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Concrete jungles

By Staff reporter | December 28, 2009, Monday | Print Edition

YU Kongjian is the director of the Landscape Design Academy of Beijing University. He obtained his doctor's degree at Harvard University in 1995.

His landscape design has won fame both at home and abroad and is recognized as a famous international landscape designer.

Yu is a real scholar who prepared his speech through a well-prepared PowerPoint presentation. Although his theme wasn't familiar to the audience, he took a unique angle in presenting his theme.

"The beginning of the history of Chinese urbanization started from binding women's feet about 1,000 years ago. The aesthetic taste of appreciating small feet created the narrow-sighted city view. That is to say, a city should be small and elegant. If a city is spacious, then it becomes a countryside place."

Yu gave a new concept to the audience for his opening remarks.

Yu used accurate figures to describe the condition of cities in China. "China now consumes 54 percent of the world's concrete, and 30 percent of the world's steel. Concrete and steel are used to 'bind the feet of the cities.' The 'small feet plus the gigantic appearance' is common for cities in China," he said.

"Today China has 662 cities, of which 400 face water shortages because 75 percent of the rivers have been polluted and so is 64 percent of underground water around the cities. Fifty percent of wetlands have disappeared. We consumed the life of the earth, because we needed the revolution for gigantic cities. The construction of the cities should return to the art of survival," Yu urged.

Yu told the seminar: "It is due time for us to 'unbind the feet' of the earth. Firstly, we must establish the ecological base and provide an ecologically sound service. Secondly, we must provide the aesthetic taste of 'unbinding the feet,' which has two critical issues - anti-planning. We must change the current planning mode and establish a series of ecological equipment to realize the primitive beauty of nature instead of the artificial one."

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