Lai Jing Chu Retrofitting Le Corbusier's the City of Tomorrow Into the Republic of China In

Anachronistic translations LaiThe materialization Jing of Urbanisme’s (1924) Chinese translation Chu in 1936, Mingri Zhi Chengshi (literally: The City of Tomorrow), may dazzle the reader of Chinese architectural history as both timely and anachronistic—timely, owing to the relatively short time gap between the Chinese version and Frederick Etchells’s English version in 1929, yet anachronistic, since architecture itself was still a novel Retrofittingdiscipline in China. For sure, piecemeal translations of articles and editorials Le Corbusier’s that summated Western ideas filled the pages of disciplinary journals such as Zhongguo Jianzhu (Chinese Architecture) and Jianzhu Yuekan (Architectural Monthly) as architects and building practitioners fervently explored how “advanced technological knowledge” from the West and “the Chinese essence” could be amalgamated. That said, an actual cover-to-cover book translation of Thethe architectural/urban City design genre was still wanting owingof to the large amountTomorrow into of capital investment, labor, and effort that such an endeavor would entail. Treating translation as a type of media in itself, this paper borrows architectural historian Esra Ackan’s dynamic interpretation of the term, which “includes any act of changing from one place, position, condition, medium, or language”1 through thethe movement Republic of people, capital, ideas, technologies, information and images .2 of China in 1936 Homing in on the book as a cultural artifact, a deep observation of the The City of 104 Tomorrow’s physical, material, and textual properties centers this investigation. By interrogating the book both as a designed object and a vessel for pioneering ideas, and setting these observations against the political, cultural, technological and urban-spatial context of China’s 1930s, this paper seeks to unravel the func- tion and agenda of the translated book situated in its specific epoch. Genre Coming from a humble yet literate family, the translator of The City of Tomorrow, Lu Yu-Tsun, was a sixteen-year-old boy when he boarded an ocean liner headed to Marseilles, France in 1919.3 He was to embark on a civil engineering program at the prestigious École Polytechnique in Paris funded through the “diligent work and frugal study” (qingong jianxue) scheme sponsored by the left-wing Young 1 Esra Ackan, Architecture in Translation (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012): 7. 2 Ibid., 3–4. 3 Lu Yu-Tsun 盧毓駿, ‘Lu Yujun Jiaoshou Wenji (Yi)’ 盧毓駿教授文集（一） (Written Works Of Professor Lu Yu-Tsun). Taipei: ‘Zhongguo Wenhua Daxue Jianzhu Ji Dushi Sheji Xuexi Xiyouhui Xueshu Weiyuanhui’ 中國文化大學建築及都市設計學系系友會學術委員會 (Taipei: Chinese Culture University Department of Architecture and Urban Design, Alumni Academic Committee, 1988): 1417. Thresholds 46 Scatter! Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/thld_a_00031 by guest on 02 October 2021 China Association.4 After graduating from his program in 1924, he worked as Lai Jing Chu a researcher at the Institut d’urbanisme of the Université de Paris for a full five years.5 At the Institut he was surrounded by a community of French techno- crats whom Paul Rabinow calls specific intellectuals6 —those who concerned themselves with “scientific and pragmatic solutions to public problems in times of crisis” to deliver a techno-cosmopolitanism, an urbanity that synthesizes the Retrofitting Le Corbusier’shistorical and the natural with the technological.7 In 1929, Lu returned to his own nation and began to serve in the Kuomintang (KMT) government’s Municipal Government’s Construction Works Division in Nanking as a technical specialist.8 His career trajectory is thus set apart from the vital group of ivy-league edu- cated architects of his generation that prevails in the over-rehearsed narrative of early Chinese architectural Modernism—recalling famous figures such as The City of TomorrowLiang Sicheng, Yang Tingbao, into Tong Jun, and the majority who attended to the University of Pennsylvania through the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship, and who eventually returned to join private architectural practice. In migrating back to China from France, we also see a translation of Lu’s percept of his own professional role from one geopolitically context to another. the Republic of ChinaGiven the translator’s in professional context,1936 his Chinese readership extends beyond a limited circle of architects and urban planners and encompasses 105 politicians, scientists, engineers, and the general public. One might see the instrumentality of this publication as less cultural-artistic than technocratic-utili- tarian. Lu Yu-Tsun’s translation of The City of Tomorrow’s individual chapters first appeared in a civil construction periodical, Good Roads Monthly, alongside a research article on gasoline in 1932.9 Book reviews of The City of Tomorrow and 4 The qingong jianxue work-study program was a politically charged group under the man- date of Sun Yat-Sen’s Ministry of Education, and is regarded as a hotbed of early Chinese Communist Party members. Amongst the students who participated were CCP members including Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and others. Its purpose was to cultivate an ethos of ‘intellectual and manual work’ that was deemed necessary for the strengthening of the nation. (See Bailey, Paul. 1988. “The Chinese Work-Study Movement in France”. The China Quarterly 115: 441-461. doi:10.1017/s030574100002751x). 5 A travel diary entry by Lu published on a student journal dates his journey to Europe to be in the year 1920. See Lu Yu-Tsun 盧毓駿, “‘Ou Cheng Jianwen Ji’歐程見聞記 (Journey To Europe), ” ‘Xue Shu Jie’ 學術界 (Academia) 8:3 (1921), 1–8. 6 Paul Rabinow, French Modern (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989): 16. 7 Ibid., 12. 8 The fact was stated in Chen Nien-Chung’s foreword to Lu Yu-Tsun 盧毓駿, ‘Mingri zhi Chengshi’ 明日之城市 (The City of tomorrow) (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1936): 12-3. 9 Lu Yu-Tsun 盧毓駿, “‘Mingri Zhi Chengshi Ji Qi Jihua (6)’ 明日之城市及其計畫（六） (The City of Tomorrow and Its Planning (6) ),” ‘Daolu Yuekan’ 道路月刊 (The Good Roads Monthly) 39:1 (1932), 23–6. The title of the article marks it as the sixth in a running serial, however I was unable to locate the rest through the digital database. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/thld_a_00031 by guest on 02 October 2021 Lai Jing Chu Retrofitting Le Corbusier’s The City of Tomorrow into the Republic of China in 1936 Figure 1: An inner spread of The City of Tomorrow translated by Lu Yu-Tsun. 1936. Photograph by author. Original drawing by Le Corbusier, Ville contemporaine de trois millions d’habitants, Sans lieu, 1922. © F.L.C. / ADAGP, Paris / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 2017. references made to it also appeared in political and economic journals such as 106 Municipal Review10 and National Economics.11 As war approached in the late 30s, Lu became increasingly involved in anti-air-raid urbanism, and related articles he wrote on this topic continued to fill the pages of professional journals such as Chinese Architecture and general interest publications such as Scientific China —approximating today’s science and technology magazine, Wired. Graphics The Chinese version of The City of Tomorrow on the surface appears to repro- duce design features that had previously been carried forward from its French original to its English translation. The typographical layout of text runs horizontally from left to right such that the page direction follows European methods and not the opposite Chinese or East Asian convention, which was seen as the modern style. Fidelity in translating the layout is evident in the painstaking replication of every original illustration chosen by Le Corbusier, including the fold-out pages 10 Dong Xiujia 董修甲, “‘Jinhou Nanjing Shi De Jige Jianshe Zhengce’ 今後南京市的幾個建設政策(中篇) (Several Forthcoming Construction Policies for Nanking City),” ‘Shizheng Pinglun’ 市政评论 (Municipal Review)” 5:8-9 (1937) 8-16. 11 Dong Xiujia 董修甲, “‘Shuping—Mingri Zhi Chengshi’ 書評—明日之城市 (Book Review–The City of Tomorrow),” ‘Guomin Jingji’ 國民經濟 (National Economics) 1:4 (1939), 139–43. Thresholds 46 Scatter! Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/thld_a_00031 by guest on 02 October 2021 (Figure1). Mindful of the fact that Le Corbusier intended to convey his manifesto by means of careful curation of images to visual contrast,12 the seemingly exact visual sensibility that was reproduced in the Chinese translation ensured that the final outcome radiated an aura of authenticity and legitimacy. The sharp orange cover, by contrast, in no way resembles the French or English versions (Figure 2). Along its right edge, a vertical strip bearing the title The City of Tomorrow (‘明日之城市’), is printed in large characters, followed by the author and translator credits (‘戈必意著盧毓駿譯’) set out in smaller letterforms. Horizontally, the bottom edge states “Distributed by the Commercial Press” (‘商務印書館發行’) and is printed larger than the names of the author and translator. Founded at the tail-end of the Qing Dynasty in 1897, the Commercial Press was a crucial player in China’s print history in that it was the first to utilize modern industrial printing technology to produce publications that promoted Western scientific knowledge and modern thinking, especially textbooks.13 Support and endorsement by this particular publisher would have been perceived as a sign of prestige and credibility. Another notable feature is the style of the typeface. Two different typefaces are visible here—one for the book title, and another for the author, translator, and 107 distributor’s names—both demonstrating strong traces of Modernist influence in their rectilinear strokes and treatment of serifs. One might even assert that they evoke Le Corbusier’s favorite stenciled letterforms—Charette and Chaillot.14 Since type design and typesetting in China were still at an inchoate stage, these were most likely custom-designed and crafted. Set against the title is a faint image of a metropolitan skyline.

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