Linked Hybrid is designed with the clear intent of carving public space out of "monofunctional" private housing — and formally constructed in porous fashion to signal and direct this — yet the social and cultural patterns which overlay, occupy and appropriate the built form deny this idea entirely. This is most obvious in the form of gun-toting guards; more subtle again in the expensive furniture shops that dominate the ground-plane. — City of Sound
After visiting Holl's super-structure Hill was struck by the difference between the intended urban porosity in terms the architectural design and the reality of the tension between public/private development in contemporary Beijing.
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The quote above gets to the heart of the article, but City of Sound also relates several positive aspects about Holl's Hybrid
I would like to argue that there are several more positive aspects, when you look at what this building does in the context of (my understanding of) contemporary Chinese culture. Please consider the following as possibilities when judging Holl's work.
On Being a gated community (or castle with moat and guards): a gated community suggests isolation of resources and selfishness. However in Chinese culture a 'gated community' refers to the area you call home, your neighborhood, the assets you do not own, but protect and maintain with pride.
On addressing Urban scale issues: As the reporter for City of Sound Noted, the 'mixed use of retail' is high end shops and cafes which no tourist who visits it can afford. This is because the Hybrid is for wealthier families. One of the biggest problems in beijing/shanghai is traffic, and wealthier families tend to have more cars - as many as 2 per person. This project serves as a model for enticing wealthy into the city, and reducing traffic.
Ultimately this housing project serves wealthier Chinese and is in a part of town, which while walking to, I saw two separate men peeing in the street. This project is in many ways an attempt to change what (chinese) people think of when they mostly interact with the dirty part of Chinese cities, and it shows with the several garish ways it isolates itself from its surroundings (guards and gates).
The Hybrid is a new organism in Beijing and it has set up a defensive line, but I believe it is a micro-scale war to enhance the quality of life and the concept of urban living in China.
I visited Linked Hybrid a few weeks back also for the first time and had pretty much the same assessment. City of Sound's overview and analysis of the project are dead on, with this key paragraph being the crux of it:
"The primary problem here is that architecture, as traditionally and mostly practiced, overly privileges focus on built form above all else. (There are honourable exceptions, and increasingly so now, for the first time since the early 1970s, arguably.) While this focus is necessary to help produce a ‘good bit of city’, it is not enough, as quickly illustrated here. An architect of Holl's class will generally now produce extraordinarily high quality built form, but built form is not one of the primary drivers of a good city, after all. An enabler, yes, but a driver?"
Having lived in Beijing for most of the past eight years, I've seen much better executions of the idea of "Open City" that Holl tries to pitch with Linked Hybrid. Riken Yamamoto's Jianwai SOHO in particular stands out as being a completely porous development of mixed-uses where access is open to all and the site is alive with activity most of the day. While a great piece of city-building, Jianwai SOHO's workmanship is lacking somewhat and some do find the stark white finishes of the development to be somewhat off-putting.
http://www.sohochina.com/en/jianwai/build.asp
Another great example of porous development (although not mixed-use) is the Sanlitun Village shopping area where Apple opened their store. All sides of the development are open and connect to the adjacent neighbours, making the Village a hugely successful hub of retail and dining activity. The master plan was done by Oval Partnership out of HK and Kengo Kuma, with various international architects including SHoP designing the individual buildings. In fact, The Oval Partnership claims their own "Open City" philosophy as a design driver.
http://www.sanlitunvillage.com/eng/arts_and_entertainment/Pages/design_concept.aspx
To me, Holl and the like are so wrapped up in theory and the pure execution of it, that the real world becomes an inconvenience to deal with. What Linked Hybrid really is, is a trophy address where the very wealthy buy into. It is an elitist gated community with the barest of public access to pay lip service to the idea of Open City. I too was told to stop taking pictures, and all the skybridges were closed to the public when I visited.
I worked on a project with a client who is a Chinese senior level exec with one of the major global accounting firms. He had bought an entire floor in Linked Hybrid and had no intention of ever moving in. Said that most owners don't live there, but understand the investment value of buying into a unique starchitect building. Local Chinese who are cash rich have few places to put it, and parking it in property has been the primary method in recent years.
A lot of theory sounds great and the high-brow crowd loves what Holl and others say, but honestly, it's hard to take so much intellectual masturbation seriously when you look at the results. Commercial design is anathema to a lot of that crowd, but good solid retail design by more grounded architects is often a major part of porosity in the city whether they like it or not.
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