Beautiful China

Toward a Space of Capability

走向潜质空间

朱育帆 | ZHU Yufan

Deputy Chair, Department of Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University and director of ZHU Yufan Studio. Zhu has over 30 publications on design theory, research, and teaching methods. His award-winning design projects include the Quarry Garden in Shanghai Botanical Garden and Shougang Industrial Park in Beijing.

清华大学建筑学院景观学系副系主任。曾发表30余 篇与景观设计理论、设计教学与研究方法等相关论 文。其主持的多个工程项目均荣获奖项，包括上海辰 山植物园矿坑花园、北京首钢工业遗址公园等。

许愿 | XU Yuan

Assistant Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University. Xu has received several design awards including the IFLA Zvi Miller Prize (2014). Her recent published research focuses on form-finding in landscape design and Eastern traditional landscape art.

清华大学建筑学院景观学系助理教授。获2014年国际风 景园林师联合会学生设计竞赛第二名。主要研究方向为 景观设计及其历史与理论，以及设计造型逻辑、空间的 场所性、东方传统山水艺术等。

The idea of Beautiful China marks a moment where the rapid urbanization of China is now turning into an era where the quality—not just the scale and speed—of development is a major concern. It is not only an opportunity, but also a challenge for landscape architecture. Maybe landscape architects can see through the re-adaption of the ruins of our times and open what we refer to as “the space of capability.” By this we mean the potential of every site to become something new; not entirely new, but something latent within it, drawn to the surface through the act of design – the act of respecting and recognizing a site’s potential. This space of capability is also of course a nod to “Capability” Brown, who so famously conjured a naturalistic landscape aesthetic in 18thcentury England, and we ask what the equivalent of his achievement might be today? For us, the way into this space of capability—the way into the potential of sites and the potential of our profession—is firstly and most apparently through ruins.

The wonderful book Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, first published in 1499, framed and highlighted the aesthetic values of ruins. Three hundred years later, William Gilpin venerated ruins as picturesque aesthetic objects in the English landscape garden. This aesthetic discovery of ruins is profound, because it implied that all the relics of human civilization have the potential and legitimacy for acceptance in a new situation.

During the global environmental crisis of the 1960s, artists such as Robert Smithson revealed the sublime value of abandoned industrial places, and in 1969 Richard Haag’s Gas Works Park in Seattle enshrined the beauty of such relics. In the 1990s Peter Latz went further by creating a post-industrial nature with his Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park in the Ruhrgebiet, Germany. Here Latz brought out the capability of the place through the careful placement of new things with the old. The latest in this lineage is James Corner Field Operations’ High Line in New York City.

Another kind of ruins appears more humble, somehow “dirty” and “ugly,” yet bears a shift in deeper values. When visiting Rovira Hill in Barcelona, the honesty of the site deeply moves you. The notorious shantytown that once occupied the summit has nothing to do with heroism or political significance, but it was treasured for its “landscaping” process. Normally, things that have just lost their practical value are the least likely to be revered. It took 20 years for this site to be physically transformed, but how long have we spent to start realizing its capabilities? And what will be next?

急速城镇化进程中“美丽中国”的提出，标志着中国的整 体建设转入了一个品质化的时期，对风景园林专业既 是机遇，更是挑战。或许通过废墟再生现象，我们可以开 启“潜质空间”的议题。所谓“潜质”，字面直解就是场地自 身潜在的素质，可以被开发但尚未被开发；在设计师的 预判下与整体目标挂钩，从而被激活、实现场地特质延 续性的增值和升级。“Capability（潜质）”取自“Capability Brown（万能布朗或潜质布朗）”，在18世纪英国的土地上， 布朗唤现了一个自然风景园的空间价值维度，也收获了后 巴洛克时代世界园林史上最为响亮的绰号。当下看来，走 向潜质空间最主要也最显见的路径，便是废墟再生。

1499年出版的奇书《Hypnerotomachia Poliphili》首次定格 了废墟的美学价值，三百年后英国自然风景园和法国英 中式花园中流行设计 folly，废墟入园是如绘美学思潮向 纵深化发展的结果。其实发现废墟潜质的意义很深远， 因为隐含的推论是，只要是人类文明留下的遗迹就有被 认可的可能。

废墟价值拓展的下一个对象就是近代工业文明。二十世 纪六十年代世界环境危机时，罗伯特.史密森等艺术家

The Beauty of Brownfields Regeneration 棕地之美

郑晓笛 | ZHENG Xiaodi

Associate Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University. Zheng serves as GeneralSecretary of the Chinese Steering Committee of Landscape Architecture Education and is the official delegate of the Chinese Society of Landscape Architecture at the International Federation of Landscape Architects AsiaPacific Region council. Her current research focuses on brownfields regeneration and sustainable landscapes, as well as campus landscape planning and design. She has published a number of papers in Chinese and English professional journals and is recipient of the 2017 Council of Education in Landscape Architecture President’s Award.

清华大学建筑学院副教授，景观学系副系主任。美国 注册风景园林师、美国风景园林师协会会员、中国风 景园林协会会员。现任2018-2022年教育部高等学 校建筑类专业教学指导委员会风景园林专业教学指 导分委员会秘书长、国际风景园林师联合会亚太区 （IFLA APR）中国代表。主要研究方向为城市棕地 与废弃地改造再生、校园景观设计研究、风景园林设 计理论。在多个国内外专业期刊发表论文10余篇。 获2017年（国际）风景园林教育者联合会（CELA）主 席奖。

What is the public perception of environmental issues in China? In 2017 Ipsos, the world’s third-largest market research company, conducted a survey titled “What Worries the World” in which randomly selected respondents were asked to list the most worrying problems in their own countries. Of the countries surveyed, only China listed environmental issues as the biggest common concern.1

Brownfields regeneration has become a hot subject in China in recent years. At present, the three main types of brownfield under transformation are idle industrial and infrastructural land, mining wasteland, and landfill. Driven by the policy of ecological civilization and Beautiful China, China has taken a series of measures to facilitate contamination remediation. In 2014, the government released the National Soil Pollution Survey Report to the public; in 2016, the release of the 10-chapter Action Plan for Soil Pollution Prevention and Control greatly promoted the treatment of soil contamination; in 2017, the City Betterment and Ecological Restoration Programs were related to brownfields, and finally, the Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law, providing a legal basis for China’s soil pollution control, was implemented on January 1, 2019.

A number of NGOs have begun to investigate the environmental threat of contaminated sites in China, but the details remain unclear and in-depth

investigation of soil pollution is ongoing work typically being carried out by provincial governments. On the other hand, there are as many as 36 government ministries and commissions listed in Action Plan for Soil Pollution Prevention and Control, so how to encourage cooperation among these ministries and implement regeneration projects are some of the many challenges we are facing. These challenges notwithstanding, China has rapidly completed a series of large-scale exemplary brownfields regeneration projects under huge development pressure, transforming derelict sites into “beautiful” parks and open spaces. This brownfields regeneration surge is both encouraging and alarming. Is becoming “beautiful” the end goal for brownfields regeneration? What is beauty in this context, and how do we make beauty through landscape practice?

Recently, as guest editor for the February 2019 issue of Chinese Landscape Architecture with the theme of brownfield restoration and design, I put forward two main areas for research regarding brownfields. The first is “vision,” which calls for a synthetic understanding of

在中国，公众对于环境问题的认知是怎样的呢？2017 年全球第三大机构Ipsos进行了一次名为“What Worries the World（什么让世界担忧）”的调研，即从全世界选中的国 家中随机抽取民众，让他们列出自己国家中最令人担忧 的问题。其中，中国所列出的问题就是对于“环境的威胁” 。在被调研的众多国家里，只有中国将环境问题列为最令 他们担忧的且需要共同面对的问题1。

过去的几年中，棕地修复已经成为了中国的热门研 究主题。目前，中国正处于修复改造的最主要的三类棕地 包括工业与基础设施闲置地、采矿业废弃地和垃圾填埋 场。在生态文明和美丽中国的政策推动下，中国采取了一 系列的措施：2014年，政府向公众公布了《全国土壤污染 状况调查公报》；2016年，“土十条”发布，极大推动了土壤 污染的治理工作；2017年，城市双修的生态修复和城市修 补都与棕地相关；2018年底公布和2019年1月1号正式实 施的《土壤污染防治法》，真正的为中国的土壤污染治理 提供了法律基础。

中国已经开始出现一些公益组织对污染场地对于公 众的威胁进行调研，但是威胁的具体情况到现在为止，依

Beautiful China and the Mission of Landscape Architecture

美丽中国与景观学的担当

俞孔监

| YU Kongjian

Professor, College of Architecture and Landscape, Peking University and founder and design principal of Turenscape. Yu holds a Doctorate of Design from Harvard University Graduate School of Design where he was a visiting professor from 2010–2015. He is author of 25 books and his ecologically and culturally sensitive projects have won numerous international design awards. Yu received an honorary doctorate from the Sapienza University of Rome in 2017.

俞孔监是北京大学建筑与景观设计学院教授，同时 也是北京土人城市规划设计股份有限公司的创始 人。他拥有哈佛大学设计学博士学位，同时在20102015年间成为哈佛大学访问教授。他编写了25本专 业书籍，并通过他对于生态文化敏感区的研究与设 计项目获得了无数的国际设计大奖。并在2017年被 罗马大学授予名誉博士学位。

Beautiful China is a concept full of magic, it depicts an ideal society and its environment. As a “Chinese Dream” that 1.4 billion people are now pursuing, it dates back to the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on November 8, 2012, which declared:

“Building an ecological civilization is a matter of people’s well-being and a long-term plan for the future. Facing the situation of resource constraints, environmental pollution, and degraded ecosystems, we must establish an ecological civilization that respects nature, adapts to nature, and protects nature, and puts ecological civilization construction in a prominent position and integrates it into the whole process of economic, political, cultural, and social construction, so as to build a beautiful China and realize the sustainable development of the Chinese nation.”

What is interesting is that this ideal, put forward by the Communist Party of China as a goal of socialist China, is now being discussed by an American university – the University of Pennsylvania School of Design! Such discussions are challenging but extremely exciting. The announcement for the PennDesignsponsored Beautiful China Symposium in Beijing stated: “The purpose is to establish a platform for discussing landscape architecture in China in relation

to the concept of Beautiful China in a global context.”

This discussion is indeed very meaningful and valuable; it requires us to clarify the relationship between landscape architecture and the concept of Beautiful China, and to understand this relationship at a specific operational level so that the academy and profession can serve the goals of the Beautiful China concept. Specifically, we must answer three key questions. First, what is Beautiful China and what is its relationship to the national land and landscape? Second, what kind of China is beautiful and how do we evaluate beauty? And third, how do we achieve Beautiful China through the practice of landscape architecture?

From the original source, we can see that the essence of Beautiful China is a depiction of an ideal social form, which can be expressed as a social form of economic prosperity, political rectitude, cultural richness, social equity, and human–nature harmony. In this sense, Beautiful China obviously goes far beyond the study of landscape architecture. That said, landscape architecture is directly implicated in the realization of Beautiful China because,

“美丽中国”是一个充满魔力的概念，是一个理 想社会及其存在空间的形态。作为一个14亿人民奋斗 的“中国梦”，其完整的诠释应该回到2012年11月8日， 中国共产党第十八次全国代表大会的报告：“建设生态 文明，是关系人民福祉、关乎民族未来的长远大计。面 对资源约束趋紧、环境污染严重、生态系统退化的严峻 形势，必须树立尊重自然、顺应自然、保护自然的生态 文明理念，把生态文明建设放在突出地位，融入经济建 设、政治建设、文化建设、社会建设各方面和全过程，努 力建设美丽中国，实现中华民族永续发展。”

非常有意思的是，这个由中国共产党提出来、作为 社会主义中国建设目标的伟大理想，今天却由美国的 大学机构，宾夕法尼亚大学设计学院来主持讨论！这样 的讨论充满挑战却极其令人振奋。发起人在其对外发 布的公告说：“其目的是为世界景观设计学的讨论以及 在全球背景下讨论中国的景观设计学，尤其是服务于 美丽中国建设的景观设计学建立一个平台。”从这个意 义上说，这确是一个非常有意义和值得深入探讨的课 题，它需要我们明确设计学科、特别是景观学与美丽中 国的关系，在具体的操作性层面上认识它、理解它，并

“建设生态文明，关系人民福祉，关乎民族未来。中共十八大报告提出，努力建设美丽 中国，实现中华民族永续发展。中共十九大报告进一步提出，加快生态文明体制改革， 建设美丽中国。并且提出从2035年到本世纪中叶，在基本实现现代化的基础上，再奋斗

十五年，把中国建成富强民主文明和谐美丽的社会主义现代化强国。建设美丽中国成 为中国梦的重要内容。具体而言，就是要按照尊重自然、顺应自然、保护自然的原则，秉 持“既要金山银山，又要绿水青山”“绿水青山就是金山银山”的理念，贯彻节约资源和 保护环境的基本国策，更加自觉地推动绿色发展、循环发展、低碳发展；就是要给自然 留下更多修复空间，给农业留下更多良田，为子孙后代留下天蓝、地绿、水清的生产生 活环境。中国梦的实现不以牺牲环境为代价，在发展经济的同时，保护好生态环境。建 设美丽中国，有利于中国的长远发展，也将助推世界可持续发展，更有助于实现人类共 同的梦想——保护美丽的地球。”

国务院新闻办公室

“A beautiful environment is beneficial to the people and the future of the nation. The report to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) called for hard work to build a beautiful country, and achieve lasting and sustainable development of the Chinese nation. The report to the 19th CPC National Congress proposed speeding up reform of the system for developing an ecological civilization, and building a beautiful China. It also set the goal of developing China into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous by the middle of the 21st century.

Building a beautiful China is an important part of the Chinese Dream. It calls for respecting, protecting and being in harmony with nature, based on the understanding that ‘lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets.’ China should implement its key national policy on resource conservation, environmental protection, and promotion of green, circular and low-carbon development. The initiative underscores the need to leave more space for nature to renew itself, to keep more land for cultivation, and to bequeath a better working and living environment to future generations so that they can be blessed with blue sky, green fields, and clean water.

The Chinese Dream will not be realized at the expense of the environment. Economic development should be accompanied by strong measures to protect the environment. Building a beautiful China will be of benefit to the country’s long-term development, to promoting sustainable global development, and to fulfilling the universal dream of protecting our beautiful earth.”

The State Council Information Office, The People’s Republic of China

Beautiful China: Heaven, Earth, and Humanity

美丽中国人居风景园林观及其现代性转变

刘滨谊 | LIU Binyi

Professor and former Chair, Department of Landscape Studies, Tongji University. Liu was awarded the first PhD in landscape architecture in China, and has completed post-doctoral studies at Virginia Tech in the United States. He has published 15 books and 430 academic papers, and has participated in over 30 scientific research projects and 200 landscape design and planning projects. His research interests include human settlement and environment studies, urban and rural green space system planning, and landscape microclimate adaptability design.

刘滨誼，同济大学教授、博导、风景园林科学研究所 所长。中国第一位风景园林学博士，美国佛吉尼亚理 工及州立大学景观环境规划与GIS应用博士后，同 济大学建筑与城市规划学院景观学系首任系主任。 他从事风景园林学科专业35年，出版著作15部，发 表期刊会议学术论文430多篇，主持完成国家、省部 级科研30余项，景观设计规划、绿地系统规划、旅游 策划规划等实践项目200多项。研究方向：风景园林 分析评价理论与方法、城乡绿地系统规划、风景园林 小气候适应性设计。

Chinese people’s living environment is considered as the three-dimensional natural shanshui (landscape of mountain and water), encapsulating a traditional Chinese aesthetic appreciation of the connection between heaven (the universe) and earth. Different from the scenery of the ancient Greek theater and the pictorial landscape that originated with 17th-century Dutch painters, the concept of Chinese fengjing (landscape) is derived from two interdependent aspects of feng (wind) and jing (shadow). From the Pamir and Kunlun mountain ranges (the ancestors of Chinese mountains), Baoji (the birthplace of the Zhou Dynasty) to Yuncheng in Shanxi Province, and further to the countryside and wilderness, the landscape practice of taking fengjing as the intermediary, shanshui as the origin, and the beauty of human settlements as the goal, establishes a trinity of heaven, earth, and humanity in harmony. This trinity is the fundamental nexus of Beautiful China and of landscape architecture.

The Taoist belief in the harmony of heaven, earth, and humanity, and settlements formed according to the principles of shanshui has underpinned 5,000 years of Chinese agricultural civilization. The image of “blue water and green mountain” is a spiritual and practical sense of place that passes from generation to generation. This goal to create an ideal settlement has also become the core of landscape architecture in China. Unfortunately, in the past 100 years, because of modernization and blindly following Western forms of

development, China has lost the ancient glory of creating beautiful human settlements.

Ancient Chinese people studied feng and measured shadows to form jing and set the dates of the summer and winter solstices. With the further understanding of feng and jing, a complete cosmological calendar was developed and people started to appreciate fengjing as the key to a harmonious society. Two thousand years ago, landscape aesthetics and gardening practices started to be treated as an art. With the concept of fengjing, and the research and practice of gardening, feng tu (local customs and culture), feng shui (traditional Chinese geomancy), and feng wu (local sights and cultural architecture), Chinese landscape architecture was born and integrated with the development of human settlements. Over time the exploration of the heaven–earth–human trinity has related to three different but connected themes: first, the sufficiency of survival; second, the prosperity of the nation and peace of the people; and finally, the poetry of dwelling. Today’s Beautiful China is just the modern reoccurrence of the “fengjing world.”

中国人生存发展的环境是立体的自然山水，自然山 水孕育了中国人的人居环境的“山水美感”和“立体的” 的世界观，把天（宇宙）、地（地球）联系在一起来感受。既 不同于源自古希腊古罗马剧场之景的“风景”，也有别于 17世纪启自荷兰画家眼中、后经多学科扩展的 “景观” ，中国“风景”观念源起于“风”和“景”两个相对独立、后 为一体的概念。从帕米尔高原、昆仑山（中国祖山）、陕西 宝鸡（周朝的发祥地）到山西运城，再到乡村旷野，以“风 景”为媒、以自然山水为源、以追求人居美为目标的实践 最终奠定了中国人“天地人+和”的“三位一体”与“三位 一求”的世界发展观。“天-地-人”三元一体的世界观也 是美丽中国与中国现代景观实践的理念核心 。

“道法自然”，“天地人和”，“山水人居”，始终是美 丽中国人居的理想，伴随着华夏子孙成功地走过了5千 年的人居农耕文明，“绿水青山观”已成为中国人居理想 的基因而世代相传、家喻户晓，以人居美为核心的风景 园林则成为了理想人居的化身。然而，在近代一百多年 工业文明的人居演进中，中国人的美丽人居环境与世界 观却失去了昔日的辉煌，缺少了与古为新和与时俱进的 两大文明间的传承与转变，不接中国人居地气的“西风