The Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP) is a philanthropic body, dedicated to preserving local culture. It recently wrote to RIBA after the architectural body awarded Zaha Hadid Architects' Galaxy Soho complex a 2013 International Award for architectural excellence, chastising RIBA's choice of winner. — phaidon.com
19 Comments
This is exactly the thing that has freaked me out with all the starchitect modernism filling China's urban districts. Have they simply turned their backs on their own urban heritage in the interest of becoming "western" or "international"?
I suspect that the Chinese will look at their cities somewhere down the road and say to themselves, "What the hell have we done?"
i have had it with the al nozaki looking war of the worlds death ray machine aesthetic that i see whenever i look at any zaha project.
Cultural Revolution, Three Gorges . . . its just China being China. at least when they look back, they wont be looking back at miserable architecture.
here:
now we can read zaha as a variation of a historical type and a riff on landscape. problem solved.
this would be much better:
and yes, those are the only possible choices.
No, they are not. :)
Big f***ing deal! Why are they blaming Zaha, when their own citizens (as clients) hire western architects to do contemporary design, and in the process redefine the context? Moreover, what Zaha is doing is a thousand times better than what a lot of the corporates are spewing all over china. And lets not forget China's own infamous LDIs...
How dare they speak out about starchitecture eroding their sense of place!
Who do they think they are?!?
They don't dare go after the person who is actually responsible for getting it built, Zhang Xin. After all, she's only the richest woman in China.
eh, nothing much to see here.
Just a bunch of old people complaining about how great things used to be.
"Better living through chemistry!" oohh muh arthritis..
I really think that its hard to criticize the redevelopment of old beijing districts on architectural grounds, seeing as most of them have infrastructure equivalent to third world slums. Economic grounds and class displacement I can see, but really, the historic buildings in these neighborhoods were gutted long long ago. I think that Beijing should be allowed to pick and choose what they save without being frozen in history. THAT SAID, it does seem rather weird to award a glorified (and actually not well built. does RIBA even visit these sites?) mall when Im sure there are much more laudable projects built anywhere in the world, and probably in England. Seems like pure star worship to me... Actually there is a dirtier term for this in the US I wont use. Also as said above, go after SOHO, not Zaha if you want to really criticize the development; they are the instigators here. But Im sure its the symbolism that these guys are most angry at. Working class beijingers displaced by shiny UFO mall designed by rich foreign architects. It doesnt look great in two sentences, but of course the real story is more complicated...
˙ʇǝuɹǝʇuı ǝɥʇ ɟo ʇsǝɹ ǝɥʇ uo sǝʞoɾ ƃɐɟ ɟo ʇuǝlɐʌınbǝ ǝɥʇ ǝq ʇsnɯ ʇɔǝuıɥɔɹɐ uo sǝʞoɾ ǝƃɐ
¡ǝɹǝɥ ƃɐɟplo ʎluo ǝɥʇ sı sǝlıɯ ʍouʞ llɐ ǝʍ ʇnq
How to kill any intelligent discussion, bring in the archinet clown. It's amazing the editors on this site let you destroy so many threads, then again...
personally, i could fall for someone calling himself 'boy in a well'
get anthony hegarty to compose a stickly sweet/scary song around him; or maybe dave matthews ...
thayer-d who are you referring to, boy in awell?
I was referring mostly to archinet's editors. If there's a boy in a well, we should help him.
What's archinet?
If I could be with boy in a well
Touch his wet curls and fingers
Imagining his sorrowed smile
All would be well, this once
In this well where we now linger
Deep down the earth, a mile below
The least mourned of graves
I, for once whisper: “mine” while
Silently, his head nods up and down
On the surface of the darkly waves
In this circle of dark water
In the depth of this womb we dwell
Our love lives on forever
As our bodies dispell and fade
poemz for poems
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