China’s State Council announced that “weird architecture that is not economical, functional, aesthetically pleasing or environmentally friendly will be forbidden.” Many architects and members of the public understood the frustration and bewilderment, even if they questioned the subjective nature of the official instruction. — The Economist
That was a close call, thankfully 'Weird Architecture' that is economical, functional, aesthetically pleasing and environmentally friendly is still completely accepted and encouraged. China may be forcing itself into a semantically and conceptually charge subjectivism that could potentially bring about some interesting project framings and abstracts.
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I wonder if something got lost in translation. My understanding is that China wants to return to some of the architectural roots, and stop making those mission-style and European villa developments that you see everywhere. I don’t think they were referring to the starchitecture, which is pretty few and far between, and has been very much approved and paid for by China’s governing class.
I think it was against starchitects, or baroque modernism if you will. Here are some of the stories that covered it, along with archinect.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/05/...
http://www.cnn.com/style/artic...
China has a lot of architectural heritage that could be used as inspiration for the new buildings going up. In Taiwan the Taipei 101 tower is a modern interpretation of classic Asian design and numerology. The Petronas towers in Malaysia use classic Islamic motifs to inform the shape of the building. Maybe the reaction against the abstract "weird" architecture is brought on by the Chinese decision to allow the demolition and erasure of thousands of historic structures and neighborhoods. People desire something familiar and that represents their cultural ideas. Some of these buildings that have gone up in Chinese cities could have been planted almost anywhere in the world, they have few ties to their place and the people around them.
Interesting, this has been rumbling for a while. I had heard from a Chinese architect that they wanted a return to wood, to reference traditional building techniques, etc. I guess we’ll see.
In that CNN article, Koolhaas is of the opinion that it’s too soon to tell:
Koolhaas is quick to clarify that the "weird buildings" remarks were not directly aimed at his flagship China project.
"The media has made that connection. No more weird buildings, it's understandable if you look around and I don't feel that CCTV is a weird building so that's my comment."
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