J. HE
发贴: 5
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2001-02-17 01:06
Long time no see. I am glad to come back and see such heat on discussion of Chinese architects’ recent concern. I’d like to of course talk in Chinese, which, however, is quite inconvenient for me. So, excuse me, I just use English. I have to admit the fact, as a Chinese architect, that we have not yet been able to present to the world our own contemporary architecture. But I do not agree the opinion of self-abasing, saying that Chinese traditional culture (in fact it was the origin of the whole oriental cultural circuit) is rubbish, although I am not a so-call nationalist. If so, why currently China, both in terms of culture and economy, becomes more and more a centre of debates among western architects and related researchers? I am not going either to discuss the apparent difficulties that architects confront today in China (this is common even in Europe), for those have been complained everyday in this forum. I am attempting to analyse this situation respectively on its external and internal conditions. Firstly, I would like to discuss the problem from a broader context. Undoubtedly, western culture and philosophy, which was basically set up on the ground of rationalism, have taken the leading place world-wide since European colonialism invaded to the East. This trend was even strengthened by the so-call “globalisation”. As a result, rationalistic-centerism is becoming the only universal philosophy, no matter you are willing or not. Most of Chinese of our generation (born after 1970) have inevitably, more or less, influenced by the western system. Therefore, contemporary architectural theory and critics apply almost always the rationalistic criteria to judge Chinese architecture, cities and even the ancient architecture and culture. They are certainly able to draw a simple and bitter conclusion. Chinese civilisation, nonetheless, is in all aspects different from the Western civilisation; so is traditional architecture (see the article about Liang Sicheng in this forum). With this in mind, we can easily understand why Gao Xingjian was chosen by the Nobel jury, and why Lee An’s movie “Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon” is so popular among western audience (can you see anything Chinese in it?). Secondly, to answer the questions: why we are not capable to have our good architecture; why we do not have our own good architects, some would say, we are not modern enough; we are not technically advanced; but I would say, we are not “Chinese” enough. Nearly one century of military and political turbulence in China, has cut off the current China from the tradition (I am not going to discuss here whether strong tradition is good or not). We belong to a culturally breakaway generation. We are used to look forward and outward; we have an eagerness to erase our pass, and as soon as possible join in the wonderful world; and we are seldom thinking about architecture culturally and historically; we even don’t know exactly who we are and where we are. All that I can find in our publication about contemporary Chinese cities and architecture is to me pale and superficial. Design presentation in architectural journals is merely collection of computer drawings and 3D illustrations. The richness and exquisiteness of Chinese metropolises have never been reflected through our architects’ schemes. Recently I am doing an Europan 6 competition with some friends in Belgium. We chose a site in a suburb of Munich, Germany, which is a residential area planned and built in 1970s. It’s a kind of modernistic collective housing blocks and slabs, as most of the “residential districts” built in 1990s in China. You can find there a perfect structure of road, parking, greenery, playground, public facility, public transport, etc. It was designed as a “sleeping city” during Munich’s suburbanisation. What we propose is to change the rigid and boring atmosphere of the area, by superimpose a layer of landscape (we call it a landscape carpet). The carpet’s design is partially inspired by traditional Chinese garden. But we further develop the flat carpet to a 3-dimensional landscape carpet, exploring the “thickness” of landscape. Within the carpet the rigid definition of the built and the unbuilt, the road and the greenery is no longer recognised. In other words, everything here becomes landscaping. Moreover, the forest which was used to be eaten up by the urbanisation now re-invade in the site. The above cannot be read as an article. It’s only a rush collection of my reaction on your discussion, and thus it’s in a fragmented and loose form. Misuse of vocabulary is also unavoidable.
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