A CHINESE CRITICAL PRAGMATISM By Cecilia Ying Sze Yung, B.A.S. A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture in M.ARCH (Professional) Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario ©2011 Cecilia Ying Sze Yung Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaONK1A0N4 OttawaONK1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-83188-5 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-83188-5 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. 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Through a series of analytical investigations on traditional Chinese architectural concepts, we intend to resolve a substantial approach with which the architectural profession could attempt to provide solutions, rather than negations, in improving the status quo. Focusing on a design strategy, the thesis would move on to a post- critical pragmatic project to respond to some of the arising challenges. We acknowledge that many of the socio-economical issues we face today stretch far beyond the capacity of architecture, or any single professional disciplines for that matter. Only when architects commit to an accommodative position, and when an open platform—on which architectural explorations could become accessible to external Abstract collaborative efforts at the individual level—is established, the potentials in the future of profession may be sustained. Over the past decade, there have been increasing interests to redefine the potential of architectural practice in relation to the process of If the ultimate question for architects is how to make the world a global modernization. Intellectual debate, from the 2004 Harvard better place, we must consider how modernization from the previous Design Magazine Stocktaking symposium, to George Baird's renowned centuries has left us with irreversible consequences. It is only ethical if article Criticality' and It's Discontents, and followed by Zhu JianFei's architectural profession would, at the very least, attempt possible Criticality in between China and the West, seems to have polarized solutions by taking a pragmatic position critically and responding academic discussions into the theoretical discourse of criticality and an proactively to the problems we are facing in reality. In preparation of emerging position: the post-critical interventions. the answers for the inevitable challenges of tomorrow, both critical and pragmatic approaches seem to be essential in the post-critical Extracting from pragmatic experience in traditional Chinese developments of the architectural practice. architectural developments, would it be possible to articulate an alternative approach to contemporary architectural practice? This thesis sets out to explore criticality and its relevance to the globalizing I This ongoing work in progress is dedicated to my grandmothers: Ms. Liu KatnPing for her inspirations and wisdoms, Ms. Lau KamWai for her enduring faith in me, and to all family and friends for their unwavering support. Acknowledgements Thank you, to all the architects and historians who have devoted their time and efforts in documenting and reconstructing an intellectual framework of Chinese traditional architecture; to my advisor Roger CONNAH for his guidance; and also to Greg ANDONIAN and Tom DUBICANAC for their advises and lessons in architecture. Notes All images and all Chinese translations are provided by the author unless otherwise specified. Chinese terms are quoted using PinYin, the standardized Mandarin romanization system in use. To minimize miscommunications, other pronunciation systems used in quotes from other sources are converted to PinYin as indicated in square brackets. Contents jjiift OUVERTURE 1 jg_ _ ftjfc PART I. ANALIZE Architecture & Professional Reality 13 Architecture & Social Reality 30 Architecture & Total Reality 69 %g— _ gljfj PARTII.STRATEGIZE 130 BIBLIOGRAPHY 146 become within the context of the contemporary globalizing conditions? EISENMAN & A Geopolitical Reality Amongst the first who foresaw the predicaments of a globalizing reality and its affects on architecture, Peter Eisenman in his 1995 essay 'Critical Architecture in A Geopolitical World' identified the challenges the Western critical structure would soon encounter. He saw an end of the class struggle of Capitalism versus Communism, where developed worlds stand in contentions with the emerging J^ife Ouverture worlds, believing the new condition of ideological politics would be based on geopolitics. In his words, To question the nature of architecture today comes with a burden. It might have been a trivial or even irrelevant topic of discussion before Geopolitics involves two conditions: one, that the emergence of a global world. But today we live in a world where despite the increasing mediation of the globe as a single entity, location has become an important information technology has revolutionized the very nature of space in political factor, and two, since western capital finds which traditional rules of politics and economics apply. Inevitably, the itself unable to continue to provide for the economic, social and political infrastructure that evolved in the growing intimacy amongst different cultures that were once separated nineteenth century, the emerging Pacific Rim and by physical distance has opened up an international forum which has Muslim world countries, and their geopolitical positions, are no longer necessarily dependent on recently began to question the established approach in architecture. the western world for capital.m Within the academic circles and professional practitioners, in the West, some of the more recognized individuals, such as George Baird, Historically in the West since Kant's critical discourse was first Michael Hays, Peter Eisenman, Michael Speaks, Rem Koolhaas have architecturally manifested in Piranesi's drawing during the late contributed to the heated debate. Though much has been argued, eighteenth century, the idea of a critical architecture has always been behind the trenches of these crossing fires a hidden concern remains seen as part of an ideological struggle of the emerging class against substantial to all discussions: What could the nature of architecture the established order—it critiques the status quo. We became familiar with Eisenman and his American counterpart Michael Hay's position, 1 which has consistently focused intellectually on concepts of accommodating architecture—could be admitted in the face of "resistance" and negation". |02i geopolitical reality. The emerging East is undergoing a process of re- colonisation; an architecture of capital accommodation which allows Here Eisenman, resonating with Frankfurt school philosophy, argued anything to be read by anybody—a 'Teflon' architecture [04], so to that the enabling mechanism of the critical—the embodied speak. transgression towards politics—has expired in Western developed worlds where an ideological class struggle no longer exists. In short, Eisenman continues to stress the importance of the critical as Furthermore, when architecture has been voided of any ideological an ideological instrument in the context of the geopolitical. He purpose, voided of symbolic functions, and no longer able to justify its believes that the self-referentiality of the critical tradition, the idea necessity, the Capital would have no reasons to provide for a critical how one deals with being and the possibility of knowledge, is an discourse. important necessity for emerging nations in their developing geopolitics. He also suggests that the idea of a mediated architecture, Eisenman believed that while the West faced the problems of a and architecture's possibility to be media, should be examined if shortage of capital in supporting the relevance of a critical structure architecture is to remain