses of Action
WHERE ANTS, ARTISTS, FLOATERS, AND RATS HANG OUT | ROBERT MANGURIAN AND MARY-ANN RAY
75
Story #1: Everyone Goes Out and Buys a Buick, and Chaiqian in Styrofoam Village — Story #2: Nail Dingzihu Household — Story #3: Young Obata Spent Two Nights as a Member of the Rat Tribe — The Production of Space
FOUR REVOLUTIONS IN BIG DATA | LONG YING
81
Spatial Scale: Reducing the Statistical Gaps, and Building a More Just Society —
Time Scale: Retrieving Commuting Patterns, and Rectifying Inherent Inequalities
— Human Scale: Unaccounted Social Support for Floating Population — Social Scale: Decentralized Participation and Open-Source Models
TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE CITY | ZHAO LIANG
90
Research of the Ninety-Nine Percent — Housing as Commodity — Experimentation and the Developer — Urban Sustainability — Fundamentals
03 LABORING LAND WILL DO WELL. LAND CAN DO WELL. | MA QINGYUN
98 100
Building for Production — Land is Splendid — Agent of Social Change — Cultural Renaissance — The City is Not the Only Reasonable Outcome for China
BIG FOOT REVOLUTION | YU KONGJIAN
105
A Baihuawen Revolution for Design — Current Landscapes — Water and Floodplains — Production and Paddy Fields — Memory and Industrial Forms — Sponge City — Productive Architecture
AGAINST ELITISM | ZHANG KE
113
Social Life and Architecture of the Superstructure — Adaptation and Praxis
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PROGRESSING FROM TRADITION | LIU JIAKUN
119
Integrity of Materials — Rebirth Bricks and Low-Tech Strategy — The Invisibility of Materials and the Aesthetic Condition — An Artist’s Humility
GRAVITY IN LOCAL CONSTRUCTION | HUA LI
126
04 CONTROLLING
130
THE RAPIDLY THINNING CITY | WU GANG AND CHEN LING
132
THE OPEN CITY | LI HU AND HUANG WENJING
135
Architecture for the People — Potential of a Construction Site
Illusion of Urbanity — Insufficient Population Density — Isolated Islands Drive towards Modernity and City of Generosity — Lost the Power of Thinking about the Future — Restore the Revolutionary Power of Architecture
RECASTING SHOUGANG | JEREMY CHIA AND ANDREW LEE
139
Soft Power in the Form of Culture, Politics, and Diplomacy — Post-Industrial Commons and Nostalgia
DAILY LIFE AS WORLDVIEW | WANG SHU
143
Deep Civilization but Depleted Interiors — Perceivable Visions and Structure — Land and Density — Materiality and Labor — Memory without History
MULTIPLE IDENTITIES AND TEXTURAL DIVERSITY | MICHAEL KOKORA
150
One-size-fits-all Planning Module — Cultural Governance: Destruction as Protection — High Tactility and New Identities
URBAN RENEWAL AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF POWER | ZHAN YUAN AND RUAN HAO
156
Fragmentation in the Metropolitan Condition — Bottom-Up Power and Open Architecture — Introversion and Security: Weakened and Reversed Panopticon
05 RESISTING
162
POWER OF THE GROUND | ZHU TAO
164
End of the Pedestrian — Megastructures and the Destruction of Pathways — Effects of Being Ungrounded — Acts of Resistance
SHANZHAI AND THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF RESISTANCE AND ASSIMILATION | WANG YAN AND WANG FEI
171
Social Context of Assimilation — Poetry and Longing — Rapid Evolution of New Modes of Practice
BOURGEOISIFIED PROLETARIAT | H. KOON WEE, DARREN ZHOU, AND EUNICE SENG
177
Developer, Curator, Artist, and Architect — Conflicted Proletariat — Industrial and
Cultural Relations — Center versus Periphery — Exhibition Center and the Art Effect — Art and Urban Development — Politics, Censorship, and Artist as Bourgeoisie
PROTECTION AS RESISTANCE | SHI JIAN
188
Enhancement and Development at Qianmen — Social and Historical Research as Basis
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EIGHT URBAN MEMOIRS | HU YAN AND LI HAN
194
Dashilar Hutong District: Public-Private Alliance — Qilou Old Street of Haikou:
Production of Space and the Expansion of Capital — Nanluoguxiang: Gentrification and Disillusionment — Sanlitun: Illegal Conversions and Landmark of Everyday Culture — Tuanjiehu: Tactics of Extreme Privatization — Xibahe: Pets and Urbanity — Xizhimen:
Chaos and Ugliness as Everyday Textures of Life — Old Town of Xinchang: Dynamism and Unfixed Perspectives of a City
SEVEN YEARS AGO? THIS WAS ALL COUNTRYSIDE! | DAAN ROGGEVEEN
207
Airport: Connected — Flashback One: Truly Different Development Model —
Compound: Focus on Software — Bigger Picture: Industrial Economy to Export Economy — Tai Koo Li: Consumerism and Leisure — Flashback Two: Gijs and
Gentrification — Walnut: the Service Economy — Flashback Three: Real Value — The Great West Village Beisen Yard — Final Drive: Lost in Chengdu Again
06 NETWORKING
212
INSIDE-OUT PARTICIPATION | ZHOU YI
214
THE INDIVIDUALIZED COLLECTIVE | HAN TAO
217
Energy not Quality — Experimentation and Openness Condition and Context — Social Transformations in Architecture — Multiple Scales,
Multiple Light Conditions, and Independent Control — Service Space after Modernism
EXPERIMENTATION, EXCHANGE, LIFE, AND ART | XU TIANTIAN
224
POSTMODERN SUBLIME | LI SHIQIAO
228
Between the Countryside and the City — Art and Social Economy Hedonistic Utopia of Value and Dystopia of Entrapment — Consequence and Creator of Throwaway Culture — Spatial Displacement: The Corridors of Yiwu — World System and Banality
CITY AS TACTICS: CURATION AND REACTION | JIANG JUN
232
Shifts in Geography: All-Rounded Connectivity — Shifts in Economy: From
Industrialization to Urbanization — Shifts in Society: Rising Civil Society — Shifts
in Politics: Experimental Ground for Personal Freedom — Shifts in Culture: Selective Decentralization of Power
07 MEDIATING
238
MASS MEDIA AND CIVIL SOCIETY | OU NING
240
CIVIC POTENTIAL IN EVERYDAY ARCHITECTURE | DONG GONG
243
Governance and Institutional Aspect of Space — Mass Media and Intangible Public Space Place for Living — Public and Social Space — Living Relationships and Everyday Architecture — Tectonics — Contradictory Problems of Civic Architecture
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CONTEXTUALITY AND CONTRADICTION | NARTANO LIM
248
DEFEATED ARCHITECTURE | KENGO KUMA AND SHIRLEY WOO
252
Unrepresented Canons — Intrinsic Pluralism and Complex Systems Ground for Experiments — Anti-Object and a Strong Visual Sense of Material
Fragmentation — Dematerializing the Shanghai Shipyard — Subsuming the Folk Art Museum of China Academy of Art into the Landscape
DECENTERING BODIES | LEE AMBROZY
257
Tight Spaces: Linguistic and Non — Appropriated Spaces — The Value of Empty Space — Ephemerality and Contingencies — Contemporary Histories of Spatial Engagement
POLITICAL AND PUBLIC COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABILITY| JOAN LEUNG LYE
267
Awareness of Place and Culture — Redefining Obsolescence in Cultural and Ecological Terms — Interaction between Technology and the Biological and Ecological Worlds
08 RATIONALIZING
272
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON HISTORY AND IDENTITY| LIU KECHENG
274
ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN CULTURE | ROCCO YIM
279
MEGABLOCK URBANISM | JEFFREY JOHNSON
283
Cultural Bearings — Maturity and Modernity — History and Identity
Grandeur of Vision — Connectivity and Anti-Object — Spontaneity and Openness Superblock to Megablock Urbanism — Spatial Consequences: Walled Urban Islands, Mono-functional Enclaves, and Tabula Rasa — Social Consequences: Housing New China, Real Estate Bubble, and Mega Opportunities
NEW RATIONALISM | SUN YIMIN
291
Narrow Focus on the Process of Creation — Shallow Theory and Vague Concepts — Utility, Economy, and Total Aesthetics
CIVIC IDENTITY IN A SHARED CITY | CUI KAI
296
Consolidation and the Character of a City — Responsibility of Architecture: Alienation and Resentment — What Should We Share with the City?
NOTES ON AN ONTOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE | YUNG HO CHANG
301
Creativity and the Crisis of Architectural Education — Dealing with Big Issues — Language of Instruction and the Missing Links — Relationships Reconsidered — Remodeling the Core
09 AESTHETICIZING
306
AESTHETICS CULTURE AND HABITATION | WU LIANGYONG
308
Habitat as Cultural Construct — The integrated beauty of Yiwen — Elevated Aesthetics and Theoretical Revelation
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STRUCTURAL WEIGHT OF COLLECTIVE MEMORY | LIU YICHUN
313
Materiality, Place, and Reinvention of the Future — Connection of Time and the Human Body — Building of Production: Production of Building — Unexpected Kind of Dignity
ARCH-SCENARIOS IN RUINS | HE JIANXIANG
319
Establishing Fengjing: Tectonic Interventions in an Ephemeral Landscape —
Transforming the Honghua Ruins — From Building Production to Spectacles
TRUTH IN LANDSCAPE | DONG YUGAN
323
Faith, Authenticity, and a System of Practice — History and Knowledge in Cultural Exchanges — Experimentation and Value Systems
CULTURAL TRANSLATIONS | MARIO GANDELSONAS
328
Pedagogical Experiment in Interdisciplinary Translations — Reading and Writing the Chinese Garden
COMMON AND TIMELESS SPACES | ZHU XIAOFENG
334
BIOGRAPHIES
342 350 352 353
Inheritance of Tradition — Space for Exchange
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS GLOSSARY INDEX
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Residents in Shanghai protest against urban renewal, hoisting banners at the entrance of their xiaoqu with slogans such as “shaogao zhengji menmian gongcheng, duo jiejue baixing kunnan” (“reduce the political rhetoric of improvement, and solve the hardship of the masses”) . Image courtesy of Lam Lai Shun, 2014
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01
SPATIAL LIMITS OF SOCIALIST CHINA | H. KOON WEE 6
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MOBILIZING
INTERVENTIONIST CITY MENG YAN
In the discourse of architecture and the city—a conflicted dualism of an architectural urbanism or an urban architecture—there is a call for a deeper reflection of the role of an architect. Today, all professionals in China are described as congyezhe, which implies in the Chinese language a submissive position to the work at hand like a mere service provider. In such a professional climate, is it still possible for an architect to become an active agent of change or have an impact as a mediator of complex relationships? Are there possibilities for architects to practice in an expanded field? In addressing these concerns, Urbanus developed an urban strategy between 1999 and 2006 called the urban infill. A comparison between New York and Shenzhen shows the large amounts of urban voids in Shenzhen left during heydays of its rapid urbanization. These voids and residual spaces became instant opportunities for newer forms of architectural and urban practices. The voids can be redesigned for remedial actions, integrating new interventions with public spaces for a greater transformative effect on the city.
Voids and Topography as Remedial Action Many residential neighborhoods in Shenzhen were built on hills as a result of its natural topography and urban development. One of the Urbanus’ projects was at the entrance of the Cuizhu “Emerald Bamboo” Park. While the entrance sat on a parcel of land that was rightfully owned by a developer, next to a larger plot of land ripe for development, the government had requested the parcel to be surrendered as an entrance to a public park. This problem became an opportunity, where the architect was able to act as a mediator, not only between the government and the developer but also in design. The developer eventually agreed to give the entrance parcel back to the public in return for fifty underground parking lots, and the ascension to the park through this hilly gateway was designed with a public walking trail, breaking the steep incline into segments of walkable terrain. This architectural car park intervention was fully integrated with the intentions of the urban design of the park. 54
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Interventionist City
There were dramatic changes in the central districts of Shenzhen between 1998 and 2014. Today, these districts are forests of skyscrapers with practically no room left to build in. In the process of designing skyscrapers in such districts, it is arguably unnecessary to generate greater monumentality in each building. Instead, the programming and tactility of the built form would be of greater importance. In approaching a project of this nature, Urbanus was happy to fully relinquish the individual form of the tower because they would have become, at best, two very generic and economically-centered towers. In place of form-making, the real opportunity was in the search for shared public spaces between the two clients of the towers. The explorations led to vertically staggered public spaces alternating between interior and exterior spaces. This analytical examination of each design brief and site led to a confrontation of their banal realities, and it was up to the architect to demand a critical and reiterative mode of thinking to reveal the real potential of the project. The Civic Center remains the biggest unoccupied piece of land in downtown Shenzhen. This 600-by-600-meter urban plot is larger than the Tiananmen Square in Beijing. It was not only large but also empty, devoid of real urban intentions. The unbearable width of Shennan Road prevented pedestrians from approaching this downtown site, which represented an enormous waste of potential. Countless proposals were created in the past decade to solve this urban problem. In 2009, Urbanus pursued a research study of this site with OMA, and the joint proposal eventually won the bid. The successful bid created a holistic system that integrated various resources of the surroundings, tackling the bigness of the site with bold gestures, and confronting the complexity of the site with complex programs. There were There ought to be three primary components in the proposed urban system. architects who would Firstly, a large ring on the ground that connected all public elect to maintain a spaces above the ground with those underground was close relationship proposed. Secondly, the sunken space in the middle that with their hometowns preexisted the proposal was maintained. Thirdly, a system and cities and of spaces underground was proposed to fully integrate the improve them in small urban realm with the high-speed rail station of Shenzhen. increments over time. Shenzhen is the only city in China that had constructed its high-speed rail station underground, so that it can connect to downtown Hong Kong and Guangzhou in fifteen minutes. The convenience in the future would bring vitality back to the large emptiness. A high-speed national rail station, an inter-city rail station, and four subway stations were all connected by the ring. The on-grade development was also proposed to be connected to the underground, so that people can walk in and out of the ring to get above or underground, or simply to cross Shennan Road. The sunken space in the middle also carries multiple functions—it is not only a monumental place, but it also has very public functions in the form of a library and an information center. This will be a landmark of a city, even if it is evidently not a vertical landmark. There was a conscious effort to avoid a predictable verticality, and the iconicity and success of the 55
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MOBILIZING
Commuting pattern analysis for typical residential (left) and business (right) districts. Image courtesy of Long Ying / Beijing City Lab
is designed as economic engines, where the government is fundamentally looking for new land to sell. The planning for the 180 shrinking cities would have to break out of this economic dogma. The initial forecast shows that the Chinese population is moving towards the metropolises, no matter how hard China pushes for the development of small and medium sized cities, or develops the central, western, and northeastern parts of China. The reality is most cities around the world are typically not very big: for example, the United Kingdom has only one metropolis, London, and her second largest city may only be half or one-third in scale. Given the anomaly of Chinese cities, it may be possible to predict, with the help of big data, that the rate of migration into cities would still consistently high even after a decade of urban development. For these 180 shrinking cities, how should theirs planning methods be different? Should they reevaluate the need to develop more greenfields, and instead aim to improve the quality of life and increase job opportunities for their residents? Within the planning research community, there is a growing concern about ghost cities and the vacancy rates of residential neighborhoods or xiaoqu in these shrinking cities. Through the use of Baidu Maps and Weibo, there is an ongoing research assessing the occupancy rate within five hundred meters and one kilometer of any given neighborhood. The rate of urban growth that culminated in the current 654 cities and 1,000 towns in the past decade has exceeded growth rate in the past century, yet vacancy remains a serious issue. With the use of big data, a general pattern can be discerned by tracking as many as 800,000 building developments suffering from high vacancy rates. This can be supplemented with economics data to reliably inform the design of policy. In another example, researchers discover that as much as 50% of Beijing’s construction activity is informal, falling outside the reportedly planned construction activities. 86
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Four Revolutions in Big Data
Shrinking cities in China, 2000-2010. Image courtesy of Long Ying / Beijing City Lab. Data by Wu Kang, Wang Jianghao and Long Ying
The importance of this is magnified by the fact that 95% of all human activities and movements take place within the physical planned boundaries of Beijing, which implies that the unaccounted and informal construction laborers and their families would be finding support from within the actual social sphere of Beijing, not its planned sphere. Analyzing data pertaining to human activity and mobility, researchers also realized that there are distinctly different urban functions between Shunyi and Tongzhou in Beijing— two outlying residential districts with substantial migrant populations, even though both share the same commuting distance to the city center. Shunyi turns out to have the capacity of being a more successful secondary core outside Beijing than Tongzhou, because Shunyi can serve other northeast subdistricts of Huairou, Miyun, and Pinggu, and act as a mid-point between these sub-districts and Beijing.
Social Scale: Decentralized Participation and Open-Source Models In the research of cities, it is difficult to determine what kind of time frame is required for a fuller analysis. For example, pouring massive amount of research resources into the 180 shrinking cities may not be wise because the situation can be really dynamic. Some of these cities may no longer shrink after a decade or two. Hence, with the use of 87
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LABORING
LAND WILL DO WELL. LAND CAN DO WELL. MA QINGYUN
The root of the problems of Chinese society lies not in the cities but in the villages. Urbanization is not the cure-all to the issues China is facing. Based on the current rate of urbanization, another five hundred million of the rural population will be migrating to the cities. Urban infrastructure in China would collapse under such immense pressure. Instead of high-density cities, China ought to develop high-density villages. The emphasis of such density would lead to an expansion of China’s agricultural economy. Without an understanding of the make-up of villages, it would not be possible to truly grasp the city. Without a strategy for the rural, there cannot be a viable strategy for the urban. It is theoretically possible to fit the density of an entire County of Lantian into a 120,000-square-meter skyscraper, following the utopian vision of Frank Lloyd Wright. Such density can be encapsulated in a concept called Agri-Urbanism.
Building for Production The greatest intensity in the architectural discipline ought to be the activity of building, not the process or iconicity of design. Mankind builds for living. Mankind builds for production. And mankind builds for the land. Hence, one can create two new modes of work, namely, Landwill and CAN. Landwill refers to an awareness of the will of land. It is a developer without land, but a developer focused on the production of the land. CAN stands for Culture, Agriculture, and Nature. It speaks to the potential of the project. It is also part of the Chinese word canlan, which describes the splendor and magnificence of a place. A working framework of Landwill and CAN situates a body of work as a reminder that one should be most creative and respectful to the provisions of the land. There is a depth and wealth of life to the land aggregated in the form of planet Earth, nothing like the superficial surfaces of other planets that cannot support life form. Land is the only source of origin of mankind; one can either flourish with it, or waste it. Land is that which exists between the mountains and the seas, between heaven and earth, 100
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between mankind and creatures of the earth, between the city and the village. Land has given mankind an abundance of life. Does mankind learn to organize its resource, or flee from such grave responsibility? Land gave mankind a civilization founded upon agriculture. Land gave mankind a civilization founded upon cities. These resulted from the choices made by humanity. Humanity grew tired of urban life not because the rural was more attractive. It grew appreciative of the rural not because the cities had fallen into decline. Humanity does not need a false choice between the city and the countryside, but an alternative that transcends the physicality of location or place. This third reality is a state of mind, a context and a new spirit. Land is the dominant expression of nature’s destiny, offering agriculture as part of mankind’s instinct to expand, as well as offering time for mankind to nurture a culture.
Land is Splendid Land can. Land CAN. Land is confident. Land is reliable. Land is splendid. Its splendor grants mankind the opportunity to recover dignity, confidence and trust. CANscape is a region defined by natural parameters, and it flourishes through a symbiotic and dynamic network of culture, productive economy and natural environment. A CANapolis is a zone that accommodates the most vital system of production and habitable density. A CANacropolis is the nucleus which ignites the growth of a CANapolis. It is important to reclaim what land has once given mankind—creativity, originality, and productivity. Creativity is the inspired use of intellectual and technological prowess to exceed the limits of geography, space, and time, as well as to satiate mankind’s hunger for the faraway and the unknown. Originality is borne out of Productivity includes men, land, and living. Image courtesy of mankind’s deep sense of belief and a sense of grandeur. Ma Qingyun Productivity is the resilient capacity of all mankind, of all land mass, and of the state of living itself. The best way to show gratitude is to share the architecture, the produce, and the passion harvested so brilliantly from nourishment that the land provides. Since the dawn of time, the wisdom behind the art of agriculture was in an efficient use of land and the methods responsible for an increased harvest of crops, such as corn, rice, and wheat. In the West, viticulture and winemaking are some of the oldest agricultural activities, and the Chinese is only recently getting acquainted with these activities. Wine is the most profitable product that one can get out of grapes. It would be most interesting to combine the ancient art of viticulture with an ancient place in China. This slow and methodical process of production has begun to show signs of stimulating the place and mobilizing its society. This stimulation bears a certain similarity to the impact architecture has on a locale. Irrespective of its physical form or conceptual position, architecture is a social actor, necessitating a social responsibility. Architecture is 101
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RESISTING
Sanlitun (above) and Xibahe (below) Images courtesy of Drawing Architecture Studio
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cation next to the Central Business District. In this neighborhood, cars are not required. Every necessity required in life is within walking distance, including shopping, leisure, food, medical care, school, and work. In terms of its scale, Tuanjiehu is very livable. It is an excellent neighborhood made up of poorly designed buildings. In such a neighborhood, one can observe an unexpected privatization of the public realm. One can find shabby furniture strewn across certain portions of the public spaces. They look like garbage, but they are actually strategically placed by specific owners. They exist to occupy specific public spaces and privatize them. The logic behind is that furniture is private, no matter how badly they have fallen into disrepair; hence no one else can contest it. This privatization of public space is very common in the old neighborhoods of Beijing. Due to relatively lax management, all sorts of tactics are used to gain a bit of private benefits in the public realm. Similar tactics include the use of rubbish bins or broken bicycles to reserve parking lots along the street. Locked cages are used to transform public green spaces into private nurseries and vegetable farms. In the most curious cases, Beijingers would exploit the use of exterior security grilles. Installed on the exterior of windows, this security contraption would project outwards of a building to accommodate the outward swing of the casement windows. Such three-dimensional security grilles are popular with practically every household, because they serve a more significant purpose of allowing each window to gain air rights over the projected window space. The addition of this small enclosed volume allows each owner to pile up their private belongings inside it. These projected security grilles are becoming infinitely larger and protruding further to claim even more space.
Xibahe: Pets and Urbanity Xibahe has a lot in common with Tuanjiehu. They are both relatively old residential districts in Beijing, but they are geographically well-located. This depiction attends to the spaces of the animals, as much as they are interested in spaces for the human inhabitants. Pet keeping in China is an extremely interesting business. Elsewhere, most pets may have the opportunity to live outdoors in a kennel or a semi-outdoor environment, allowing them to retain much of their natural character. However, in a dense living environment as Beijing, pets would live in high-rise conditions as their owners. These pets would dress up when they head outdoors. Some may even wear shoes to keep clean. They would take the elevators and even learn to look both ways when crossing the road. The life of a pet has become exceedingly urbane. Apart from pets, there is an equal fascination with the large number of stray animals in Beijing. On the one hand, there are media reports of black market butchers selling stray animal meat for barbeques. On the other hand, compassionate residents and animal welfare activists would organize care groups to feed stray animals at regular intervals and locations. Beijingers have always had the tradition of keeping pigeons, for example. This tradition was brought into new conditions of high-rise living by the elderly residents. The cages that they build in their balconies would bring about a severe nuisance to neighbors 201
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Tuanjiehu Image courtesy of Drawing Architecture Studio
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NETWORKING
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INSIDE-OUT PARTICIPATION ZHOU YI The architecture of the Inside-out Art Museum and its interior were done separately, typical of projects in China. An architect’s work is considered complete when the building is constructed. In the case of a highly specialized art museum, another architectural design office had to be brought in to design its interiors. Hence the building and its interior, or the outside and inside of the museum, were results of a collaboration of two architecture offices. The architectural shell was designed by Cui Kai’s office in Beijing, and the inner casing was designed by Obra Architects from the New York. In the years of running the full program at the Inside-out Art Museum as its Curatorial Director, I was actively involved in the process of Obra’s design of the interiors, especially the functional aspects of the museum. There was an effort to try to think much further ahead of its current use. Obra Architects began by “softening” the white box. With very limited choices, a hierarchy and a series of transitions around the main exhibition space were created. Variations in lighting and in types of furniture, transitions in material, height control, and spatial orientation gave legible character to each area. When the museum is in use, such qualities not only offered opportunities for visitors to find their own space in the museum but also challenged the curators and content-makers to fill the layers with more content and to create a tempo with diverse activities for the visitors. As the exhibition program matured, the spatial potential of the museum was thoroughly explored in collaboration with artists from the International Residency Program. Every single pocket of space, every corner, and every hallway was utilized for temporary exhibitions at different times. These spatial experiments gave the museum an unpredictable edge, and a vital connection to the communities around. Spaces were used for multiple purposes. The meeting room, for example, was a popular classroom for the fast growing educational program. It was used for running classes in art history, painting, printmaking, and handcrafts several times a week. Once the museum opened, the operational territory expanded and exceeded the initial expectations. This is not a reference to a need for more space, but simply that the activities grew beyond the confines of the walls. The museum took on a greater experimental mission 214
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Inside-out Participation
to sustain its fundraising efforts and its public program for the surrounding local communities. The museum found itself in situations that demanded that each space becomes less formal and more flexible for different purposes. It was almost akin to asking the institution to take on an ability to mutate. There was experimentation with exhibitions to add or contain an extra layer of functional space. In one instance, a classroom was built inside an exhibition, and another occasion, an exhibition was curated on the inside of an existing exhibition. Special opportunities reveal themselves in such a way that the process of exhibition was afforded the same creative process as the art projects, catching the right moment to develop a new portal to another dimension in the world of art.
Energy not Quality The German artist Thomas Hirschhorn adopted the slogan “Energy not Quality.” In the everyday reality of China, there are great applications for such a slogan. From Inside-out Museum, exterior and interior. Image courtesy of a practitioner’s point of view, quality is always exclusive Budi Lim, 2015 in China. Given the fast-changing and unpredictable circumstances, there is an urgency to meet multiple demands in the daily operation of the museum. The main conflict is between rapidly changing needs and the rigid walls of museum. Designing it from the inside out, the giving up of quality should not be understood literally. Instead, there can be a renewed focus on the exchange of quality for greater participation. In the end, it is for no a lack of quality but a totally different kind of quality—a richer definition of quality that favors openness and participation. The spaces of the museum can become less and less defined, less categorical, and more open to diverse social groups and multiple functions. It seems that there is a growing need for an ever broader sense of architecture.
Experimentation and Openness In the reality of realizing a building from its conception to construction, there are complex factors at play. In 2013, the main proponent behind the Museum requested the hiring of a sculptor to create a relief for a stretch of wall along the staircase ascending towards the entrance of the Inside-out Theater. With a preference for a more holistic and conceptual approach, an architect was selected in place of a sculptor. Long-time collaborator and architect Thomas Tsang took the opportunity to further experiment within the premise of an exhibition space. Tsang eventually proposed a Miniature Museum—the creation of an exhibition space by hollowing out the two-meter-thick wall. It was a discovery of something out of nothingness. Tsang intends it as a space to exhibit and collect events 215
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ATR045_Cover+.pdf 1 17-6-18 上ĺ?ˆ11:08
Robert Adams, Lee Ambrozy, Yung Ho Chang, Chen Ling, Jeremy Chia, Cui Kai, Dong Gong, Dong Yugan, Mario Gandelsonas, Han Tao, He Jingxiang, Hu Yan, Hua Li, Huang Wei Wen, Huang Wenjing, Jiang Jun, Jeffrey Johnson, Michael Kokora, Kengo Kuma, Andrew Lee, Joan Leung Lye, Li Han, Li Hu, Li Shiqiao, Nartano Lim, William S.W. Lim, Liu Jiakun, Liu Kecheng, Liu Yichun, Long Ying, Ma Qingyun, Robert Mangurian, Meng Yan, Ou Ning, Mary-Ann Ray, Daan Roggeveen, Ruan Hao, Eunice Seng, Shi Jian, Victor Su, Sun Yimin, Wang Fei, Wang Shu, Wang Yan, Shirley Woo, Wu Gang, Wu Liangyong, Xu Tiantian, Rocco Yim, Yu Kongjian, Zhan Yuan, Zhang Ke, Zhao Liang, Zhou Yi, Zhu Tao, Zhu Xiaofeng, and Darren Zhou
AA Asia Monograph 12/13
THE SOCIAL IMPERATIVE
WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY
H. Koon Wee
This book contains multiple short critiques, reflections, and manifestos, affording each contributing architect and intellectual the time and space to imagine new social paradigms in China. Emerging from a tumultuous history of high culture and complex territorial conditions, there is nothing straightforward about the social development of China. The complexity of the social practices developed by architects and shapers of the built environment can be explained in part by the last three decades of an intensified adoption of the market economy by the Communist Party of China, after an equally short three decades of closed-door communist control. There is no political meltdown like the democratization of the former Communist Bloc, but there is a constant managing of discontent and resistance across China. At the apex of the many creative and intellectual forces in China, architects harbor and give form to many tactics of resistance. Unfortunately, architects are also the instruments and minds complicit with profit-mongering developers and governments, pursuing unchecked urbanization, degradation of the environment, exploitation of the marginalized, and the creation of a very inequitable China.
Architecture and the City in China
H. Koon Wee's work focuses on the transcultural theories of design, especially in the questions of society and design in Asian cities. He is the editor of Singapore Dreaming: Managing Utopia, and author of a forthcoming monograph entitled The Other Factory: Late Industrial Forms and Organization in China. He founded the Cities in Asia Program at the University of Hong Kong, and was formerly Adjunct Professor of the Metropolitan Studies Department at New York University. As registered architect and founding principal of SKEW Collaborative, Koon was recognized in the recent Fifty-under-Fifty: Innovators of the 21st Century monograph juried by Stanley Tigerman, Ralph Johnson, Jeanne Gang, Marion Weiss, and Qingyun Ma.
THE SOCIAL IMPERATIVE Architecture and the City in China edited by
H. Koon Wee
This publication is the culmination of a three-year study of social issues in the architecture and cities of China. It involved visits to sites undergoing massive change, discussions and debates among architects and critics, reflections by practitioners about their own work, and activists lobbying for social change. Supported by the non-profit AA Asia, the contents relied heavily on original input and exchanges between architects and theorists committed to China, from Asia and beyond. Since the 1990s, AA Asia remains one of a few unique think tanks committed to the study of architecture and cities in Asia. As an advocacy with strong academic roots, it seeks to establish the differences across various postcolonial and Asian contexts, and recalibrate the role of architecture in a technocratic era dominated by the global economy. Cover art: the Chinese title she zai bi xing is a neologism based on the Chinese proverb shi zai bi xing, which means an imperative. She replaces shi in the neologism in a turn of phrase, where the social is invoked. Xing is highlighted in red to evoke the role of social action in this book. The colors and textures refer to specific revolutionary and cultural signifiers of China.
ATR045_Cover+.pdf 1 17-6-18 上ĺ?ˆ11:08
Robert Adams, Lee Ambrozy, Yung Ho Chang, Chen Ling, Jeremy Chia, Cui Kai, Dong Gong, Dong Yugan, Mario Gandelsonas, Han Tao, He Jingxiang, Hu Yan, Hua Li, Huang Wei Wen, Huang Wenjing, Jiang Jun, Jeffrey Johnson, Michael Kokora, Kengo Kuma, Andrew Lee, Joan Leung Lye, Li Han, Li Hu, Li Shiqiao, Nartano Lim, William S.W. Lim, Liu Jiakun, Liu Kecheng, Liu Yichun, Long Ying, Ma Qingyun, Robert Mangurian, Meng Yan, Ou Ning, Mary-Ann Ray, Daan Roggeveen, Ruan Hao, Eunice Seng, Shi Jian, Victor Su, Sun Yimin, Wang Fei, Wang Shu, Wang Yan, Shirley Woo, Wu Gang, Wu Liangyong, Xu Tiantian, Rocco Yim, Yu Kongjian, Zhan Yuan, Zhang Ke, Zhao Liang, Zhou Yi, Zhu Tao, Zhu Xiaofeng, and Darren Zhou
AA Asia Monograph 12/13
THE SOCIAL IMPERATIVE
WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY
H. Koon Wee
This book contains multiple short critiques, reflections, and manifestos, affording each contributing architect and intellectual the time and space to imagine new social paradigms in China. Emerging from a tumultuous history of high culture and complex territorial conditions, there is nothing straightforward about the social development of China. The complexity of the social practices developed by architects and shapers of the built environment can be explained in part by the last three decades of an intensified adoption of the market economy by the Communist Party of China, after an equally short three decades of closed-door communist control. There is no political meltdown like the democratization of the former Communist Bloc, but there is a constant managing of discontent and resistance across China. At the apex of the many creative and intellectual forces in China, architects harbor and give form to many tactics of resistance. Unfortunately, architects are also the instruments and minds complicit with profit-mongering developers and governments, pursuing unchecked urbanization, degradation of the environment, exploitation of the marginalized, and the creation of a very inequitable China.
Architecture and the City in China
H. Koon Wee's work focuses on the transcultural theories of design, especially in the questions of society and design in Asian cities. He is the editor of Singapore Dreaming: Managing Utopia, and author of a forthcoming monograph entitled The Other Factory: Late Industrial Forms and Organization in China. He founded the Cities in Asia Program at the University of Hong Kong, and was formerly Adjunct Professor of the Metropolitan Studies Department at New York University. As registered architect and founding principal of SKEW Collaborative, Koon was recognized in the recent Fifty-under-Fifty: Innovators of the 21st Century monograph juried by Stanley Tigerman, Ralph Johnson, Jeanne Gang, Marion Weiss, and Qingyun Ma.
THE SOCIAL IMPERATIVE Architecture and the City in China edited by
H. Koon Wee
This publication is the culmination of a three-year study of social issues in the architecture and cities of China. It involved visits to sites undergoing massive change, discussions and debates among architects and critics, reflections by practitioners about their own work, and activists lobbying for social change. Supported by the non-profit AA Asia, the contents relied heavily on original input and exchanges between architects and theorists committed to China, from Asia and beyond. Since the 1990s, AA Asia remains one of a few unique think tanks committed to the study of architecture and cities in Asia. As an advocacy with strong academic roots, it seeks to establish the differences across various postcolonial and Asian contexts, and recalibrate the role of architecture in a technocratic era dominated by the global economy. Cover art: the Chinese title she zai bi xing is a neologism based on the Chinese proverb shi zai bi xing, which means an imperative. She replaces shi in the neologism in a turn of phrase, where the social is invoked. Xing is highlighted in red to evoke the role of social action in this book. The colors and textures refer to specific revolutionary and cultural signifiers of China.