Architecture and global imaginations in China

This article examines the changing consciousness of globality in the Chinese discourses of national and modernist architecture between 1949 and 1965. Drawing on recent scholarship concerning knowledge and representation, the study focuses on three crucial moments when Chinese architectural imaginings were decisively shaped by the dynamic relationship between a vexed Chinese situation and a shifting world stage: (1) the search for a ‘Socialist Realist’ architecture in relation to the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist countries during the early 1950s; (2) the reception of modernist architecture in relation to an expansive internationalist view of the world in the second half of the 1950s; and (3) the re-evaluation of modernist architecture in relation to Third World nations during the early 1960s. The study demonstrates the world in Chinese architectural discourses not as a static one that could be neatly divided into a centre/periphery but a dynamic one constantly being reconstructed. The article reveals the history of modern architecture as a narration of tangled global and local experiences, instead of a linear one bounded within a nationally defined space.     

Architecture and global imaginations in China

This article examines the changing consciousness of globality in the Chinese discourses of national and modernist architecture between 1949 and 1965. Drawing on recent scholarship concerning knowledge and representation, the study focuses on three crucial moments when Chinese architectural imaginings were decisively shaped by the dynamic relationship between a vexed Chinese situation and a shifting world stage: (1) the search for a ‘Socialist Realist’ architecture in relation to the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist countries during the early 1950s; (2) the reception of modernist architecture in relation to an expansive internationalist view of the world in the second half of the 1950s; and (3) the re-evaluation of modernist architecture in relation to Third World nations during the early 1960s. The study demonstrates the world in Chinese architectural discourses not as a static one that could be neatly divided into a centre/periphery but a dynamic one constantly being reconstructed. The article reveals the history of modern architecture as a narration of tangled global and local experiences, instead of a linear one bounded within a nationally defined space.     

Aesthetics of social identity: re-framing and evaluating modernist architecture and planning as cultural heritage in Martinique

This paper presents a little-known project in Fort-de-France, Martinique, by the French practice Candilis Josic Woods, as a starting-point for an anthropological framing of the cultural significance of modernist architecture and planning in Martinique between the 1960s and the present day. It responds to a dearth of research and scholarship on the modernist architectural legacy in the Caribbean region in general. Well known for its post-war mass housing projects in France and earlier experimental housing in Morocco of the 1950s, Candilis Josic Woods’ work in the French Antillean territories during the post-war years is hardly documented. This paper draws on archival and literary sources to consider the historical and cultural significance of this output at two levels: (1) within the context of the practice’s own commitment to an architectural approach founded in an anthropological understanding of culture and everyday life and (2) as part of the author’s ongoing work to develop an anthropological framing of modernist architecture and planning as cultural heritage within the context of postcolonial discourses and concepts of creolization, and to argue the need for detailed ethnographic fieldwork at the neglected peripheries of canonical modernism to support this line of enquiry through future research.     

筑林七贤——现代中国建筑师与传统的对话七例

传统与现代的关系是一个文明古国在建筑的现代化过程中所不能回避的重要问题,本文以中国近现代建筑史上七位著名建筑家的实践与写作为例,考察中国建筑师对这一问题的探索,这七位建筑家是吕彦直(1894—1929年)、杨廷宝(1901—1982年)、林徽因(1904—1955年)、梁思成(1901一1972年)、童寯(1900—1983年)、刘敦桢(1897—1968年),以及冯纪忠(1915—2009年)。     

Modernism Made Vernacular: The Brazilian Case

From its early acceptance in the 1940s and 1950s, modern architecture in Brazil has become the vernacular, adapted and adopted by the middle class with the help of contractors and unskilled laborers. Even the poorest favelas are constructed using modernist principles on a scale unmatched in developed nations. The Brazilian case highlights a number of issues regarding the relationship between modernism and vernacular architecture, a topic insufficiently explored in architectural scholarship outside Europe and North America.     

武汉东湖休养所设计分析

东湖休养所是冯纪忠先生早年重要的设计作品。简述了东湖休养所的建造过程,指出它的建设得益于陶铸的关注,并对岭南现代建筑庭园产生了重要影响。从现代主义的建筑精神和人与自然的关系对东湖休养所进行设计分析,指出东湖休养所的空间组合和建构体现了现代主义建筑的精神,冯先生在德国接受的现代主义建筑教育是其渊源,而东湖休养所的建筑与户外环境的融洽关系依然体现了具有东方特色的和谐共处理念,这又源于冯先生对中国传统文化的熟稔。     

The networks of tropical architecture

The concept of tropical architecture is one that was constructed in the 1950s to link the work of modernist practitioners in a number of locations outside the West. Tropical architecture has been represented as a form of critical regionalism, in that it offers a language based in the conditions of the non-western world. While this may be true of the movement in the Americas, in the case of the British colonies of West Africa tropical architecture was located within the networks of modernist and colonial culture as much as it was place bound. Tropical architecture was established in the metropolitan architectural circles of the 1950s through the use of the term in books and journals, a conference and a course of specialisation in London. These forms of support assisted architects to create modern architecture in far-flung sites, under difficult conditions. Despite this enmeshment of the peripheral sites of practice with the colonial metropolis through communications, tropical architecture was seen as something other than colonial architecture. The changing political and economic opportunities at the end of the colonial period prompted architects to develop a post-colonial identity for architecture, which was done through the representation of their approach as one that could transcend national boundaries. Tropical Architecture in the Humid Zones , by Fry and Drew explicitly offers support for an imaginary architect who comes from a generic tropical zone. The influence of the metropolis on the culture of tropical architecture remained significant, even after independence. While the consistency of approaches that marked the work of the 1950s has been replaced by a multiplicity of attitudes to design, the contemporary literature, curricula and research on African architecture share an emphasis on its climatic conditions. This content, in turn, ties the approach to authoritative sources in the West, giving it an identity that links the local and the global in complex and interdependent ways.     

传承中的裂变 老一辈中国建筑师与50年代生建筑师的联系

从作为一门学科的建筑学被引入中国后,老一辈中国建筑师在20世纪30年代所致力的实践和构建的体系为中国现代建筑的发展奠定了基础。作为当今中国建筑实践的中坚力量,50年代出生的建筑师则是一个承前启后的群体,他们接受的建筑学教育来自老一辈建筑师所建立的建筑知识体系。由于历史原因,这个体系与外部和现实存在差距,这使得他们所继承的必然只是这个体系的一部分。反映在建筑实践上,80年代的中国建筑实践呈现出一种既有传承又有分裂的状态。文章试图将这两个建筑师群体放在中国的现代化进程中进行讨论,从而分析两个群体的思想及实践之间的关联。     

建筑师的两种言说--北京柿子林会所的建筑与超建筑阅读笔记

建筑评论的基础是对建筑师的建筑与超建筑两种言说的解读。柿子林私人会所的设计,偏离了张永和一贯坚持的现代建筑句法学原则,反映出张从现代主义者向后现代主义者的转变,及其追求现代建筑中国性的自觉。     

The networks of tropical architecture

The concept of tropical architecture is one that was constructed in the 1950s to link the work of modernist practitioners in a number of locations outside the West. Tropical architecture has been represented as a form of critical regionalism, in that it offers a language based in the conditions of the non-western world. While this may be true of the movement in the Americas, in the case of the British colonies of West Africa tropical architecture was located within the networks of modernist and colonial culture as much as it was place bound.

Tropical architecture was established in the metropolitan architectural circles of the 1950s through the use of the term in books and journals, a conference and a course of specialisation in London. These forms of support assisted architects to create modern architecture in far-flung sites, under difficult conditions. Despite this enmeshment of the peripheral sites of practice with the colonial metropolis through communications, tropical architecture was seen as something other than colonial architecture. The changing political and economic opportunities at the end of the colonial period prompted architects to develop a post-colonial identity for architecture, which was done through the representation of their approach as one that could transcend national boundaries. Tropical Architecture in the Humid Zones , by Fry and Drew explicitly offers support for an imaginary architect who comes from a generic tropical zone.

The influence of the metropolis on the culture of tropical architecture remained significant, even after independence. While the consistency of approaches that marked the work of the 1950s has been replaced by a multiplicity of attitudes to design, the contemporary literature, curricula and research on African architecture share an emphasis on its climatic conditions. This content, in turn, ties the approach to authoritative sources in the West, giving it an identity that links the local and the global in complex and interdependent ways.     

混沌空间——21世纪中国建筑哲学基点

导论：至 ２０世纪中叶,中国古典传统建筑 进化过程宣告结束 １９５０—２０００年,中国建筑体系经历了规模空前的“后传统·前现代”过度阶段。进入２１世纪世界建筑多元文化系统,混沌空间’将逐步成为中国建筑哲学整顿框架的一个基点。 在科学史评价领域曾经出现一项见解：２０世纪人类科学成就之列,以相对论、量子力学和混沌理论尤为突出。 米切尔·费根堡是一位美国粒子物理学家,１９７４年开始关于混沌及有序与无序的研究。在美国洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室研究期间,费根堡发现了与混沌理论相关的“隐秩序”。随着混沌理论研究进展…     

概念地图和四元谱系 从建筑媒体透视20世纪中国建筑话语的演变

文章通过图绘的方式,回顾20世纪中国主流建筑专业媒体中的核心话题,并试图提出结构性把握中国20世纪建筑话语发展演变的四种特定的观察视角,从中整理出四条隐含的线索。通过回溯这四条线索的流变和演进,从而透视出媒体和建筑之间的关系。     

建筑与策展 双重实践的个人思考

文章回顾了早期现代主义建筑师如何通过展览将其建筑理念传播给主流社会,并在很大程度上影响了后来的城市发展。20世纪90年代前后,在纽约现代艺术馆举办的两次建筑展,不仅成功地将先锋建筑师推向大师之列,更预测了近20年建筑范式的转变。之后的第十届卡塞尔文献展和21世纪初的一系列艺术展,则重新定义了建筑、城市与艺术的跨界关系。作者通过阐述过去近10年来在中国的几次个人参展和策展经历,思考当代中国建筑实践中,建筑师策展对建筑学和城市学的积极意义。     

重构建筑学与国家的关系：中国建筑现代转型问题再思

在中国,无论是古代还是现代,国家与建筑活动都有着密切的联系。但是这一关联的现代转变及其影响至今在中国建筑史研究中还鲜有讨论。本文考察19世纪中叶以来,在中国现代化过程中国家性质的变化对中国现代建筑专业的影响。文章论证,在近代中国,伴随着外来势力和文化在中国影响的扩大,多元的公民社会出现并成为建筑商品化和多元化建筑价值取向的基础。在这个过程中建筑的话语权的把持者,即建筑职业标准和审美评判的主体也发生了变化,建筑师职业在中国社会分工中的独立。传统国家与建筑业的主宰与被主宰关系被以租界为代表的管理与被管理关系取代,建筑形式从传统等级社会的制约下获得了发展的自由。20世纪20年代之后新的民族国家的建立不仅延续了外国租界对于建筑活动的法制化管理方式,还出于国家认同和改造国民的需要,推动了建筑中关于民族风格的探索以及对于政府行政建筑、纪念物和国民教育空间等特殊类型建筑的建造。国家与建筑学形成一种利用与被利用的关系。20世纪50年代以后,限于当时的建设条件,国家与建筑再次经历了主宰与被主宰的关系,改革开放所带来的经济和社会多元化格局为中国建筑业的繁荣提供了新的条件,国家正在重建与建筑之间管理与被管理、利用与被利用的关系。     

Third World Modernism

Abstract

This article explores an intriguing aspect of Third World modernism—the utopianization of modernity—through an investigation into the people's commune movement launched in China in 1958. Concurrent with sweeping institutional changes, architects and planners boldly experimented with modernist design between 1958 and 1960. By looking into the curious combination of utopian and modernist elements in the commune movement, the study reveals that the mass utopia intensified some of the most tragic contradictions of Chinese modernity. The article argues that the failure of commune design led to a new conceptual distinction between the Modernism of the West and that of the Third World in Chinese architectural discourse.     

梁思成的“中国近代建筑研究”初探

20世纪50-60年代是梁思成建筑史研究的一个特殊时期,在此期间,由于种种特殊的社会、政治原因,他在学术研究领域投入时间、精力相对与30-40年代大大减少。但仔细考察这段历史可以发现,他在此时期的探索仍对中国建筑历史、理论等研究领域做出了特殊的贡献,其宏观、系统而又颇具前瞻性的学术思想在这一时期也进一步地延续和发展。该文拟从梁思成的“中国近代建筑研究”这一侧面切入,对梁思成的研究历程进行较为全面的回顾,从而对其近代建筑研究的特征、动因及意义进行分析和总结。     

近百年西方建筑思潮与流派的演化与发展

文章从建筑的内涵出发,探讨了建筑思潮及建筑流派的演化规律,并以现代主义思潮为主线,对19世纪上半叶至20世纪末的主要建筑思潮及建筑流派进行了梳理。在此基础上,对新世纪的建筑发展趋势进行了展望。     

论"新、特、奇"与建筑的美

该文对“新、特、奇”的内涵作出了界定,阐明了“新、特、奇”与建筑美的辩证统一关系,认为“新、特、奇”是我国建筑美寻求多样化发展的一种探索,是中国建筑面向世界、面向未来、面向现代化的必由之路。同时对建筑形式的“新、特、奇”与城市的美的关系表述了自己的看法。     

"The Reality of One-Which-Is-Two"—Mosque Battles and Other Stories: Notes on Architecture, Religion, and Politics in the Javanese World

This article considers the way Java responds to the global architectural flow of Islam. It shows the ways in which architecture became the site of negotiation between the global pan-Islamic Islam and the Javanese world. It then explores the dispute over identity and the representation of Islam in Java through various events in the present and the past. The article also discusses the debate over the design of a university's mosque in Jakarta in 1980s, the confrontation between Javanese and Middle Eastern Islam in the building of the first "great mosque" in the fifteenth century, the discourses of mosque building of the two previous postcolonial presidents of Indonesia, and the struggle in the intellectual culture of architecture today over what constitutes "Indonesian architecture." From these illustrative materials, issues are raised concerning history and agency, religion and politics, and architecture and ideology.     

立体主义与建筑美术教育研究

立体主义是20世纪西方最重要的先锋艺术运动,它对后来各种现代派艺术都产生过不同程度的影响。并有力地推动了现代建筑运动的发展。建筑造型总体上的立体主义化是20世纪现代主义建筑风格的一个重要特征,随后演绎出各种形形色色的“主义”。目前,中国建筑美术教育依然主要参照自欧洲文艺复兴以来确立的审美理论和基本准则,造成了建筑美术教育与现代建筑观念上的缺失,回顾立体主义的产生和演变,反思今天的建筑美术教育是本文探讨的重点。