When China parades its new cultural identity at
the Beijing Olympics, the awesome will look
oddly familiar: Rem Koolhaas’ CCTV tower;
Paul Andreu’s National Centre for Performing
Arts; PTW and Arup’s National Aquatics
Centre; Foster + Partners’ new international
airport terminal; and, of course, Herzog &
de Meuron’s Olympic Stadium. Before a
single starting gun has been fired, the city
has accumulated an impressive collection of
architectural trophies from around the globe.
And then there is Shanghai, a city on
steroids that has long been a magnet for
international starchitects in the countdown
to World Expo in 2010. Already, giant US
practices, such as KPF and Skidmore, Owings
& Merrill, designer of Chicago’s Sears Tower,
have put their imprint on what is rapidly
becoming the world’s biggest megatropolis.
However China, which gobbles up nearly
two-thirds of the world’s concrete and
more than a third of its steel, is not simply
Dubai with smog. In the shadows of these
imported symbols of new Chinese confidence
are hotbeds of homegrown architecture and
design. The breadth of talent can be witnessed
in buzzing Shenzhen, the economic zone that
unlocked China for the West in the 1980s;
in Shanghai, the ever-evolving international
lifestyle city; and in Beijing, which has
benefited culturally as well as financially from
China joining the World Trade Organisation.
What makes this creative revolution so
amazing is that until the 1990s China had only
state architecture practices, and 20 years ago
there was not even a word for ‘designer’.
According to Zhang Hongxing, who grew
up in China, and is co-curator of the ongoing
China Design Now at London’s V&A Museum,
the country’s architecture and design
reflects the dramatic changes in lifestyle and
philosophy during the last 20 years.
Whereas some of the manifestations
of popular culture displayed at the V&A
could have been imagined by the pierced
and tattooed citizens of London’s Hackney,
Tokyo’s Harajuku or Berlin’s Mitte, the
Chinese architectual models emphasise local
sensibilities. Atelier FCJZ’s Split House by
the Great Wall, Scenic Architecture’s Green
Pine Garden in Shanghai and MADA s.p.a.m’s
House for Ma Qingyun’s Father all celebrate
timber, stones and earth.
Calling these practitioners “pioneers”,
Zhang points out that until the mid-1990s,
private land development was banned. “Now,
people can have space without conforming
to ideology,” he says. Zhang expects a new
wave of architects to soon emerge, many
of whom will have cut their teeth on major
international projects.
Tellingly, a four-year-old Beijing firm,
MAD, landed the coveted commission, Beijing
2050 – a dizzyingly futuristic “floating
island” over the Central Business District.
MAD, created by Ma Yansong, a graduate
of Yale School of Architecture, also became
China’s first international architecture firm
by opening a Tokyo office.
It is also fitting that the Olympic Games’
control headquarters, Digital Beijing – which
is set to become a centre for digital design and
technologies and “communications hub for
the city” – was dreamt up by a local architect,
albeit one partly trained in the US.
Zhu Pei’s design for Digital Beijing is a
cluster of tall buildings resembling a gigantic
barcode. Materials used include a new fibre,
developed with a Chinese manufacturer,
sturdy enough for internal pedestrian
bridges and also suitable for projecting
digital images on to. Walls are made of
treated aluminium sheets, developed by
a Chinese tin can manufacturer.
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