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Identical skylines arise from urban pulverization
By Wan Lixin |
September 28, 2011, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A GROUND-BREAKING ceremony for a 108-story, 510-meter-high landmark took place in Beijing last week.
When completed in five years, the futuristic edifice incongruously modeled on an ancient Chinese wine vessel would dwarf the 492-meter Shanghai World Financial Center.
Meanwhile at least five other Chinese cities are busy erecting their own landmark skyscrapers, all with a height in excess of 510 meters.
The Shanghai Center that is growing upwards every day would ultimately soar to a height of 632 meters.
Such lofty aspirations show how the land that was once home to one of the most ancient civilizations in the world has turned into a testing ground for avant-garde, post-modern architectural concepts.
They also suggest how easy it is for buildings to grow vertically when there is sufficient steel and glass, and when there is no need to respect local conditions and traditions.
Thanks to these standardized, uniform buildings that have been dominating the Chinese urban landscape, it is getting more and more difficult to identify a city from its skyline.
In a recent article on Wenhui Daily, professor Ruan Yisan from Tongji University expressed regret over this dominance of architectural replicas across China. These replicas totally ignore the cultural, historic, and topographical context.
He observed that whether in modernized Europe or Japan, one can still easily find buildings unique to them, thanks to pride in their own culture.
But in the waves of urban pulverizations and construction that characterize China's recent decade, there is more pride in modernity, speed, and efficiency.
In the past decade, virtually all dedicated urban planners in China have been inspired by this mandate: "A change within one year, a sea change in three years' time!" In officialdom, such changes count towards official merits for promotion.
In recent years some Chinese scholars have been fascinated by concepts like ecology, low-carbon, or humane considerations as novel Western imports, little knowing that distinct Chinese buildings have from the very beginning been dictated by environmental and humanistic, not to say aesthetic, considerations.
Be it the siheyuan (a compound with houses around a square courtyard) or Shanghai's shikumen, these buildings are all results of long adaptations to local climate, culture, society and topography, serving at once the needs of extended families and neighborhoods, and informed by an understanding of the earth and heaven that's so important in Chinese outlook.
"[In siheyuans] there might be enclosing walls for security reason, but there is always a courtyard where the heaven and earth meets. That's essential," Ruan wrote.
Chinese harmony
By comparison, privacy has never been stressed in traditional Chinese dwelling places. As a matter of fact, in the Confucian ideal, all senses of ritual and propriety proceed from the family context.
Whether in siheyuan or in shikumen, notwithstanding the high population density, children from different families can play together, and neighbors clad in pajamas can drop in and exchange gossip.
The conduct of an individual at home is not only subject to judgment by family members, but also to critique by neighbors.
Traditional Chinese homes have been designed in a way that best answer these requirements.
Until recently, Chinese regional architectural styles were still a celebration of local distinctiveness and variations.
In recent years, such scenes of neighborly communion, vigor and openness have been denigrated as backward and wretched compared with Western demands for material comforts.
That prejudice paves the way for systematic replacement of localized dwellings by cookie-cutter apartment blocks in accordance with "advanced international practice".
These buildings are efficient and scientific, but destroy the neighborhood.
Ruan said that a Western apartment is more like a machine which maximizes the material comforts of the occupants.
But domestic amenities can be enslaving.
In the past, children liked to enjoy themselves outside. But this year saw the coinage of a new term zhaitong (home-bound kids), referring to children who like to keep to themselves at home, busy watching TV, chatting online or playing games on the Internet.
These modern gadgets get them hooked, and deprive them of any inclinations to fight their isolation. They yearn to be left alone.
Commenting on the increasingly homogenized buildings in China, Xiao Fuxing, a well-known writer, also deplored the standardization of the Chinese urban landscape in an article in Wenhui Daily early this month.
"In the urbanization process the steadily beautified towns, big and small, have been replicated from one architectural prototype," Xiao wrote.
"The sameness of these architectural imitations, complete with boulevards, squares, corner parks, lawn and landmark statues, is benumbing and confusing."
Reminders of past
Sadly it is politically correct, even salutary, to continue to sanitize the towns of aged buildings, or dilapidated buildings, or any vestigial reminders of the past.
In order to make future designers respect local conditions, there should be regulation of market forces.Businessmen thrive on standardization and beautification projects. Tragically, many Chinese officials also thrive on them, forging a powerful official-business nexus.
In Nanjing there was recently an initiative to standardize their street signs, at a cost of nearly 3,000 yuan (US$468) each. One can imagine the profit-enabling potentials of other standardizations.
Only by cutting the official-business nexus can we hope to reconnect our urban designers to the root of Chinese culture.
It does not take much experience to conclude that great cities are the result of natural growth, rather than design.
When completed in five years, the futuristic edifice incongruously modeled on an ancient Chinese wine vessel would dwarf the 492-meter Shanghai World Financial Center.
Meanwhile at least five other Chinese cities are busy erecting their own landmark skyscrapers, all with a height in excess of 510 meters.
The Shanghai Center that is growing upwards every day would ultimately soar to a height of 632 meters.
Such lofty aspirations show how the land that was once home to one of the most ancient civilizations in the world has turned into a testing ground for avant-garde, post-modern architectural concepts.
They also suggest how easy it is for buildings to grow vertically when there is sufficient steel and glass, and when there is no need to respect local conditions and traditions.
Thanks to these standardized, uniform buildings that have been dominating the Chinese urban landscape, it is getting more and more difficult to identify a city from its skyline.
In a recent article on Wenhui Daily, professor Ruan Yisan from Tongji University expressed regret over this dominance of architectural replicas across China. These replicas totally ignore the cultural, historic, and topographical context.
He observed that whether in modernized Europe or Japan, one can still easily find buildings unique to them, thanks to pride in their own culture.
But in the waves of urban pulverizations and construction that characterize China's recent decade, there is more pride in modernity, speed, and efficiency.
In the past decade, virtually all dedicated urban planners in China have been inspired by this mandate: "A change within one year, a sea change in three years' time!" In officialdom, such changes count towards official merits for promotion.
In recent years some Chinese scholars have been fascinated by concepts like ecology, low-carbon, or humane considerations as novel Western imports, little knowing that distinct Chinese buildings have from the very beginning been dictated by environmental and humanistic, not to say aesthetic, considerations.
Be it the siheyuan (a compound with houses around a square courtyard) or Shanghai's shikumen, these buildings are all results of long adaptations to local climate, culture, society and topography, serving at once the needs of extended families and neighborhoods, and informed by an understanding of the earth and heaven that's so important in Chinese outlook.
"[In siheyuans] there might be enclosing walls for security reason, but there is always a courtyard where the heaven and earth meets. That's essential," Ruan wrote.
Chinese harmony
By comparison, privacy has never been stressed in traditional Chinese dwelling places. As a matter of fact, in the Confucian ideal, all senses of ritual and propriety proceed from the family context.
Whether in siheyuan or in shikumen, notwithstanding the high population density, children from different families can play together, and neighbors clad in pajamas can drop in and exchange gossip.
The conduct of an individual at home is not only subject to judgment by family members, but also to critique by neighbors.
Traditional Chinese homes have been designed in a way that best answer these requirements.
Until recently, Chinese regional architectural styles were still a celebration of local distinctiveness and variations.
In recent years, such scenes of neighborly communion, vigor and openness have been denigrated as backward and wretched compared with Western demands for material comforts.
That prejudice paves the way for systematic replacement of localized dwellings by cookie-cutter apartment blocks in accordance with "advanced international practice".
These buildings are efficient and scientific, but destroy the neighborhood.
Ruan said that a Western apartment is more like a machine which maximizes the material comforts of the occupants.
But domestic amenities can be enslaving.
In the past, children liked to enjoy themselves outside. But this year saw the coinage of a new term zhaitong (home-bound kids), referring to children who like to keep to themselves at home, busy watching TV, chatting online or playing games on the Internet.
These modern gadgets get them hooked, and deprive them of any inclinations to fight their isolation. They yearn to be left alone.
Commenting on the increasingly homogenized buildings in China, Xiao Fuxing, a well-known writer, also deplored the standardization of the Chinese urban landscape in an article in Wenhui Daily early this month.
"In the urbanization process the steadily beautified towns, big and small, have been replicated from one architectural prototype," Xiao wrote.
"The sameness of these architectural imitations, complete with boulevards, squares, corner parks, lawn and landmark statues, is benumbing and confusing."
Reminders of past
Sadly it is politically correct, even salutary, to continue to sanitize the towns of aged buildings, or dilapidated buildings, or any vestigial reminders of the past.
In order to make future designers respect local conditions, there should be regulation of market forces.Businessmen thrive on standardization and beautification projects. Tragically, many Chinese officials also thrive on them, forging a powerful official-business nexus.
In Nanjing there was recently an initiative to standardize their street signs, at a cost of nearly 3,000 yuan (US$468) each. One can imagine the profit-enabling potentials of other standardizations.
Only by cutting the official-business nexus can we hope to reconnect our urban designers to the root of Chinese culture.
It does not take much experience to conclude that great cities are the result of natural growth, rather than design.
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