WANG Shu and the Possibilities of Architectural Regionalism in China

Thorsten Botz-Bornstein

Nordic Journal of Architectural Research Volume 21, No 1, 2009, 14 pages Nordic Association for Architectural Research Thorsten Botz-Bornstein Gulf University for Science and Technology, College of Arts and Sciences Philosophy Hawally, Kuwait

Abstract: The article introduces the work of the Chinese Chinese thought been able to establish a critical experimental architect WANG Shu who practices tradition. The author discusses if contemporary “Critical Regionalism” in China by developing, Chinese architects will be able to create a valu- among other things, the principle of “free design” able Chinese environment flowing out of a critical that he derives from Chinese garden architecture. interchange with China’s history. Further the article examines the possibilities of critical regionalism within a typically Chinese socio-cultural context that is determined by a particular relationship with history. A critical phi- losophical tradition (in the west developed by Humboldt and Ranke) is absent in Chinese Keywords: thought. Neither in Qing China, during the years Wang Shu, contemporary Chinese architecture, of attempted reforms, nor during the “Hundred critical regionalism, Chinese civilization, Leopold Days Reform” or the “Chinese Renaissance,” has von Ranke, Enlightenment architecture.

4 Nordisk Arkitekturforskning 1-2009 INTRODUCTION Xin Ruan holds that “much of the Twentieth In today’s China, “elitist” architecture by Rem Century Chinese architecture, unfortunately, Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid or Steven Holl is present does not seem to have matched the expectati- as much as quick imitations of some indistinct ons of ‘critical regionalism’ (as modern archi- “international style” or – much worse – the so tecture did in Japan or India).”7 Part of the phe- called “Disneyland syndrome” buildings recur- nomenon might be due to the Chinese addicti- rent in satellite towns with distinctly German, on to modernism. Everywhere in the world, as Italian, or Tudor architectural styles.1 Attempts explains Douglas Reichert Powell, “since the to be creative are easily blurred by sublimated high period of modernism in the 1950s, ‘regio- ideas from a recent authoritarian past2 even nal’ has been a pejorative term”8 and certainly when – or especially when – they opt for the also in “modernist” China one would translate “postmodernist,” existential choice of grasping “regional” as “limited,” “local,” and “provinci- something of China’s lost cultural identity. As al.” Contrary to such evidence, one cannot many Chinese architects are still lost in trans- state that the Chinese architects were striving lating Western aesthetic forms for a Chinese to become particularly cosmopolitan. public, creativity remains most often restricted to the production of experimental skyscrapers 1. WANG Shu with “cut-outs” and occasional pagoda roofs. WANG Shu (born in 1963) is one of the most In Russia it had become obvious in the 1980s- experimental Chinese architects and is often 1990s that architects working during socialist mentioned together with Yung Ho CHANG, MA eras “had never been exposed to the kind of Qingyun, and LIU Jiakun as a typical represen- building practice which is required to produce tative of a new generation.9 Above that, Wang subtly differentiated objects.”3 China discovered Shu is one of the few architects who practice a similar truth a little later. The first problem is “Critical Regionalism” in China. The term that the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) cripp- Critical Regionalism was introduced in 1981 by led the country’s architectural development by Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre in their suspending the entire higher education system article “The Grid and the Pathway” and in 1983 for more than ten years; the second problem is Kenneth Frampton authored an article on the that today’s outmoded institutional practices same subject.11 According to the definition of seem to be unable to handle the architectural these authors, Critical Regionalism emphasi- challenges brought by the overwhelming eco- zes the importance of “placeness” by conside- nomic boom. ring contextual elements like scenery, histori- cal references, and light, without falling into In general, according to John Czaplicka regar- imitation and traditionalism. In the present ding Russia, “socialist architecture tends to be article I would not only like to introduce the unresponsive to the natural environment, local work of WANG Shu but also take his work as a customs, and the built heritage of particular starting point for further reflections on the sig- places or regions.” Usually, “derisive epithets nificance of “Critical Regionalism” in the parti- such as ‘feudal’, ‘bourgeois’, and ‘capitalist’ cular cultural and historical environment of were directed at the historical substance.”4 China. This is certainly also true for China, but in spite of this, China’s architectural history is full of While many of Wang’s colleagues seem to relatively successful attempts to combine fore- excel in copying skyscraper projects from ign construction methods with Chinese aesthe- architectural reviews or specialize in façades tics, reaching from the so-called “adaptive for commercial architecture, Wang insists that Chinese Renaissance” of the 1920 and 19305 to he designs “a house instead of a building:” I.M. Pei’s overtly modern though unmistakably “When I say ‘house’ I think of something that is Chinese Fragrant Hill Hotel from 1982. The pro- closer to life, closer to everyday life.”12 Wang’s blem is that these examples are limited and apparent architectural fundamentalism is not restricted to certain periods. In the 1970, the supposed to create an out-of-the-world attitu- communists ended up with a sort of extreme de but strives to attain professional and politi- modernism and even when they had been cal freedom and to resist ideological and com- tempted by traditional stylistic expressions6 mercial purposes. Amateur Architecture (the they opted rather for a blunt form of imitative name of his studio) is therefore “spontaneous traditionalism that is so well exemplified by the and experimental” as opposed to “official”; metaphorically charged design of the Beijing “temporary” as opposed to “monumental;” Railway Station. “critical and thoughtful” as opposed to “built;” and “illegal” as opposed to “sanctioned.”

Thorsten Botz-Bornstein: WANG Shu and the Possibilities of Architectural Regionalism in China 5 Wang explains that his architecture is “spont- Provocatively, Wang insists on the temporary aneous for the simple reason that “for me character of amateur architecture, which is not architecture is a matter of everyday life. I criti- meant as a “throw away architecture:” cize in modern architecture that it has not real- I simply think that architecture should work hand ly found a method enabling architects to get in hand with time. Sometimes I like to use cheap back to real everyday life.” Wang does not want material that can be exchanged when it is dama- his architecture to be “significant” in any politi- ged. And I like to associate buildings and plants. cal sense, but rather establishes it in terms of When buildings and plants come together it beco- place and local history. An architect, he insists, mes most obvious that, as long as time keeps is first of all a researcher and scholar; second- running, architecture is subjected to constant ly a craftsman; and only thirdly a builder. Above changes. that Wang defines himself as an intellectual or a writer. Wang is a rebel who feels close to the culture of his generation often called liumang (hooli- Amateur Architecture invites the active partici- gan) culture claiming that, at one point, he had pation of architects and artists and remains been influenced by the liumang writer Wang open to spontaneous changes. In particular, Shuo: Wang developed the “free design process,” a design able to adapt itself constantly in respon- When I graduated from university I was a se to the conditions of the environment as they liumang. Our generation was against all sorts of appear during the building phase. In principle, systems but we had no alternative to offer. “free design” is the method of creating a However, I am not cynical like Wang Shuo becau- Chinese garden, explains Wang, for the simple se even though I destroy things I build something reason that a Chinese garden cannot really be new in their place. I am always thinking of the designed: future, which has not been the case for the hooli- gans of the 1980s. In 1986 there was a conference A Chinese garden is the result of a construction held in Beijing called “How Can we process. I would like to make this a principle of Internationalize Chinese Architecture?” I went modern architecture. When I build something I there and said: “Since in China we have neither am always free to change certain things. architects nor architecture, the title of your con- Incidentally, this is also typical for the Chinese ference simply does not make sense.” You can situation. Lots of unforeseeable things happen believe me that there was quite a stir in the audi- here all the time and you have to improvise. It is ence. But what I said was true. At that time there useless to make a precise plan but it is better to was no architectural critique, there was no theory solve problems at the moment they arise. in China. An architect was somebody who knew As a consequence, for Wang’s work not jian how to draw, he could be drawing all day long but (place) – or its Japanese equivalent ma –, he was not necessarily thinking about what he but yuan (garden) represents the most sig- was drawing. nificant conceptual guideline. According to Wang, the situation has changed, Wang is certainly less well known than the but not necessarily for the better: “If I would extremely successful MA Qingyun and less say the same thing today at an architectural international than the Beijing-based CHANG conference it is very much possible that simply Yung Ho, both of whom have been classified as nobody would bother. Today people are mainly “regionalist.” Wang considers TONG Jun, one interested in money and business.” of the first architects to undertake systematic By calling his agency “Amateur Architecture research into the Jiangnan Gardens in Suzhou, Studio” and by simultaneously insisting on the as his principal Chinese influence.13 From the importance of the “handicraft aspect” of archi- international set Wang likes Carlo Scarpa, Aldo tecture Wang aims to distance himself, in a Rossi, Alvaro Siza, and Louis Kahn while Tadao provocative manner, from the professionalized, Ando has interested him only briefly. If anyt- technicized, and soulless “architecture as busi- hing, Wang likes only Ando’s early works and ness” attitude of present China: believes that, in general, Ando’s regionalism unfolded almost from the beginning too much A hundred years ago architecture had no theore- on an international level: “Ando’s focus is not tical foundation at all in China but the people who on particular cultural items while my regiona- built houses were artisans. Now an official archi- lism is more preoccupied with details.” tectural system has been established reaching

6 Nordisk Arkitekturforskning 1-2009 from the city to the countryside. I chose handi- has been engaged in various experimental Vertical Apartment House. craft and amateur spirit in order to oppose research projects such as the “Ceramic Tea Photo: Amateur Studio something to this system. In the end, for me, to House” at the Jinhua Architecture Park in be an artisan or an amateur is almost the same Jinhua. thing. Wang pays scrupulous attention to the genius Since its foundation in 1998, Wang’s “Amateur of place. When designing the Library of Architecture Studio” (which Wang manages Wenzheng College of Suzhou University on an with his partner LU Wenyu) has realized three artificial lakeside,14 for example, he considered large scale projects: The Wenzheng Library of the traditional prescription of Suzhou garde- Suzhou University; the Harbor Art Museum in ning, which suggests that buildings located Ningbo; and, most recently, the Xiangshan between mountains and water should not be Campus of the Chinese Academy of Art built on prominent. This led to the decision to sink a 65000 m2 ground in Hangzhou which is com- nearly half of the library underground. Another posed of ten buildings, including a library, a traditional gardening principle is to use diffe- gallery, a stadium, a workshop tower, six aca- rent scales for each building which is the demic buildings, two traditional style bridges, reason why the four additional buildings of the and two hillside art studios. Just completed is library are much smaller than the main body. the impressive Vertical Apartment House in Though Xin Ruan finds that “internally the buil- Hangzhou (strangely reminiscent of Paul ding is a simple shed” (New China Architecture, Rudolph’s Wisma Dharmala House in Jakarta). p. 180), the twisted building with a white, box- In addition, the Amateur Architecture Studio like pavilion at the end overlooking the lake

Thorsten Botz-Bornstein: WANG Shu and the Possibilities of Architectural Regionalism in China 7 Ceramic Tea House. Photo: Amateur Studio

seems to find its justification within the fore- building twists and transforms accordingly, and sted hill site. thus addresses uniformity and variability at the same time. The inevitable bulk of the buildings Wang was guided by similar ideas when desig- is purposefully lowered and the horizontal sun- ning the Xiangshan Campus in Hangzhou: “As screen slope emphasizes the horizontal exten- slopes, twists, and turns occur on site, the sion of the corresponding mountain range.”

8 Nordisk Arkitekturforskning 1-2009 Wen Zheng Library. Photo: Amateur Studio

The use of agriculture as the main element of because the local government actively suppor- the landscape design instead of ornamental ted his ideas about regionalism. Most parts of landscaping is remarkable. the historic port buildings had to be destroyed for security reasons. Still, Wang attempted to Like CHANG Yung Ho, Wang is fascinated by rebuild a “Chinese ceremonial space” by divi- Chinese quadrangle courtyard houses and the ding the building perpendicularly into upper plan of the campus integrates the Chinese and lower parts, which corresponds not only to character which can also be interpreted as Chinese tradition but also responds to contem- a and which Wang serially reproduced. In porary economic needs. The lower part of the the character , building and nature occupy, museum is reserved for commercial exhibiti- each of them, one half. Finding that the simple ons while the upper part holds art exhibitions. and straightforward shape of the traditional The gray bricks that are used for the foundati- Chinese court is able to accommodate nearly on of the main building are original bricks sal- all architectural functions, Wang created a free vaged from the destroyed building; the steel typology based on the court able to and timber elements in the upper part, on the respond to the requirements of this gigantic other hand, suggest an affinity with ships and space. harbor buildings. Along the river, there is a Some of Wang’s principles echo CHANG Yung group of caves laid with bricks containing Ho’s premise of “basic architecture” or “archi- Buddha figures, which evokes the historical tecture-in-itself.” However, though it might be fact that the building had once been the star- similar in certain aspects to Chang’s “Unusual ting point for pilgrimages. Architecture” (feichang jianzhu), Wang’s archi- tecture is “more concrete” as he intensively 2. The Possibilities of Critical Regionalism in explores traditional construction techniques China and building cultures. The stone base of the Kenneth Frampton saw critical regionalism Craft Shop School of the Xiangshan Campus, exemplified by Jørn Utzon’s Bagsvaerd Church for example, is laid using a method common in (1973-76) near Copenhagen, which represents, the local construction of tea fields. Wang had according to Frampton, a self-conscious syn- also salvaged over two million tiles of different thesis of universal civilization and world cultu- ages and sizes from demolished traditional re. The combination of “universal” elements houses which now cover the roofs of the cam- like the concrete outer shell of the church, with pus buildings. an organic and individualistic interior and a The Ningbo Contemporary Art Museum (2 pho- roof shape reminiscent of pagodas as a refe- tos possible) is located in the Ningbo Port area rence to “world culture,” make, in the eyes of and is, as Wang affirms, “a typical example of Frampton, this architecture simultaneously good cooperation with regional politicians” “resistant” and modern (Prospects… p. 154).

Thorsten Botz-Bornstein: WANG Shu and the Possibilities of Architectural Regionalism in China 9 Xiangsan Campus. Photo: Amateur Studio

This self-conscious “critical” or “resistant” strongly contributed to the formation of a criti- stance necessarily included in Critical cal consciousness among European architects. Regionalism, which enables the architect to be Eisenman points out that such tradition cannot both resistant and modern, that is, to distance be found in Asia.19 himself from both the Enlightenment myth of As a matter of fact, the “critical” instance of progress and the pre-industrial past, is far Critical Regionalism cannot be traced back to from natural in China. Though the Chinese (like aesthetics or architectural theory only, but has the Japanese) had developed doctrines relati- been developed even more abundantly in the vely early that emphasized the necessity of realm of historical science as generations of Asian essence (ti) and Western functionality European intellectuals attempted to give mea- (yong)16 and aimed, at least sporadically, at a ning to the concept of “critical history.” reconciliation of Chinese and Western ele- Discussions by Barthold Niebuhr (1776-1831) ments in architecture, regionalism has never and especially by Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767- been established as a critical architectural 1835) in his The Idealist Theory of movement. Historiography, laid the ground for a critical This lack is even more flagrant today when it form of historicism. Leopold von Ranke (1795- has become impossible to impute these diffi- 1886) as well as a subsequent set of philosop- culties to the country’s lack of prosperity or to hers represented by Wilhelm Dilthey, Wilhelm the absence of a desire to realize a national Windelband, and Heinrich Rickert, helped to identity (features that Frampton pointed out in define historical science as a discipline distinct 1983 as necessary conditions for the emergen- from both inductive scientific research and ce of Critical Regionalism). Finally, even the metaphysical speculation. Ranke, who has hangovers of the past communist modernist often been called the father of historical scien- style as well as the aggressive influence of the ce,20 argued that the works of Antiquity and the present “capitalist” international style might Renaissance should be used to reconstruct his- turn out to be minor issues. I would hold that tory and that preservation or the establishment the main obstacle for the establishment of cri- of authenticity should never be an end in itself. tical architecture in China is rather the absen- Ranke explained that the present always orga- ce of a real Chinese self-critical enlightenment nizes the past but that at the same time the tradition.17 goals of the present will always be achieved This is not the place to discuss Chinese intel- through history: “The particular is transformed lectual history in general; still I would like to by the universal, at the same time defending highlight some points that I consider being itself against the latter and reacting to it.”21 important for the formation of regional archi- Ranke viewed history not in the sense of tecture in China. “Architecture-in-itself is not Hegel’s absolute ideas but as the intentions found before in modern China,” confirms ZHU and thoughts of concrete individuals and insti- Jianfei18 and Peter Eisenman states that archi- tutions. His conclusion is that “only critically tecture in Asia is, in principle, conservative and researched history can be regarded as history” accommodating because there is no tradition (p. 157) and that the “problem for the historian of resistance. Eisenman refers to the impor- is not the relevance of the past period to the tance attributed to critical thinking in late 18th present, but rather the difficulty of seeing each century Europe – developed, in particular, by era from an objective universal perspective” Kant and Giovanni Battista Piranesi – that (ibid.).22

10 Nordisk Arkitekturforskning 1-2009 There are many more examples of complex or tradition, among them the historian LUO Jialun even paradoxical concepts of history and its who wrote in 1920: “Chinese culture and socie- perception in European thought; all I want to ty are truly depressing these days. Not only are show here is that in China such a tradition is they depressing at the present, but they may be not present and that this must have conse- said to have been this way for two thousand quences for the development of Chinese years. Europe, on the other hand, has experi- Critical Regionalism. In Qing China, during the enced ceaseless progress since the years of attempted reforms, intellectuals beca- Renaissance. The creative force in Western me aware of a certain lack of a critical method civilization is, simply, the spirit of criticism.”25 with which to approach history. The late 19th century Chinese reformer LIANG Qichao com- The “Chinese Renaissance,” led by the philo- plained that “China, so proud of its ancient civi- sopher and linguist HU Shih, has been most lization and long history, had failed to use them instrumental for a revolution in sinological stu- to its advantage. The past had become a dead dies but had limited influence on other branc- weight that held society back.”23 Liang had hes of the humanities because of long term been influenced by the reform philosophies of political developments in China. The “Chinese Meiji Japan, where he had studied. The reform Renaissance” also tackled the problem of his- that he and other Chinese intellectuals sugge- tory, as reports Hu: “When, in 1917, I began my sted, however, entered history as the “Hundred course on the History of Chinese Philosophy Days Reform” because it was cut short by nati- with the age of the poets and ignored all the onalist politicians.24 Many Chinese intellectuals previous periods of sage-rulers, the treatment Ningbo Contemporary Art Museum. of this time regretted the absence of a critical was considered by the conservative students as Photo: Amateur Studio

Thorsten Botz-Bornstein: WANG Shu and the Possibilities of Architectural Regionalism in China 11 Ningbo Contemporary Art Museum. Photo: Amateur Studio

so outrageous that it almost created a revolt in It is not difficult to link these facts to concrete my class.” Students criticized, for example, his expressions of Chinese architecture. In the denial of the historical existence of the Hsia 1970s, the sinologists Simon Leys and F.W. Dynasty, one of the three dynasties of Mote expressed their amazement at the utmost antiquity.26 Still Hu and his group had understo- negligence with which the Chinese used to od what China was lacking: “It was not enough treat the material heritage of their past.27 This to have a critical method; the method must be China, which has had such a long history and self-conscious so that it may be able to critici- which was so heavily loaded with memories, ze itself against loose application” (77). had remarkably few historical monuments to visit. While Europe has kept, in spite of its wars

12 Nordisk Arkitekturforskning 1-2009 and destructions, monuments dating from documentations of the past. It constantly scru- Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the tinized that past as recorded in words, and Renaissance, in China – except for the few caused it to function in the life of its present” most famous items – the monumental past has (p. 51). They built no Acropolis but monuments been practically absent. Leys insists that this is of the mind. The Maple Bride in Suzhou, for not just the result of the destructions carried example, is not important as an object but out during the Cultural Revolution but, that in exists only as a bit of psycho-historical materi- the beginning, the revolutionaries did not find al or as a “poetic place” in literary history. much to destroy. Behind all this Leys and Mote Official and historical “descriptions” of the find a particular Chinese concept of civilization bridge consist most frequently of a poem and through which the cultural development of a “in all that psycho-historical material associa- country is not interpreted in terms of material ted with the Maple Bridge, the bridge as an manifestations but in terms of “writing.” While object is of little importance; we are not told of the West has an antique presence made of aut- what material it is built, how big it is, or what it hentically ancient physical objects, China does looks like” (p. 52). The poems capture not have those “because of (…) a different atti- “moments of experience or of reflection invol- tude towards the way of achieving the enduring ving the bridge” or involve earlier poems inspi- monument.28 Derk Bodde has reduced this red in some indirect way by the bridge. phenomenon to a brief formula by opposing Suzhou is a city of ancient monuments, which Western civilization of buildings to a Chinese contains almost no ancient buildings at all. The civilization of writing: “duration” of the monument is spiritual rather Our word “civilization” goes back to a Latin root than material and any “authenticity” must be having to do with “citizen” and “city.” The Chinese seen as virtual. This means that in China, the counterpart, actually a binome, wen hua, literally past, tradition, and culture were not present means “the transforming [i.e. civilizing] influence and real in the first place but they were made of writing. In other words, for us the essence of of words. Not surprisingly, a past made of civilization is urbanization; for the Chinese it is words is elusive. the art of writing.29 LU Xun defined the Chinese past as a perpetu- ally elusive enemy, as an invisible, immaterial, A typical example is Suzhou’s Great Pagoda but indestructible shadow or ghost. Mote and that passes as Suzhou’s “Statue of antiquity.” Ley hold that the buildings are “ideas” or items However, Mote claims that “no building with derived from the consciousness of the Chinese such a pedigree would count for much as an who knew the poems: authentic antiquity even in the United States, much less in Rome” (p. 50). The Pagoda, whose The literary remains merely sampled in the origins go back to the third century, is a twenti- gazetteers, and more fully present in the libraries eth century construction that has constantly of scholars, are to Soochow as is the Forum to been rebuilt over the centuries and nothing of Rome. From them every educated Chinese could what can be found in it is what a Westerner reconstruct a real Soochow in his mind, with would call authentic. The point is that cracks and the scars that mar old stones (p. 53). Chinese civlization did not lodge its history in buildings. Even its most grandiose palace and city Vernacular Mysticism complexes stressed grand layout, the employ- It is useful to structure this phenomenon by ment of space, and not buildings, which were using the concepts of the French philosophers added as a relatively impermanent superstructu- Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari who divide re. Chinese civilization seems not to have regar- human language into four categories: vernacu- ded its history as violated or abused when the lar language (here), referential language historic monuments collapsed or burned, as long (there), vehicular language (everywhere), and as they would be replaced and restored, and their mythical language (beyond).30 In the domain of functions regained. In short, we can say that the architecture this constellation can be reprodu- real past of Soochow is a past of the mind; its ced like this: While the international style spe- imperishable elements are moments of human aks the vehicular language of the everywhere, experience. (p. 51) Critical Regionalism does not aim, as does According to Mote, the Chinese past was not regionalism, at the reinstallation of a strong made of stone but of words: “China kept the vernacular “Here” but rather at the vernacula- largest and longest-enduring of all mankind’s zation of referential elements. Here we recog-

Thorsten Botz-Bornstein: WANG Shu and the Possibilities of Architectural Regionalism in China 13 nize that something is different in China. What which explores the iconic, image-like, or “sce- seems to be so particular about Chinese archi- neographic” character of architecture at the tecture, and what is relevant in the context of expense of its more “authentic,” object-like, the present discussion, is that in China traditi- tactile aspect, and which is, above that, globali- on is marked off by the combination of the ver- zed, has made any critical discourse on archi- nacular (here) and the mythical (beyond), that tecture difficult. In China, on the other hand, it is, by “mythical vernacularism.” In the past, no is the historical background that is represented matter if it came to Confucian movements, by a virtual, non-critical cultural environment. mathematics or architecture, scholars and architects dealt mainly with “sacred” writings Conclusion that had their origin in an ideal order of reality When we ask here if the new generation of and were supposed to contain all knowledge Chinese architects will be able to take a critical pertinent to the field.31 “Mythical vernacula- view not only at the West but also at themsel- rism,” that is, tradition inscribed in the realm ves we mean more precisely: will young of the ideal, represented a kind of “virtual Chinese architects be able to do more than reality” in which culture – of which also archi- complacently add some more images to the tecture is an example – was contained in a stock of “Chinese looking buildings” referring non-material fashion. The manifestations of this to a virtual past? The task is difficult, especially ideal architectural reality (the buildings), on the given the fact that still in the 1980s, according other hand, were relatively rarely represented to Wang Shu, “there was no architectural criti- by concrete items that could be seen and visi- que, there was no theory in China.” Will ted but were rather systematically destroyed. Chinese architects be able to create a valuable Architectural culture (like the rest of Chinese Chinese environment with works that flow out culture) was rather preserved, in a “virtual” of a critical interchange with China’s own his- manner, in texts and in the minds of China’s tory? Obviously, “history” is here not just the (learned) people. classics. Most probably these architects will The provocative question that we are confron- have to refer to May 4th values, to Westernized ted with today is how Critical Regionalism can Shanghai architecture or to the “adaptive function in a culture in which the architectural Chinese Renaissance” of the 1920s, or even to past is more virtual than concrete. The a Shanghai film culture that appeared already European enlightenment tradition which led ninety years ago in the form of what film scho- from the late eighteenth century to the avant- lars call today “vernacular modernism.” We garde, and which was constantly refashioned are at the beginning of a new era. with regard to new intellectual elements flo- Finally, in the midst of this situation Wang Shu wing out of the ideological struggle of or with remains optimistic. Though in China, “destroy the rising bourgeoisie, left its distinctive mark and rebuild” is an important tradition and also on European architecture. Whatever this though, in his view, “this time they want to struggle might have looked like in each parti- destroy absolutely everything,” Wang also belie- cular case, enlightened or “avant-garde” archi- ves that “in China the tension between central tects had to combat a real past and a real tra- government and regional politics is less inten- dition present in the form of objects. Finally, se than foreigners generally think.” The reason Critical Regionalism flows out of this tradition. is that traditionally, central and regional Curiously, in Europe, the avant-garde tradition powers have always been kept at a distance faded out just at the moment cultural reality and do not interfere very much with each other. came to be presented in a more and more vir- And “regionalist politics certainly does have a tual-globalized fashion. Eisenman claims that closer relationship with unofficial, traditional the 200-year European project of critical architecture.” The conclusion is that Critical enlightenment thought exhausted itself in the Regionalism will most probably install itself middle of the twentieth century, for economic within niches created by a unique tradition of reasons, but also because the concept of archi- regional politics and hopefully begin to face its tecture had undergone dramatic changes. A own past and formulate its own Chinese princi- new media-based concept of architecture (alre- ples. ady criticized by Frampton in his 1983 essay)

14 Nordisk Arkitekturforskning 1-2009 AUTHOR

Thorsten Botz-Bornstein Assistant Professor of Philosophy Gulf University for Science and Technology, College of Arts and Sciences Philosophy. Hawally, Kuwait [email protected]

REFERENCES

1 Hannah Beech: “Ye Olde Shanghai” in Time 7 Xin Ruan: New China Architecture (Hong Kong: Feb. 14, 2005. Periplus, 2006), p. 14.

2 See my article… 8 Douglas Reichert Powell: Critical Regionalism: Connecting Politics and Culture in the American 3 Cf. Catherine Cooke: “Beauty as the Route to Landscape (University of North Carolina Press, the Radiant Future: Response to Soviet 2007), p. 19. Architecture” in Journal of Design History 10: 2, 1997, p. 139. Cf. also Don L. Hanlon: 9 See Charlie Q. L. Xue’s Chapter “Experimental “Architectural Education in Post-Maoist China” Architecture: The Rise of the Younger in Journal of Architectural Education 41: 1, Generation” in Building a Revolution: Chinese 1987, pp. 26-29. Architecture since 1980. (Hong Kong University press, 2006) and Li Xiangning’s “‘Make-the- 4 John Czaplicka: “The Vernacular in Place and Most-of-It’ Architecture: Young Architects and Time: Relocating History in Post-Soviet Cities” Chinese Tactics” in City 12:2 2008, 226-236. in M. Umbach & B. Hüppauf (eds), Vernacular Modernism: Heimat, Globalization, and the Built 10 In Architecture in Greece 5, 1981. Environment (Stanford University Press, 2005), p. 173. 11 “Prospects for a Critical Regionalism” in Perspecta: The Yale Architectural Journal 20, 5 The term goes back to the American architect 1983, pp. 147-62. In a 2001 article entitled Henry Killiam Murphy (1877-1954) and his “Place, Form, Cultural Identity” (Arcade, efforts to combine national and modernist ele- Autumn 20, pp. 16-17) he again took up this ments in China. concept. See also Tzonis and Lefaivre’s article 6 This had happened about two decades earlier. “Why Critical Regionalism Today” (Architecture Cf. Rowe, Peter & Seng Kuan: Architectural and Urbanism 236, 1990, pp. 22-33) and their Encounters with Essence and Form in Modern new book Critical Regionalism: Architecture and China (Cambridge MA: MIT Press), p. 134. Identity in a Globalized World (New York: Stout,

Thorsten Botz-Bornstein: WANG Shu and the Possibilities of Architectural Regionalism in China 15 2003) and Tropical Architecture: Critical 19 Peter Eisenman: “Critical Architecture in a Regionalism in the Age of Globalization ed. by Geopolitical World” in Cynthia Davidson and Tzonis, Lefaivre, and Stagno (Chichester: Wiley- Ismail Serageldin (eds). Architecture Beyond Academy, 2001). Architecture: Creativity and Social Transformations in Islamic Cultures (London: 12 Mr. Wang’s statements have been collected Academy Editions, 1995). by me during a conversation in his Hangzhou studio in May 2007. I thank YAN Shaojie who 20 K. von Moltke: ‘Introduction’ to Leopold von functioned as an interpreted in my conversati- Ranke, The Theory and Practice of History on with Mr. Wang. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973), p. xv.

13 Tong Jun (1900-1983) studied architecture at 21 Ranke: The Secret of World History (New York: the University of Pennsylvania from 1925 to Fordham University Press, 1981), p. 250. 1930 and taught at Nanjing University. 22 I obviously disagree with Keith Eggener and 14 1999-2000, in cooperation with Lu Wenyu and Jane Jacobs who hold that Critical Regionalism Tong Ming. “is a revisionary form of imperialist nostalgia that defines the colonial as always engaged in 15 Kenneth Frampton: “Towards a Critical conscious work against the core” (Jane Jacobs: Regionalism: Six Points for Architecture of The Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City, Resistance” in Hal Foster: The Anti-Aesthetic. London Routledge, 1996), p. 14-15. Still, Essays on Postmodern Culture (Seattle: Bay Eggener’s point that Critical Regionalism is in Press, 1983). most cases no response to the West but rather 16 Modernizer Feng Guifen launched the famous a response to local circumstances can well be self-strengthening movement (1861-95) and integrated in my own argumentation, as I defi- produced the slogan of “Chinese learning for ne CR in the first place as a self-critical move- fundamental principles; Western learning for ment. I grant that CR might at times made use” (Zhongxue wei ti; xixue wei yong). have made “paramount a struggle where no Interestingly, the thesis was brought from struggle otherwise would have been said to China to Japan and the Japanese slogan of exist” (“Placing Resistance: A Critique of “Japanese spirit and Western technology” even Critical Regionalism” in Journal of Architectural preexisted in the form of the earlier version Education 55:4, 2002, 228-237, 232). However, I “Japanese spirit and Chinese technology.” would hold that also the non-western critical regionalists participate in the western enlighte- 17 I am aware that the existence of an enligh- ned discourse even when they do not directly tenment movement or a scientific revolution act against western (capitalist, globalized) has been a point of issue among sinologists for models. at least thirty years. See Nathan Sivin who wri- tes: “A scientific revolution, by the criteria that 23 Luke S.K. Kwong: “Chinese Politics on the historians of science use, did take place in Crossroads: Reflections on the 100 Days China in the eighteenth century. It did not, Reform of 1898” in Modern Asian Studies 2000, however, have the social consequences that we 34:3, p. 663-695, quotation from p. 664. assume a scientific revolution will have.” “Why 24 As a matter of fact, some historians hold that the Scientific Revolution Did Not Take Place in reforms had been “unofficially” pushed through China - Or Did It?” in Sivin, Science in Ancient once the reformers had been condemned to China (Aldershot, Hants: Variorum, 1995), chap- exile, and even “far surpassed the objectives of ter VII. The article is also on Sivin’s website. the Hundred Day Reform Movement.” Cf. Jin Sivin points out that European science, betwe- Guantao: “Interpreting Modern Chinese History en the time of Copernicus and Laplace, created through the Theory of Ultrastable Systems” in a knowledge “that had no value except truth Gloria Davis (ed.): Voicing Concerns: value” and that “the same leap was not taken Contemporary Chinese Critical Inquiry (Lanham: in seventeenth-century China.” This might be Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), p. 164ff. true but it says nothing about a subsequent development of a critics of reason that was 25 “The Study of Criticism: Three W-sims” in also absent in China. Xinchao (New Tide) 2:3 April 1920, pp. 601-603 18 Jianfei ZHU: “Criticality in Between China quoted from Vera Schwarcz: Chinese and the West” in The Journal of Architecture, Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of 10:5, November 2005, pp. 479-498. the May Fourth Movement of 1919 (California UP, 1986), p. 123.

16 Nordisk Arkitekturforskning 1-2009 26 Hu Shih: The Chinese Renaissance: The 31 Benjamin A. Elman: From Philosophy to Haskell Lectures 1933 (New York: Paragon, Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of 1963), p. 76. Change in Late Imperial China (Harvard University Press 1984), p. xivff. 27 Simon Leys: L’humeur, l’honneur, l’horreur (Paris: Laffont, 1991), p. 11ff. 32 Miriam Bratu Hansen: “Fallen Women, Rising Stars, New Horizons: Shanghai Film as 28 F.W. Mote: “A Millennium of Chinese Urban Vernacular Modernism” in Film Quaterly 54:1, History: Form, Time and Space Concepts in 2000, pp. 10-22. Soochow”. Rice University Studies 59:4, 1973, pp. 35-65, quotation from p. 49. The text is mentioned by Leys.

29 Derk Bodde: Essays on Chinese Civilization (Princeton University Press, 1981), p. 39.

30 Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari: Kafka. Pour une littérature mineure (Paris: Minuit, 1975), pp. 33-43.

Thorsten Botz-Bornstein: WANG Shu and the Possibilities of Architectural Regionalism in China 17