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The Chinese government issued proposals on Wednesday to break down barriers that a nationwide household registration system has long imposed between rural and urban residents and among regions, reinforcing inequality, breeding discontent and hampering economic growth.
Yet even as officials promoted easier urbanization [...], they said changes to the system [...] must be gradual and must protect big cities like Beijing.
— nytimes.com
China has announced plans to ban the use of coal in its smog-plagued capital by the end of 2020, as the country fights deadly levels of pollution, especially in major cities.
Beijing's Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau posted the plan on its website on Monday, saying the city would instead prioritize electricity and natural gas for heating.
The Chinese central government recently listed environmental protection as one of the top criteria by which leaders will be judged.
— Al Jazeera
Chinese diplomats on Wednesday said Congress’ decision to rename the street in front of Beijing’s embassy in the U.S. capital after a Chinese dissident is "really absurd" [...] On Tuesday the House Appropriations Committee voted to rename the street outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., to “Liu Xiaobo Plaza” — after a Chinese dissident who received the Nobel Peace Prize in absentia and is currently serving an 11-year prison term for subverting the government’s authority. — Al Jazeera
This is not the first time that place-naming – or toponymy – has provoked a political dispute. Actually, it's pretty likely that as long as people have been naming places, other people have been getting upset about it. For example, as immortalized by Jimmy Kennedy in the classic song, Istanbul... View full entry
Ai’s studio, called 258 Fake, has become China’s equivalent of Andy Warhol’s Factory. And Ai himself has increasingly taken on Warholian overtones: there is now little distinction between Ai the artist who creates artworks, and Ai the dissident who gets beaten by the cops. (In 2009, police pummelled his face, causing a cerebral haemorrhage.) Both are merged in an ongoing performance in which the man has become the art, and the art is the man. — aeon.co
Beijing has the worst smog levels among the world's capital cities - so bad that playing sports outdoor is often banned - but it could get a stunning new set of lungs in the form of a covered botanical garden, retail and office complex under a giant transparent roof.
Called Bubbles, the architectural concept might seem an unlikely candidate for a high-rise city of 21 million people. But its designers believe it offers something that every urban environment needs.
— South China Morning Post
Another Chinese bubble to burst? View full entry
Co-presented by Hennessey + Ingalls, the A+D Museum and the Cal Poly LA Metro Program, Ma Yansong lectured last night on MAD's history and the trials of Chinese architecture. Now with offices in Los Angeles and Beijing, MAD is poised to fulfill the high expectations bestowed on it as a Chinese... View full entry
L.A. architectural practice Oyler Wu Collaborative designed "The Cube" from a fundamental notion: to challenge the spatial and geometric properties of the cube, a geometric form long regarded as a basic element for design, art, and science. Built for the 2013 Beijing Biennale, the sculpture... View full entry
Because of Beijing’s sky-high apartment rental costs, as many as two million people—about a tenth of the city’s population—are said to be living below street level in underground storage basements and air-raid shelters partitioned into cramped, windowless rooms. Many of those who have to crowd into these homes are migrant workers like Wang, from the nearby province of Hebei. — qz.com
MODU's competition-winning Outdoor Room creates a visual experience while raising awareness on Beijing's persistent air-quality issues.
Recently installed in Beijing's Olympic Park for the 5th China International Architecture Biennial, the 5,000 sq.ft pavilion functions as urban public space and a barometer for Beijing's air quality levels — which are documented as much as the daily weather report.
— bustler.net
All images courtesy of MODU, photography: Matthew Niederhauser. View full entry
"As Autumn Leaves" by the Laboratory for Computational Design (LCD) is an art installation that mixes the emotive with precise computational design. The piece was installed during Beijing Design Week 2013 from Sept. 26 - Oct. 3. — bustler.net
ABITARE China magazine invited MovingCities to guest edit its 34th issue on the topic of "(re) Design Heritage – Strategies of Urban Renewal and the Chinese City." Published in October 2013, MovingCities took this opportunity to address one of the most urgent issues to discuss when dealing... View full entry
Over the last decade, avant-garde European architects have helped reshape Beijing's skyline. [...] But now, a Chinese architect is reversing the trend. Rising star Ma Yansong has won a string of European architectural contests that will bring his experimental designs, which meld cutting-edge technology with an animist's awe of nature, to capitals on the Continent. — spiegel.de
Ma Yansong has been on Archinect's radar for quite some time—click here to read our 2006 UpStarts interview with him and his Beijing-based firm MAD office. View full entry
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
Jean Nouvel has won the prestigious competition to design the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. — bustler.net
Previously on Archinect: Jean Nouvel Said To Edge Gehry, Hadid For Beijing Museum Job FT discusses Nouvel's design for the National Art Museum of China National Art Museum of China Entry by Gehry Partners National Art Museum of China Entry by MAD View full entry
Gehry Partners has sent us detailed information about their entry to last summer's most buzzed about architectural competition, the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. Gehry's beautiful NAMOC entry made it all the way to the final of three competition rounds and found itself in lofty company with submissions from fellow Pritzker Prize winners Zaha Hadid and Jean Nouvel. — bustler.net
The project is currently being exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles as part of MOCA's exhibition A New Sculpturalism: Contemporary Architecture from Southern California. UPDATE: Jean Nouvel Confirmed as Winner of the National Art Museum of China Competition View full entry