Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
JDS/Julien De Smedt Architects has shared with us the proposal for a mixed-use development in Hangzhou, China which recently won the Belgian firm the First Prize in the invited competition. The design team also included engineering firm China CUC. — bustler.net
The AIA San Francisco chapter has recently honored SOM's Baietan Master Plan with a 2011 Merit Award for Urban Design. The Baietan Master Plan addresses a 35-square kilometer portion of the Southern Chinese Pearl River Delta that stretches between the city of Guangzhou, with its 10.3 million inhabitants, and city of Foshan, a smaller city of 5.4 million people. Growth in the Delta region has allowed the two cities to begin to merge into one mega region. — bustler.net
Mecanoo architecten has been selected by the district government of Shenzhen to design a new cultural complex in this Southern Chinese city. The design comprises a public art museum, science museum, youth center and a mega bookstore, totaling 90,000 m². The museum complex is located between the commercial business district of Longgang and Longcheng park. — bustler.net
The Garden of 10,000 Bridges, created by Dutch urban and landscape design firm West 8 in partnership with DYJG Beijing, has recently opened to the public at the International Horticultural Exhibition in Xi'an, China. The garden will be open until October 22, 2011. — bustler.net
Brooklyn/Copenhagen-based HAO / Holm Architecture Office in collaboration with Archiland Beijing, Kragh & Berglund landscape architects, and engineering consultants Cowi Beijing, has won first prize in a competition to design the Samaranch Memorial Museum in Tianjin, China. — bustler.net
The Chinese government said on Tuesday it was "unhappy" with foreign support for detained artist and activist Ai Weiwei, after Ai's detention last week sparked an outcry from Washington and other Western governments. — Reuters
Ai is a fire and ice personality. The ice is in the impossibly self-confident impresario who has become a hero of the global art world with his elegant appropriations and deconstructions of China’s cultural heritage. — The New Republic
"People paid a lot of attention to these buildings because they cost too much money - money that should have been used where it was needed most," said resident Xu Linli as she walked home from work past the controversial office complex. — BBC News
In 2004, French architect Paul Andreu - who designed Beijing's stunning egg-shaped national theatre, won the right to design a new office complex for Chengdu government officials. Two months after the move began, the Sichuan earthquake, whose epicentre was just north of Chengdu, left... View full entry
Hangzhou urban planning bureau has announced Dutch firm MVRDV winner of the international design competition for the China Comic and Animation Museum (CCAM) in Hangzhou, China. MVRDV's winning design refers to the speech balloon: a series of eight balloon shaped volumes create an internally complex museum experience of in total 30,000m2. Part of the project is also a series of parks on islands, a public plaza and a 13,000m2 expo center. — bustler.net
Life has become significantly more political in the new millennium, especially in the aftermath of worldwide financial crisis. Art is both driving and documenting this upheaval. Increasingly, new visual concepts and commentaries are being used to represent and communicate emotionally charged topics, thereby bringing them onto local political and social agendas in a way far more powerful than words alone. — Gestalten
In the light of politically active artists facing more and more opposition and oppression (Ai Weiwei remains under Chinese arrest), the just released book Art & Agenda is an important documentation of current urban interventions, installations, performances, sculptures, and paintings and also... View full entry
“The traditional model of the Western international practice has been to have a shop window in developing countries but with the work executed back at home,” Declan O’Carroll was quoted as saying. “We are looking at a much more fluid, unorthodox model.” — C.J. Hughes, Architectural Record
Despite dropping from an all time high of 10,000 employees in 2008— losing 330 in 2009 and 670 employees this past winter— Arup has announced that they have three new offices, Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, in China. Each new office employs 12 architects and 15 engineers with... View full entry
Steven Holl just completed construction on his much anticipated Museum of Art & Architecture in Nanjing. The museum celebrates Chinese art and architecture and is based on the Chinese theory of 'parallel perspectives' -- it explores shifting viewpoints and layers in space, while taking advantage atmospheric mists and surrounding water. Green design, recycled materials and energy-efficient geothermal heating and cooling play a large role in the museum's design. — Inhabitat
Gerkan: This idea of only wanting to work for private individuals is absurd. In a country like China, where does private end and where does government-owned begin? Private citizens turn out to be aligned with the government, or a private developer obtains government financing for his building. For architects like us, this is almost impossible to figure out. Many of those who criticize us are building the five-hundredth high-rise building in China and claim to have integrity. This is a fallacy. — Spiegel
Within two days of the opening of the first exhibition at the newly renovated National Museum of China, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was arrested at the Beijing airport. Der Spiegel recently spoke with Meinhard von Gerkan of the renowned architecture firm gmp in Hamburg, who... View full entry
Documentary by SBS Dateline (Australian TV) about the Chinese real estate market. — SBS Dateline
Artist's assistants and wife released but his whereabouts not disclosed by Beijing authorities — guardian.co.uk
See Archinect's feature interview with Ai Weiwei here. View full entry
