ARCHITECTURE CHINA

CONTENTS Essays

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Building for a New Culture / Li Xiangning

Topography, Type, and Tradition: Two Recent Museums by Amateur Architecture Studio / David Leatherbarrow

Shanghai’s Cultural Architecture as the Urban Driving Force

JINGDEZHEN IMPERIAL KILN MUSEUM / Zhu Pei

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FUCHUN CULTURAL COMPLEX / Wang Shu

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URBANCROSS GALLERY

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XIE ZILONG PHOTOGRAPHY MUSEUM

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/ Sun Jiwei, Zhang Ziyue

Thoughts on “Building for a New Culture” in Contemporary China / Jiang Jiawei

News

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/ Tong Ming

/ Wei Chunyu

■ In Search of Freespace in the Chinese Countryside

■ He Jingtang’s Exhibition “Place, Culture, Time—Design in Drastically Changing China” Opened at UC Berkeley

■ Urban Public Toilets, Quzhou Campaign

■ Urban Public Toilets, Kunshan Campaign

■ Exhibition “Wang Shu, Lu Wenyu.

Amateur Architecture Studio” at arc en rêve

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SHANGHAI MODERN ART MUSEUM / Liu Yichun

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SHUI CULTURAL CENTER / Wei Haobo

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SUZHOU IMPERIAL KILN RUINS PARK & MUSEUM OF IMPERIAL KILN BRICK / Liu Jiakun

EXHIBITION HALL OF CRIME EVIDENCES

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ZHUDIAN HOFFMANN KILN CULTURAL CENTER

SND CULTURAL & SPORTS CENTER / Tianhua Architecture Planning & Engineering Co., Ltd.

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DINOSAUR EGG GEOLOGICAL MUSEUM / Li Baofeng

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CHONGQING TIANDI ART MUSEUM

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/ Cui Kai

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SANBAOPENG ART MUSEUM / Liu Yang

/ Feng Zhenggong

/ He Jingtang

CULTURAL CENTER OF BEICHENG CENTRAL PARK IN HEFEI / Xiao Cheng

XUZHOU CITY WALL MUSEUM

/ Xiao Cheng

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Topography, Type, and Tradition: Two Recent Museums by Amateur Architecture Studio David Leatherbarrow Professor of Architecture, School of Design, University of Pennsylvania

“…a mark of an authentic and living tradition [is] that it points us beyond itself.”

Jaroslav Pelikan, The Vindication of Tradition

“…Do we really believe that urbanization on a massive scale is the future for all our cities in China?”

Wang Shu, Culture for Sustainable Cities

Works of architecture exist in the world and in the discipline. The distinction is neither absolute nor categorical, yet they can be considered separately. In the short study that follows I will chiefly focus on concerns that are internal to the practice of architecture. Among the several topics one feels are pressing today, three in particular—topography, type, and materials—can be reconsidered in the light of the two buildings by Amateur Architecture Studio under review here: Fuchun Cultural Complex in Fuyang, and Dowry Museum in Ninghai. Though my concerns are chiefly disciplinary, I believe these buildings raise broader, extra-architectural issues, particularly in the ways cultural forms with long histories can play productive roles in contemporary culture when those traditional forms are creatively transformed. As I have said, works of architecture have two lives: in the discipline and in the world.

1 2 1. Fuchun Cultural Complex, Fuyang © David Leatherbarrow 2. Dowry Museum, Ninghai © David Leatherbarrow

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Second-floor plan of Fuchun Cultural Complex © Amateur Architecture Studio

Topography The plans of these two museums are remarkable for their formal consistency.

They are also strikingly inventive. Comparisons with other works, professional and vernacular, are easy because of their clear logic. Their density and low-rise spread recall postwar “mat-building,” and their deployment of regular volumes and intervals echoes traditional Chinese village layouts (on which Amateur Architecture Studio had been working at the time of the design of Fuchun Cultural Complex).

Apart from these general comparisons, two basic strategies are specific to these layouts: 1) establishing a set of parallel elements that (seem to) step up the slope of the site in order to structure passage through an enfilade of rooms, the majority of which are long rectangles framed or supported by the retaining walls of the terraces, and 2) arranging a number of nonorthogonal elements that run against the grain of the parallels, sometimes concentrated in a single figure, such as a house of stacked and rotated rooms, or the “philosophical” passages that wind around the public rooms or open courts and pools, or, more prominently, across the roofs, peak to peak on diagonal lines. Thus are two legible but contrasting geometries superimposed on top of one another and the site, which they transform into a better image of itself.

First-floor plan of Dowry Museum © Amateur Architecture Studio

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1 2 1. Lake and theater terrace in Fuchun Cultural Complex © David Leatherbarrow 2. Theater terrace in Dowry Museum © David Leatherbarrow

Only architects who confuse the distinction between type as an abstract principle and as an interpreted fact (that has been sited and constructed) insist on the autonomy of both.

Amateur Architecture Studio, by contrast, shows that types are regulative principles (perforce abstract) that come to life as forms of human association, anticipated formally but transformed concretely, thereby attesting to changed cultural norms. The theater is not so much a viewing or listening machine, whose perfection requires isolation from marginal distractions, as a place that can, under the right conditions, accommodate a spectacle of one kind or another—along the river, with a terrace behind, framed by ramps and gardens (as in Fuchun Cultural Complex), or under the stars, ringed by room-like loggias that could be used for completely different purposes at other times (as in Dowry Museum). Type, in this sense, is neither strictly geometrical nor specifically functional. When built it is more like a situated memory, but it can also be known apart from any specific location when envisaged or first conceived, and also when recalled from stories or paintings about mountains and rivers, for example—stories that these architects like so much.

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Alley space in Ge Garden, Architecture China Yangzhou 016 Š David Leatherbarrow

Fab-Union Space © Chen Hao

Fab-Union Space © Chen Hao

3. Symbiotic urban cultural architecture Unlike the centuries-old museums of the West, most of China’s cultural buildings were designed and built in the last 20 years.

The surge in demand for culture is one key aspect. The other is that during the process of urban expansion and renewal, governmentled cultural projects have certain time requirements. Some cities undertook the construction of various museums and art centers without experience in content planning and exhibition. Such buildings are often costly to operate, and many cultural facilities have become empty shells. Timeless and dynamic art galleries are by no means quick to achieve.

City administrators know about MoMA and The Guggenheim in New York and other historical art galleries, but when it comes down to a choice of action during special developmental periods, they oftentimes choose to start the project first and then consider issues such as the operational planning later. Even if they abandon operations in the later phases, they will still encounter considerable problems with the design and construction of the project. As a government-led project, these administrators might lack full professional knowledge, but their decision-making authority plays a big role. In extreme cases, urban administrators make arbitrary changes to new building plans and inject their personal, cruder aesthetic

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preferences into the urban cultural projects— the very projects that should best represent urban cultural achievements.

On the one hand, urban construction, especially cultural projects, must involve experts from various disciplines coming together for talks. Although we have administrative procedures for expert evaluation and demonstration, most of the process tends to be a formality lacking true professional advice. One condition for establishing an expert advisory system is that urban administrators have to be able to absorb these opinions, which must include a moderate value system, elegant aesthetic standards, and sustainable development. On the other hand, the resources and wisdom of the people have already become a part of the cultural market. The many private art galleries that have emerged in recent years feature high-quality architectural design, exhibition curating, and daily operations. Long Museum, a private art gallery founded by husband-and-wife artcollectors Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei, consists of two large-scale art galleries: one in Pudong District and the other in Shanghai Xuhui West Bund. YUZ Museum, founded by IndonesianChinese businessman Yu Deyao, is famous for its large, systematic collection of Chinese

contemporary art works, including pieces by Zeng Fanzhi, Zhang Xiaogang, Yue Minjun, and Zhou Chunya. Rockbund Art Museum, located in a building of the former Royal Asiatic Society in Huangpu District, was renovated and designed by David Chipperfield Architects.

After its opening in 2010, it showcased a large number of modern and contemporary art installations and performance art exhibitions.

HOW Art Museum designed by ARES Partners in Pudong District is a newly opened private art gallery founded by the collector Zheng Hao. It hosts a large collection of representative works and literature by Joseph Beuys, as well as important works by many Chinese and foreign artists.

The constantly emerging private art galleries enrich the composition of cultural life in the city, filling the voids left by the government in cultural construction and prominently supplementing the capital investment in cultural undertakings. A symbiotic state of cultural architecture with diversified models and different scales is already in place, and healthy competition under market conditions would only improve the cultural lives of citizens and continue to invigorate the city.

Long Museum © Su Shengliang

Long Museum © Su Shengliang Fall 2018

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JINGDEZHEN IMPERIAL KILN MUSEUM Zhu Pei | Studio Zhu-Pei

Location: Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province Architect: Zhu Pei Design team: Han Mo, You Changchen, Wu Zhigang, Liu Ling, Zhang Shun, Shuhei Nakamura, He Fan, Yang Shengchen, Du Yang, Chen Yida, Zhang Haicheng, Lu Xia, Wu Haiying, Zou Yujin, Ding Xinyue, Wang Liyan, He Chenglong Structural consultant: Architectural Design & Research Institute of Tsinghua University Critic: Zhou Rong, Li Xiangning Art consultant: Wang Mingxian, Fang Lijun Area: 10420 square meters Design period: 2015–2016 Construction date: October 2016 (near completion in late 2018) Photography: Studio Zhu-Pei

Towards an “Architecture of Nature” Interview with Architect Zhu Pei Jiang Jiawei, Zhu Pei

On the theme of “Building for a New Culture,” this interview of Zhu Pei by Jiang Jiawei focuses on the design process of Studio Zhu-Pei for Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum. The interview is divided into three parts to gradually present the general conceptions and detailed design methods of architect Zhu Pei.

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Avant chantier: ideals and perspectives Jiang Jiawei (JJ): Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum is a new-built project in a historical and cultural area, and adjacent to relics. Its program and appearance are quite different from most of your completed projects in the past decade. How do you see it within the context of all your finished projects? And could it be said that it is somewhat a milestone or a turning point of your design conception?

Zhu Pei (ZP): Currently the Kiln Museum is significant in my career. I would hesitate to say that it makes a fundamental change in my conception, but it did bring me the first chance to erect a museum in a historical site. It is located at the hub of the ancient city, adjacent to the relic of the Imperial Kiln, which makes it regionally specific. Why I mention this museum as significant is that it fully exposes how I comprehend architecture conceptually.

In the past 10 years I repeatedly use the notion of “architecture of nature.”

It has nothing to do with landscape architecture or green architecture. It refers to an attitude to nature rather than a sort of nature understood in a narrow sense. To sum up, such an attitude means that a rootedness from

top down in architecture is determined by the specific factors of region, climate, culture, and tradition. It is not literally about building something in the woods, but concerned with the laws of natural construction beneath the mere appearance of architecture. I believe the significance of architecture lays not on what that is conducted by human subjectively, but on what that is shaped by region and culture. By way of “architecture of nature,” I wish to discover the rudiments of construction. It could also be connected to the experience-oriented art spirit in Chinese aesthetics.

In a word, architecture needs to have rootedness on the one hand, and creativity on the other. The rootedness does not necessarily mean to inherit the appearance of a tradition, but to discover the principles of hidden culture and life. For example, in cities in South China where the climate is warm and wet, local courtyards tend to be small-scaled and often verticalized, thus enough shade is provided in summer. On the contrary, in North China, courtyards like the Quadrangle Dwelling in Beijing are horizontal, letting sunshine come in during the cold and dry winter time.

I believe that man in each era develops his own comprehension of things with related cultural imprints. One might not survive in the current brand-new era unless he brings in new experiences. So, rootedness and reinvention, these are two wings of “architecture of nature.” I wish deeper essence could be discovered, but it should be a kind of presence of reinvention, rather than a mere reproduction of tradition.

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Construction on site

FUCHUN CULTURAL COMPLEX Wang Shu | Amateur Architecture Studio

Location: Fuyang, Hangzhou Province Architects: Wang Shu, Lu Wenyu Design team: Cheng Lichao, Cheng Hao, Wang Tiantian Structural engineer: Shentu Tuanbing Area: 40,000 square meters Design period: June 2012–February 2017 Construction period: December 2013–December 2017 Photography: Lü Hengzhong, Iwan Baan Sketch by Wang Shu

Fuchun Cultural Complex is a representative work of Amateur Architecture Studio’s architectural philosophy and theory. Located near a scenic area outside the center of highly urbanized Fuyang City, the complex faces Fuchun River to the east and Mount Lushan to the north. Although high-rise residential buildings dominate the scenery in front and behind the site, there are lush, rolling hills further to the west. In accepting this design project, Amateur Architecture Studio proposed using a village in the rural areas of Fuyang to conduct research, as well as redesigning that village to become an indispensable part of the project. The studio selected Wencun Village in Dongqiao Town for its surrounding mountains and rivers. Though difficult to reach, it nonetheless provided the desired utopia.

Fuchun Cultural Complex provides a space for people to exchange views and learn about art, while the restored Wencun Village will become a quintessential residence for the literati. This is architect Wang Shu’s idealization of the “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains” model.

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Aerial view

View from the east

View across the rooftop

Brick faรงade

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View from Fumin Road

Exhibition wall ©️ Jenchieh Hung Fall 2018

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