came to my mind was Zhuang Shen. The reason I gave seems quite straight-forward and emotional today. “Because Zhuang Shen’s designs contain a state, lightness, which is rarely found in contemporary Chinese architects.” This doesn’t mean that he applied light structures in his design, but refers to his working attitudes. Zhuang Shen has never been lost in assiduously creating perfect forms, neither has he been eager to seek theoretical interpretation and additional value for his own work like those architects a ected by theoretical anxiety. All his buildings have been comfortably localized by never con ning the work to a uni ed form, miraculously completing architectural experiments with the collage and juxtaposition of varied materials, applying architectural forms t for local conditions and developing e ective while easy design strategies.
This impression is derived from the group design project I initiated in Mount Qingcheng, Chengdu (2008). Each of the eight architects was supposed to design one of the eight townhouses with courtyards. Zhuang Shen submitted a poetic design, “A Court, A World” [Fig. 1]. With quite temperate and limited approaches, when people’s sights were cleverly lowered, Mount Qingcheng was entirely absorbed in the main court and re ected in the narrow water court. This might be the rst time I cooperated directly with Zhuang Shen in a building project.
TONGJIUNIVERSITYPRESS
Both Zhuang Shen’s and Atelier Archmixing’s work dominated a unique position in contemporary Chinese architectural practice. Considering that “lightness” contained in their work in an intuitive sense may be only a perceptual representation, behind this e ective and easy architectural attitude is a re ection on values. As Italo Calvino wrote in Lezioni Americane, “In comparison with the tendency that tries to give language the weight, density, and concreteness of things, bodies, and sensations, ‘lightness’ tries to make language into a weightless element that hovers above things like a cloud.” 2 But such “lightness” “go with precision and determination, not with vagueness and the haphazard”. Possibly because of his relaxing and causal style, he is unwilling to be a condescending architect who is too talented to be appreciated. In this day and age, as mass media darlings, starchitects voluntarily or involuntarily regard themselves as leaders of lifestyle and trend. Zhuang Shen’s casual and slovenly image has been well matched with his attitudes toward architectural practice and his awareness of “the increasing dissociation of individual architects and their designs from the public and their real lives”. 3 Therefore, he successfully developed a series of design strategies based on everyday scenes and logic of consumer culture.
Perhaps it is for this reason that Zhuang Shen picked the second of these two practical paths
慘踵唻㰊壈粷呺嶗狆㠿旝誼艊螻姉䯖㫝鴛妘棾䯖䅏蟨貏曐呝彾鑫酽跀燒╙壈貙矇艊䎋 茩䯖㫥徏㚾⺖妵帟㚪踵曧＃縟趵䎋茩釣懲彿髦莏澐㚪莏鰱婩僔饅燍嫕鞔蛼＝飨倀狆㠿旝誼艊 㭇㪝。俋‖旝誼艊粷㝧醮㓇嬣䯖妛㚪㛌勢饅豸婠詀壎蛼＝絔嶎艊粷呺唻㝧醮廟咷￥5 、妵帟䉯 夠敽䀟鰱巃糴勢䯖嫕魍跤蹺蛼＝艊僨嗴㬬喥鑫酽跣鮪敤姛䎋茩躐侳艊蛼＝䯖徏鍎㛺曧縟趵婩 僨艊趵踽銲魖䯖骼髦澐㓉縟趵麽過攝㬬艊㛏烢妛啚㳛蛼＝嶗鳏旝麽過艊鉢粷䯖䅏蟨貏曐嬟咁 帟鰱慙㬕翀昷嶗䎋茩䯖詵飨桖侸鰱鮪䎋茩詇陝艊頌梕喥抲辭靕墰艊婠㚴䯖㫥鲢唻鲋粷呺艊鍊 㳝桭謚夠夠鉢粷鮪䎋茩箏竑艊麇烏霎跤䯖㫥雩曧妵帟忞㬉烢艊＃玈諦￥䯖惼嗴鍖䉯靕彿啌䃽婠 or strategies mentioned at the beginning of this article. Having gone through decades of rapid construction and being quickly consumed, Chinese architects in this age have realized that China needs a serious architecture. Also, out of the fact that Chinese architecture has never been enlightened by modernism, many architects who really think seriously about architecture started fresh and hard work on modernism, exploring Le Corbusier’s or Louis I. Kahn’s resources. They unwittingly set out on the rst path, focusing on key issues of architecture discipline: space, structure, material and even Kenneth Frampton’s banner of tectonic culture against postmodernism and consumer culture. All this has implied more or less the return of modernism. As previously mentioned, the danger on the rst path lies in ignoring extreme challenges of contemporary social realities in China, going back to the “revolutionary” modern language created in the cultural context a century ago, as a sort of modern ghost shadow probably xed by the formal language after Le Corbusier, and trying to combat the raging postmodernism and consumer culture with the pure language of modernism.
TONGJIUNIVERSITYPRESS
However, exactly as in the preface “The Broad and Open Way” written by Marshall Berman for the new edition of his masterpiece All That Is Solid Melts into Air, a book discussing the experience of modernity, “the broad and open way is the only one of many possible ways, but it has advantages... It creates conditions for dialogue among the past, the present and the future. It cuts across physical and social space, and reveals solidarities between great artists and ordinary people. It enlarges our vision of our own experience, shows us that there are more to our lives than we thought, and gives our days a new resonance and depth.” He always holds that “no mode of modernism can ever be de nitive. This problem is especially acute for a modernism that forecloses or is hostile to change, or rather, a modernism that seeks one great change, and then no more”.
In comparison with returning to the highbrow orthodox modernism (in fact, with his early work Tongji University Sino-German College Building [Fig. 2], Zhuang Shen did quite well in developing the Corbu-style Modernism), he seemed to be more than willing to better understand everyday life and the logic of consumer culture through commercial projects during the past ten years. He can neither go along with consumer culture, nor can he turn a blind eye to it. So he would explore the power it contains in a creative way rather than being dominated. Perhaps, it is a resonance with Roland Barthes’s attitude toward mass culture.4
In recent ten years, Atelier Archmixing has responded to urban reality and consumer cul-
Architects are not needed for the bottom-up practice.
ZB: I agree. That’s a social movement.
ZS: On the other hand, I am also a half nihilist on designing the building in a top-down way and making expectations. All expectations maybe only the architects’ own wish. However, the question lies in: if expectations are invalid, what is the value for design work?
TONGJIUNIVERSITYPRESS
粀䯤彿髦茩頌㰊恦䈑㒄㛄㚧艊婠詀荱彾酽跣酛酽艊嶗㜖鉢䯖㫥偡絹曧婠詀叧艊▕蕬
ZB: You remind me of two things. The rst is whether it is unnecessary for architects to work with a top-down method. Many so-called bottom-up methods are actually presetted. Second, you just mentioned that every architect will work on some large-scale projects. You decide how other people are going to live, or rather, you have to provide something and let users slowly adapt to it. You suspect whether your work is e ective, but you want to make it more e ective. So my question is, with this suspicion, whether you prefer to make your work more e ective or think it is impossible to improve e ectiveness?
ZS: Well, I think architects are constantly creating redundancy. Designing a city is just like painting a whole paper. One part is correctly painted, with xed functions. It is predictable and can be carefully designed, but the other part of design doesn’t work, probably will be changed just after completion. Here comes a contradictory—you clearly know that much space is painted with no logic. On the one hand, you accept the change with peace of mind because change is perfectly normal, and worry is useless. On the other hand, you will think if you can apply a di erent way of painting. But you fail to nd a new way, because you are facing an unknown possibility.
ZB: At the bottom, what architects concern about is how to paint. In the state you just mentioned, I guess you hope to clear away the scale di erence. You want to make a juxtaposition. In a rather large scale project, there must be a system reasonable for the current state. But you are not satised with that, so you juxtapose a model fragmentation. Is it true?
ZS: Similar to what you said, we will create a new system by separating the original one or juxtaposing. We may deal with these two situations with di erent methods.
ZB: Like the public area and non-public area in those commercial centers?
ZS: Perhaps it implies such an idea.
Wang Fangji (WF): I have just reviewed Zhuang Shen’s summarizing diagram [Fig. 2]. It is quite interesting. I have noticed that other architects achieved a new cognition after this 3
Toyo Ito: Recent Project ( A.D.A EDITA Tokyo Co. Lit, Nov. 2008)
kind of summarization. In the fall of 2008, the Japanese magazine GA has published a book on Toyo Ito, Toyo Ito: Recent Project ( A.D.A EDITA Tokyo Co. Lit, Nov. 2008) [Fig. 3] Before this publication, Toyo Ito has held three meetings with his employees to summarize his former design philosophy. Finally, three keywords are concluded: Boundary, Ana (Cave) and Continuity. While I found in other sources, like his conversation with Kazunari Sakamoto in 2001, he had provided three di erent conclusions. In other words, he intentionally classi ed all his works in 2008. According to my own research, Toyo Ito does intentionally push his work later according to the summarization in 2008.
ZB: His work was then clearly oriented.
WF: Usually, we tend to see the designed building as a uni ed and harmonious entity, which seems to be a common sense of architecture discipline. Architects are always expecting a complete work, achieving harmony and unity from large scale to small detail. You can’t say this is wrong. But it’s problematic if you insist on this unity for a rather big project. Zhuang Shen often discussed with us about design issues before. Through these discussions, I found the core of his “fragmentation” is not restricted to a bottom-up idea. Terms he mentioned such as “fragmentation, segment, part” are sort of confrontation against the idea regarding architecture as a uni ed body. Why should we maintain unity for such a large scale building? We can absolutely start our design from parts and realize their relation through a di erent organization.
TONGJIUNIVERSITYPRESS
ZS: What you said perhaps is what I believe: we are actually impossible to achieve unity and harmony in cities. For instance, every architect will treat his single design as a unity, but when putting together, no unity and harmony exist among buildings. Why architects tend to design into a complete castle I believe it has roots in the existed design habit and disciplinary convention.
ZB: Prof. Wang has provided a di erent viewpoint with which I won’t disagree. In my understanding, non-unity could be one point where Zhuang Shen draws his strength, while his work is still based on a traditional foundation in setting a system for everything. Of course, the system he is setting focuses more on a kind of contradiction, fragment or non-equivalent aspect.
WF: Whether fragmentation or integration, from the perspective of architecture, it’s all about the relationship between geometry and experience. Discussing such a rela-
TONGJIUNIVERSITYPRESS
TONGJIUNIVERSITYPRESS
TONGJIUNIVERSITYPRESS
醢犦旝誼惡峗鲲趵艤酽梕C50C6鰱鱖
B4/B5 Blocks of Shanghai Culture & Information Industrial Park, Phase I
