MCLC: Wang Shu challenges obsession with scale

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Wang Shu challenges obsession with scale
***********************************************************

Source: The Guardian (12/15/12):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/dec/16/china-architecture-wang-
shu-rowan-moore

Wang Shu: the architect challenging China's obsession with scale
China's massive building projects will not last, says Wang Shu, who is on
a quest for 'reality' in architecture
By Rowan Moore

In architecture, or at least construction, China currently has a
mesmerising effect. It is the land where developments seem so large, so
numerous, so ruthless, so inexorable and indifferent to European scruples
of taste, scale or propriety that the latter begin to look like futile
luxuries. This is the future, seems to be the message, and, like it or
not, you had better get used to it.

The architect Wang Shu would like to offer an alternative view. He does
not dispute the power and prevalence of huge new building projects in
China, but that they are the only or inevitable architectural products his
country has to offer. Amateur Architecture Studio
<http://www.chinese-architects.com/en/amateur/en/>, the practice he runs
with his wife Lu Wenyu, is concerned with such things as memory, location,
craft and identity, for "real feeling between people and construction" and
the ways in which they can be recognised in the extraordinary time through
which China is now passing. They do this with projects including a history
museum in the coastal city of Ningbo, an art academy in his home city of
Hangzhou, and the rescue of a historic street, Zhongshan Road, also in
Hangzhou.

I catch Wang as he is visiting London for the first time, to speak at the
Sustaining Identity conference at the Victoria & Albert Museum
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/v-and-a>: "People say it's so big,
but really it's a very cute village", is his first impression of the city.
Of development in his own land he says: "I don't think the model is good.
Usually they just copy some model from Japan or Hong Kong or Singapore or
United States. They destroy very large pieces of cities and replace them
with closed districts with walls and policemen. It bears no relation to
real Chinese life. Maybe we should find the real reality."

In the Ningbo museum
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/mar/02/constructive-criticism-
architecture-aberdeen-park> this means a massive, severe structure, part
ship, part mountain, part castle, enriched with tiles and bricks salvaged
from demolished houses. Wang says he met a woman there who told him "she
visited four times in half a year. She found many things similar to her
original house, which had been demolished. She came to find her memory.
Modern Chinese cities don't have memories, but in their deep heart they
need memories. It really moved me."

Wang Shu, now 49, is the most recent winner of the Pritzker prize
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/feb/28/wang-shu-wins-pritzker-
prize>, the world's most famous award for architecture. He was one of the
jury's less expected choices, although it was high time they noticed China
– he is the first from that large country to win – and he does, in fact,
fit with a pattern in their choices. They tend to alternate between big
stars, such as Rem, Zaha, Rogers and Foster, and thoughtful, dedicated
types closely bound to the places where they work, such as Glenn Murcutt
in Australia, Paulo Mendes da Rocha in Brazil and Peter Zumthor in
Switzerland.

Wang is in the latter category. This doesn't mean he is simply a folk
artist or a traditionalist. He is more bold and robust than that. As the
Ningbo museum shows, he's not afraid of large buildings or of the plain
forms of modernism. His Zhongshan Road project includes a chunky wooden
roof loosely based on ancient bridges, and some curious, zoomorphic towers
in rough concrete. His understanding of "craft" includes the fact that
buildings are sometimes roughly and cheaply made. Nor is he concerned only
with crafting perfect artefacts in a rustic retreat, but also with the
social effects of buildings.

He accepted a commission from a developer in Hangzhou to build a housing
tower. "Usually I would refuse," he says, "but this client is a very funny
person. He graduated in history, writes poems and novels, and has some
idea about culture." He wanted to "discuss some different way" of building
a high rise. Wang wanted to find out how the traditional forms of the
Chinese home, where several people might live around a courtyard, might be
transposed to vertical living.

He came up with "this crazy idea", where the tower is simply a stack of
courtyards, each one of which can be landscaped and planted – with trees
if desired – by its residents. "Usually, in a high-rise building people,
can't tell which window is their own. Here you can plant a pine tree and
say that the flat with a pine tree is mine." It was a qualified success:
whereas many new apartments in China are bought up by investors, this
block is 90% occupied by families who own their homes. But it took six
months to sell, in a market where blocks can sell out in a week.

Wang is not in a great hurry to work with a developer again (and the
developer of the courtyard tower, although "proud" of it, is not rushing
to work with Wang again). Indeed, Wang is prepared not to work at all, if
the conditions aren't right for him. He tells his staff: "I just want to
do the right thing. If I have to stop my work, everyone can go back home.
If I want to stop, I can stop. This is why I call my studio Amateur."

He sees himself as almost alone in taking this position, before
remembering that his friend Ai Weiwei, artist, architect and dissident,
"is, apart from me, a good architect in China". If, out of a population of
more than a billion, this seems like a quixotic position, Wang doesn't
believe it's a hopeless one. "I have a very different future in mind. I
believe that eventually these massive projects will collapse. These things
are passing. They will not last."