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Yang Mian
Undoubtedly, architecture is the most direct and solid way to present the cultural status of a society. The architecture here is not an academic concept, but a social one, which means living circumstance.
As to the concept of living, it is a typical practical concept in a narrow sense.
Since 1900, our city has come all the way from the Roman columns + Gothic door/windows + large doorway in 30s, Russian architecture in 50s, matchbox buildings of cranberry glass, yellow tile, blue glass, white tile in 80s and 90s, green glass, granite and aluminum plastic board, to the fashionable appearance of today.
From such mode, we learned that, our architecture is the same as our society, i.e., our society was in a culturally inferior position of improvement on feudalistic culture and imitation on practical western culture, while the western culture was acting rapidest and most energetic evolvement. Lacking of step-by-step evolvement from classic to modern, from the cultural power point of view, and if a culture dies in one society, the society will lose the support of reasonable restriction which will become the support of political or commercial benefits.
As to the living circumstance, at the moment, our city is in a stage of sharp changes. It will become larger, newer, more exotic and with more desire, and the support of society will also become more ambiguous. To build a standard and ‘beautiful home’ of 21st century is now a sound slogan. ‘Beauty’ itself is not a precise concept. It has become a commercial trick in front of construction.
Then let’s look at our homes in reality. After farewell to painting age, and entry of decoration age, our vision standards “were established on the continuous replacement of surface materials, from the preliminary ashtree, white raftwood, to Schneider zelkova and cherry tree. Our decorations are controlled by such standards. Walking into any home, material becomes the only standard. Same material, same decoration standards. And such standard is communicated in written form which leads out life, and become our life standards. Reading the property catalog, our houses are of the same pattern, same limited space, and same separation of owner and servant. Such standardized “beautiful life” under current cultural hardware is a harm, for people nowadays, who promote individuality as their cultural tricks.
From Beijing of graceful Ming and Qing capital, to Guangzhou of southern China, from elegant Jiangnan town, from Shanghai of western style to inland Chengdu, “standard” architecture of yellow tile, blue glass, green tile, green glass, and under the architecture, colorful floor tile, and dirty and colorful ornamental foliage plants are everywhere. Under the strange lighting, each of our city looks like catching up with Las Vegas. We are living in a confusing circumstance. There is no a precise definition for each person and each corner. In the large movement like background, everything in our city is overturned and re-combined. During the process of combination, we have to establish new relationship between people. With no traditional culture, people are lack of basic trust and harmony with each other. With no basic trust and harmony, with great cost, we live into cities and communities. We established the architectural “standards” for new cities. With hopes, we build up our cities and our country. But each city in China is built with the same buildings, same colorful sidewalks, same childish square, same residential communities with European names, etc.. In the process of modern civilization, we forget that the base of modern civilization is presented by city civilization, and the civilization of a city depends on the individuality of the city. Only individuality can make the world brilliant. But the individualization of our city is not unlimited. In a city, we should pursue the large coordination and small changes, which will not lead to the pursuant of “strangeness”, so that our city will not build the so-called “sculpture” or “joss” as “top 1 of the world”, and that our city will not only seek for new style, destroy all previous building, and build up architecture of the same age. Only a city with buildings in different ages, different culture and different history can be called as a city with individuality. Let us look at the small Europe. Each city is different, from graceful Rome, to water-side Venice, from Barcelona of great architectural reputation, to Billbare famous for Guggenheim of Frank Gehry, not to mention Paris of architecture group of gothic, Baroque, Rococo, modernism, and post-modernism. If you look from the old Triumphal Arch to the new Triumphal Arch, all style of Parisian will be in front of you. Of course, if you look from Montmartre, the highest building must be a cultural architecture. In the same country of Germany, the sense of Berlin and Munich are greatly different.
Let’s look at our architectural history after 1900, and what will we get! Our cities have evolved from Roman columns etc. to the current fashionable appearance. During we can find a large gap in the history of Chinese architecture. It lacks the whole modernism, modernist architectures under industrial civilization. We are constructing our “standard” architectures with confused thoughts.
As to architecture, I fully agree to the view of the owners of the developes of National open houses National Grand Theater: “if we can not find a stile one to represent China, we just choose a “modern one”.
It is related to our recent architecture history. Focused on our recent architectural history, we should build up a building with clear age and rich style. To my opinion, lacking of basic education on modernist life on our architects causes the problems of our city when building new architectures. And most disgusting is we also built a lot of “archaized” buildings. What is archaized? From the intellectual right point of view, it is pirate. It is a specially unclear concept. What is “ancient”? Is it Han, Tang, Ming or Qing? It is clear that Tang architecture is Tang architecture, which has its own architectural style and technological standards. We cannot only have a Tang coat. We cannot call a tile-coated building with large roof as a “Tang-archaized” building. And we cannot call a new architectural district with tile houses as Ancient Cultural Street.
To my opinion, there are two moving cases in the world city construction.
One is New York. As we all know, it is a rather young city compared with European cities. During the process of New York construction, it is hard to believe that the city planning was made in 1900, and until now, all planning is based on that. While admiring the vision of New Yorkers, we know it is based on the respect to professionalism. If not the effect of professionalism, I think it will not be like this. On the other hand, the planning of New York was established in way of the law. The law decided the dream of the city, and the dream becomes law. All officers of New York city can only follow the law, and cannot pursue for short-term surface action, in order to prevent periodical behavior and possibility of awkwardness. The only pity is that in the economic peak of USA, they built a residential community with houses of same style. But now it becomes the worst view in New York, and slum district as well. Due to different country situation, it is stipulated in the USA law that architectures more than 20 years will be called as historical architecture, which will be protected. I think we cannot protect building more than 20 years. But our attitude should not be destroying everything, and should not do things without sense of history at all. From the experience of New York, at least we should know that we must develop our cities with control.
The other one is Munich. During the World War II, Munich was an important city in Germany, in order to destroy Nazi, the allied force bombed up the whole Germany. After the war, Munich had spent 10 years to rebuild the city according to its original appearance. It is the attitude to history, because they thought the old Munich is good enough, and they wanted to recover the past life, so that we can see a city with history and life tradition, and we can see there is a huge garden and a peaceful but energetic river in the center of Munich. The features of the city are reserved.
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