In a long winding article, writer ROBIN POGREBIN wrestles the issue nearly all starchitects deal with: the Autocrat clientele. Among many statements for the article, Rem Koolhaas declines to comment. Bill Menkins, the editor of Architect's Newspaper is quoted saying, “to suggest that providing high-quality design justifies working” in China “is slippery ethics.” NYT
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Working in or for China is NOT to be equivalent of working for an autocrat. Many architects critical of those professionals having been working on projects in the PRC have superficial understandings of the Chinese societies and are only willing to view and understand China continuously with the same old perspective. To these critics, China and its people are lumped together as one with the government as villains or the untouchable Wester value debaser. I will only advise those skeptics to set aside their postulation and try to understand the challenges and embrace the limited and yet optimistic imagination of influencing China and the people as designers and planners. If you are more inclined to change the politics, ideologies and democratic intellectual capacities of that area, then work outside the design profession to achieve that goal more effectively. It's lazy and arrogant to sit around and not engage a changing and dynamic society that has made progresses, at times very painful and difficult, in the past 50 years. Remember it's in fact, even more blindly trendy to be China-bashers these days.
Clever. Because he has never awarded one.
Biggest problem with China is, they are not tapping enough into their own creative resources. They copy everything.
What is this anyway, why is China always seen as the ubiquitous human rights violator. They are not the ones who are sending troops overseas to kill people. They are not the ones who are leaving their people hungry and helpless. They are not the ones who are trying to give everybody an incomplete democracy lesson. They figured a beautiful way to prosper as a Marxist country and they are more capable than West on managing that many people. When I think of China, I still see much more humane society than ours. Look at the latest earthquake efforts and see how people helped each other, got organized and took care of massive disaster. Much more than what we have accomplished in a much smaller disaster in New Orleans.
Who the fuck these architects are anyway, I hope Chinese puts a ban on all of them.
Degree 0,
While I respect your take on appreciating the positives of a Modern China, aka the statehood and its government, it's also not entirely wrong to keep raising the bar on our new "superpower friend", who is poised to lead and influence more and more in the world to come. Also, it's no longer very Marxist, as the people and the leadership painfully discovered through the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution. The people copy every thing to a fault out of the lack of confidence and the meter stick to measure what the appearance of modernization is. It's a symptom of impoverishment in the spirit and over-recognition of Western materialism (while feeling also low and arrogant about an Old China's significance).
There is simply no reason to fear or hate the rising new China. Yet there are all the reasons to understand, engage China and normalize our relationships, in also expecting knowing ourselves better and make us stronger, or even wealthier.
the average chinese income is 2000 dollars a year. thats about what i spend on martinis. hardly superpower material.
so, who is going to live in, let's say, holl's high concept avant garde condominiums?
this conversation is dumb, and deg zero is a troll.
good article though. anyone know where to find more images of the morphosis project?
dude, how many times you say 'this is dumb' everyday?
Let's face it: architecture does not change society. Stop deluding yourself by thinking that "progressive" architecture equates to a progressive culture; they're completely different contexts for the same word.
I appreciate dot's comment for being so honest about his values: Let's ignore anything substantial and focus on images.
just once today...but i'm seriously considering using it twice.
but again, i think the article is good. i suggest you read it.
VincentVan,
Your point is not entirely wrong. For the same token, NO progressivism ever was entirely positive nor "progressive". Architecture or design, as you recognized, are also a culture and more than merely materialistic edifice. In that, I humbly but steadfastly argue that progressive architecture does make an impact upon its visitors and users, whether it be the process of realization or of inhabitation. Cynicism, in the disguise of realism, is however, the force that delude oneself, counter-intuitively.
actually, i didn't really think it was a great article in terms of looking at the issue in a sincere manner.
most work is done for autocratic places, are done by unknown firms or construction companies who are already integrated themselves into said countries' political machinery.
it is usually these companies reaching out to third party celebrity status architects for better sales pitches.
i thought koolhaas' contempt for the article was wise because he very well knows most of the time these type of articles are also lack any kind of political strength worthy of responding. it would be rather impossible to explain or to talk about the situation as complex as this one in few words.
it is more about chances and opportunities architects get in their lifetime and at what cost they utilize these opportunites and to what end. writer didn't put this question in the article and the whole thing now reads as 'pull my daisy' piece with a photo op slideshow.
it reads like a piece of relentless explicit china bashing for the western mainstream norm value and rationalize an architectural-ethical-name throwing party, repeatedly mentioning china as de facto villain... and none of the responders saying anything about that. carefully keeping themselves on the fence for either/or outcome. i think that is really unethical. so much paternalistic posture.
but that is usually the nature of big news media architectural journalism, stay safe...
safe journalist gets the safe answers. even it is boring, it keeps them busy...
from that point of view, it is newsworhty for me, because it shows how these marketing geniuses also play safe.
see, that is why rem, even makes more radical response to any of this by not responding.
in addition to that, if you were to take same article and switch the names to unknown bunch, i doubt the piece would be read. but miss pogrebin knows that.
i wrote this in a hurry. i hope i am making some sense. even partially is okay..;.))
i didn't detect any tone of china-bashing in the article, or perhaps some, but not enough of one to solicit a response that ties the iraq war, marxism, and hurricane katrina all in one paragraph.
i thought the articles commentary was not so much cultural critique (which i think people here were too quick to defend), but an explanation of power structures, and how they allow for high profile buildings to be built by high profile architects...revealing power structures that exist in the architecture profession as well.
i do agree orhan, that the article covers what many in the architecture community already know i.e. projective v critical debate, and this may sound boring, especially coming from architects which many of us too easily criticize, but they are the major players in this debate, and the article does expose some of their personal insights, and i don't think they are total puppet answers. at least its an ideological question for them...for the many unknown firms that are already tapped into the political machinery, it's not even a question.
...and vinnyvan, who the hell are you?
i didn't say they were 'puppet' answers (even though it sounds good;.) .
but most of them are not to raffle any feathers for sure.
if you don't see any 'big bad china' placement in the article... what can i say? almost every architect talks about china or china attached to question via particular project(s).
all the architects in the article know the high end politics that are to be dealt with, when it comes to large scale projects.
there are people in various development companies, ceo's, that public hardly know their name but capable to fire or cancel zaha hadid contract, call rem or mayne to stop working on a project etc...
i find the question of architect's desire to get a project from an autocratic client very complex before and after, and the article only deals with mainstream Q&A's for a token article. what does she expect? some of these people are about to sign a contract on an approved design pitch, or under contract already or have projects under construction in one of the said countries - read- china..
i would have no hesitation whatsoever whether to accept to work on a project in china or dubai or anywhere else for that matter, based on some popular human and cultural rights violation discussions because there is no place in the world that doesn't happen. however, i would deal with these issues during the process. fighting against human rights violations should be part of conscientious people's daily grind. it is everywhere.
but, i doubt i would be short listed by the clients who are in charge of unjust reigns after my first initial interview based on my political views.
maybe because, i am not as sophisticated as thom or rem and have their experience dealing with those issues.
but i expect them to carry some of their concerns throughout the design process, in terms of architectural issues such as site planning, distribution of spatial quality, darkness and light and so on... i expect them to deal with social hierarchies in a humane manner, create opportunities and distribute the quality of life democratically and reasonably in the places they build with no compromise on human dignity specially for the children and elderly, the expectation list goes on... how they deal or address these things are important to me, these are the standards i hold them responsible. not accepting a project in china or israel or turkey or russia or texas or france or egypt or so. africa or panama is not that effective way to fight anything...
see NBFA’s response to this article
http://famousarchitect.blogspot.com/2008/07/56-listen-to-little-devil-on-your.html
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