Hou Hanru Living With(in) the Urban Fiction (Notes on Urbanization and Art in Post-Olympic China) The Urban Fiction China is hot. Its modernization and development, marked by its economic boom and explosive urbanization, are amazingly spectacular. They signal the promise of a historic turning point towards a “Chinese century.” The ultimate expression of this boom and historic shift is, no doubt, the Beijing Olympics. Its opening event, being an extravaganza of spectacle, performed almost perfectly the task of showing off the newly gained power and pride of the nation. To achieve such an effect, unprecedented mobilization of financial and human resources were necessary. The organizers hired some of the most celebrated artists, both from China and abroad, to conceive and produce the opening event. It employed thousands of actors, and an immense sum of money was spent on production. One can easily guess the numbers considering that the total expense of the games, according to the official announcement, amounted to more than two billion USD, although the exact numbers for the opening and closing events have never been made public. The campaign for the Olympics event clearly showed the strong desire to connect, and even to integrate, China within the global world. Its goal was obviously to transmit the message of the official authorities, and of a great part of the society: the Olympics was the most important opportunity to show the success of China’s progress towards a modernized and harmonious society that would “peacefully elevate” itself to superpower status. The Chinese shared with others “One World, One Dream.” However, ironically, behind the slogan, it clearly embraced the aesthetics of Disneyland, mixing a cocktail consisting of the plastic structures of socialist political propaganda, folkloric kitsch, and “globalized” commercial advertisement. Clearly, the Olympics was the best opportunity to stimulate and rally the population to embrace nationalism and patriotism. Indeed, it’s much needed, especially as the current China, which is the most populated country in the world and spans an immense territory of considerably diversified conditions, is going through the most radical but somehow uncertain transition in history. The Olympics, having constructed a narrative of celebration of national success, is therefore elevated to the status of a legend, a momentarily crucial symbol of the renewed identity of a powerful nation. A large part of the population, especially among the rising urban middle class, expressed their enthusiasm in support of the 6 Cai Guo-Qiang, Footprints event. They somehow “suspended” their recently obtained self-awareness of History: Fireworks Project for the Opening Ceremony of of individuality to embrace a kind of national solidarity. the Beijing Olympic Games, August 8, 2008. Photo: Hiro Ihara. Courtesy of Cai Studio, New York. But the Olympics, as well as its host country China, are a global event. There is no way to avoid different voices weighing in about what China is and how it is seen by people from all around the world. Critiques and protests against the highly official image of a harmonious and peaceful society hiding its record of political oppression, execution, etc., were inevitably mounted and followed the very trajectory of the voyage of the “sacred torch” of the Olympics. Many of those manifestations were spectacular and propagated widely by the media. The Olympics, and China itself, are inevitably controversial. More controversies became apparent when some forgeries in the opening event were discovered; for example, the fifty-six children representing China’s officially sanctioned “ethnic minorities” were all found to be of Han (the dominant ethnic group) origin. The little girl singing the Olympic anthem was actually lip-syncing, while another, “less pretty” girl, was the actual singer hidden behind the scene. What’s even more “scandalous” was that the artist Cai Guo-qiang, a global celebrity who designed the opening’s extraordinary fireworks show, admitted to the press that a part of the program, the twenty-nine fire footprints running through the city and broadcast live on television, was actually a computer simulation. Indeed, what is certainly more ironic is the fact the opening event took place at exactly 8:00 p.m., 8 minutes and 8 seconds, on the 8th day of the 8th month (August) of the year 2008. This was a decision based on a now popular fetishism with the number 8, which phonetically echoes the word fa, which signifies enriching and developing. This folkloric superstition originated in Hong Kong’s Cantonese culture and was brought to mainland China as a part of its influence on China’s vision of modernization. What is really extraordinary is that, instead of searching for any historic, scientific, 7 or ideological reference, the organizers, with the sanction of the political Cai Guo-Qiang, Fireworks Project for the Opening authorities, resorted to a vulgar and populist craze to justify their choice of Ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, August 8, when to launch China’s most important sportive, cultural, and political event! 2008. Photo: Xinhua. Courtesy of Cai Studio, New York. Wherever it has taken place, the Olympics has been an urban event that stimulates urban transformation. This time, in Beijing, its role of catalyst of urban mutation was even more evident. All the sportive venues were at the centre of a totally new urban planning. Stars of global architecture were invited to design the most important edifices. Some of the world’s most audacious and extravagant designs were proposed and constructed. Herzog & DeMeuron’s Olympic Stadium, widely known as the Bird’s Nest, is the most remarkable landmark, while a whole set of amazing buildings that include the Water Cube (“the swimming pool,” designed by the Australian architect group PTW Architects) and the Data Centre (designed by Zhu Pei with Urbanus) were erected around it to form an “Olympic Green.” In fact, since Beijing was designated as the Olympic host city eight years ago, a fervent rush towards urban expansion and construction of new architectural landmarks was launched in order to transform the ancient capital city of one of the largest countries in the world into a veritable global metropolis. After Shenzhen, Shanghai, and, to a lesser extent, Guangzhou, Beijing is now striving to become the largest laboratory for all kinds of design adventures proposed by both Chinese and international architects and urbanists. Large-scale projects of new urban infrastructure, buildings, and renovations have been introduced, often with controversy and debate. More often than not, in spite of the voices of critique and protest, notably from professionals and intellectuals, as well as local inhabitants, the controversies are solved in the way that largely favours political authority and the developers. One of the most notorious cases is the Grand National Theatre commissioned by then-president Jiang Zemin and designed by French airport design specialist Paul Andreu. The choice of a project in 8 the shape of a huge egg, with all kinds of fantastic exploitations of site and materials, and which obviously exceeded the budget, offends the coherence of the urban fabric, abuses natural resources, and causes environmental concerns such as light pollution. Now, in the heart of Beijing, next to the Tian’anmen Square, which had also gone through huge transformations in the late 1950s for the sake of constructing the most significant symbol of New China’s political identity, a new grotesque edifice is the most visible symbol of a new regime that seeks to endow itself with the glory of modernization and success as a global superpower. On the other hand, after the pompous opening of the Grand National Theatre, one suddenly finds that the entrance admission to the building typically costs over one thousand Yuan, which is the whole monthly salary of a worker who built it. National Theatre, Beijing, 2009, Paul Andreu, architect. Photo: ©Paul Maurer. Courtesy of Paul Andreu. Bigness has always been an obsession for Rem Koolhaas, probably the most visionary architect of our time. China’s urban expansion, from Shenzhen’s “miraculous” rise from a no-man’s land, to Beijing’s ambition to become the new global centre, has been a crucial source of inspiration for his brave, innovative, and provocative envisioning of the city of the future in the age of globalization. The project by him and his team of Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA; now co-signed by Ole Scheeren and Rem Koolhaas) for the new Chinese Central Television (CCTV) complex, the biggest media organization in the world, is the first major project to be realized in China after Koolhaas dedicated more than a decade of intellectual and strategic engagement with the country’s urban mutation and social change. With the radically innovative intervention of revolutionary proposals to restructure the system of media production, the new CCTV building promises to be not only the first test model for an unprecedented typology of skyscraper, but also a site of change towards a new model of information production in a new century. Its impressive scale and absolute beauty, the result of profound studies of the urban history of the city, the Chinese social system, and critical insights into global urban changes, are really convincing. From here, one can pose the question: is Beijing, along with other major Chinese cities, showing the first step towards a totally new urbanity for the age of globalization? The answer is totally open. 9 10 China Central Television At this point, one can also ask the question: how have all these extravagant, Headquarters (CCTV), 2009, Beijing. Partners in charge: Ole highly experimental, and unevenly successful edifices been accepted, Scheeren and Rem Koolhaas for the Office for Metropolitan approved, and supported by the decision makers, namely political and Architecture, Rotterdam.