The President of
China, Xi Jinping, has reportedly called for an end to the “weird buildings”
being built in China, and particularly in the nation’s capital,
Beijing. In a two hour speech at a literary symposium in Beijing last
week, Mr Xi expressed his views that art should serve the people and be
morally inspiring, identifying architectural projects such as OMA’s
CCTV Headquarters as the kind of building that should no longer be
constructed in Beijing.
CCTV New Building
This statement is that it is an extension of his mission to
crack down on corruption and extravagance within the Chinese Government, having
removed 51 officials from government as of August.
In particular his
statement that art should “inspire minds, warm hearts, cultivate taste and
clean up undesirable work styles”. It shows that Xi want to raise the
traditional Chinese culture, try to avoid the
architecture field in China become a test of international Architects.
Another
interpretation, offered by Wolfgang Georg Article in Forbes Magazine, links Xi
Jinping’s comments to architectural tourism, saying: “Chinese outbound
tourists used to be impressed by futuristic buildings they encountered in
places like Dubai and recently also London, but with more and more of such
projects realized in Beijing… the pull factor of contemporary architecture
for them is diminishing.”
Article also notes
that the number of foreign tourists visiting Beijing has steadily declined
in recent years, but while he concludes that ”maybe this argument will
help to sustain future projects by world-class architects,” it could also have
the opposite effect: perhaps Mr. Xi realizes that the draw of “weird
architecture” is not strong enough to sustain China’s tourism
industry, and therefore not worth the financial and reputation risks it
poses.
Previously it had been
thought that Chinese culture was simply not strong enough to support its
building boom without the help of foreign architects: in early 2012, Mr. Xi’s
predecessor Hu Jintao wrote “the international culture of the West is strong
while we are weak.” However, mere months later, the Pritzker Prize was
awarded to Wang Shu, the first time it had been awarded to an architect both
born and working in China. Furthermore, Wang Shu has been noted for
his Critical-Regionalist approach, combining Western modernism with
traditional Chinese influences.
Beside the criticism, anther results of this statement have reduced the
number of new buildings. As far as I know, the firm I used to intern in China
has canceled several projects. Some of them are design processing. And it is a
good way to slow down the design process. Give time for Chinese to rethink what
building is China need.
I
will collect some really weird buildings in next couple weeks.
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