“Built
spontaneously, illegally and temporarily, amateur architecture challenges
professional architecture but is generally considered to be insignificant. Professional architects think of buildings
too much as physical objects, in my opinion.
They can learn from amateurs in that respect.”
Wang
Shu explicates on the name behind Amateur
Architecture Studio – the office in
which he and
his architect wife Lu Wenyu are principal partners.
West
Lake – a major source of references in classical literature, still exerting
influences to hearts and minds of today.
It is in this context that Wang chairs the dean of the architectural
school in the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou.
Shot to
fame after the Pritzker Prize in 2012, Wang Shu (1963- ) has only realized a handful of projects so
far. There is practically little trace
of his works carried out in the formative years, yet his consistency in design
and philosophy are astonishing. In plain
language, it is as if a chef who was little-known previously suddenly acquired
Michelin stars with his first restaurant in a culinary outback. This is by no means a simple praise of
achievement. When most architects are
preoccupied with style-chasing and fame, Wang manages to avoid these pitfalls
and pursues on small practice, seeking alternative paths of commissioning.
Wang’s commendation
cannot be more difficult in the case of China where quality projects are dominated
by expedient architects, and clients invariably patronize established tastes. Over time, what is bequeathed is a hotchpotch
of banal, grotesque or at best corporate architecture. To be regretted by all, they help erase an identity proper and little by little, destroy the sediments of a civilization with
irreversible consequence.
Historical
manor house Tianyi in Ningbo with
high-rise developments knocking at the door.
Concocted
‘old street’, Ningbo as showcase of
preserved heritage. This is a trade-in that
legitimizes wholesale
eradication of existing urban fabric.
It is with
great hope on architects like Wang, who has demonstrated through a language
that derives its inspirations from the local history and culture yet at the
same time be compatible with contemporary needs. Befitting a few precedents that follow their
lone paths, Wang and his approach are also hard to be categorized. He may be a Imre Makovecz (1935-2011) of
ethnic reinterpretation, a Glenn Murcutt (1936-
) of adaptation on neglected heritage and an early Charles Correa
(1930- ), who advocated the urgency against
social ills as much as architectural advancement in his native country.
Imre
Makovecz, Hagymaház Cultural Centre (Onion House)
(1995-98), Makó, Hungary.
(image∣Andrea Schmidt for www.delmagyar.hu)
Glenn
Murcutt, Mangey House (1982-84), Moruya,
NSW, Australia. (image∣www.domtak.ru)
Charles
Correa, Artist Village, Mumbai, India. (image∣www.thedesignstreet.blogspot.com)
Wang Shu’s
dynamism crosses boundaries. With a few
completed works so far, he has demonstrated convincingly to the world audience a
unique expression of contemporary modernism at a regional level. On a different score and in particular to
Ningbo Museum where homage to classical scenic painting is registered, he has
managed to refresh the local perception on the traditional Chinese art through
the vehicle of architecture. Iconic to view, his deployment of discarded materials on the walls of the same museum immortalizes the remnants of reckless demolitions. To the thinking eye, this may be as subversive
as what contemporary Chinese satirical art can pull off. For those sentimental folks including me, this
is a new building already imbued with generations of memories.
Local
visitors in gaze of the reused materials on
the wall of Ningbo Museum. (image∣www.visitgd.com)
Below is
a visual account of three works by Amateur Architecture Studio, followed by an interview on Wang
Shu.
Ningbo Museum of Art (2001-2005), Ningbo
Parallel to the harbour, the modern art museum was designed as a cargo
warehouse, or officially a ‘container of art’.
Entrance to the building via ramp is reminiscent of a service gangway
rather than a passenger boarding bridge.
Colonnaded
deck surrounds the building at harbour side
leading to observation jetties.
Walls,
finished with recycled planks, can be opened up as
required. Existing observation tower from the
demolished building was retained within the new structure. It
is off-limits to visitors and quite
obscured from view.
From
the open deck comes the view across the harbour of
River Yao. Traces of a once busy port can
still be found
on the existing buildings.
Section
through exhibition halls (above) and
Huge
entrance foyer bisecting exhibition halls
Photographic
show at exhibition hall and
The other exhibition hall with group calligraphy works on
display. The cement rendered wall of the walk-up gallery, apparently metallic, is
finished with gloss paint.
The exhibition
entitled ‘The Tree of Moving Words’ by the Sarajevo born painter Aleksandra Lopatić on shown at the lower ground gallery. Lopatić uses acrylic,
felt pens, pencils, Indian ink, Letraset etc to mix with photographic
reproductions and scraps of letters on canvas. The paintings, impregnated with vivid colours from her spell in southern
France, contrast sharply with themes of dreaded souls in war-torn Yugoslavia.
Mère, mixed media with acrylic, 2012, 80x85cm.
Detail
Parenthèse, mixed media with acrylic, 2012, 80x80cm.
Detail
Lettre
à L’impossible, mixed media with acrylic, 2012, 130x200cm.
Detail
Door,
ironmongery and fair-face cement dressed
Reconstruction of Zhongshan
Lu (2007-09) - Thoroughfare from the Song Dynasty, Hangzhou
Pedestrian
street lined with mixed frontages most
noted for the pre-war republic-styled
mansions.
The water feature is a popular
motif for
canals of the imperial times.
Pavilions
and other interventions along the street.
Visitor’s
centre of the historical street showcasing
re-development masterplan and models.
Glass-covered
pavement revealing original
Timber
rafter ceiling – a feature in many of
Ningbo Museum
(2003-08)
Defiant
looking building in a melancholic mood -
Ningbo could be as misty as London in
a Sherlock Holmes film set.
Entrance
is located within the hole on the wall via
a ramp. The Ronchamp-like windows, much anticipated but
failed
to be seen from within, are where offices and
private facilities are located.
Imposing
building mass, as Wang refers to as
‘mountain’, looks like one of those
cloud-gathering
peaks in traditional ink paintings.
Museum
located at the centre of a civic park.
Ground
Floor Plan - the irregular building form is
a deception to the highly
integrated
First
Floor Plan – a multitude of voids and
courtyards are hollowed out from the
slab.
Second
Floor Plan – the terrace level with
East
and south elevations.
Section
through entrance foyer (above) and
open-air void space(below).
Minor
defect: Uncontrolled rainwater at
Entrance
hall hovered with stylized rafter ceiling –
imagine the shadow lines on a
bright sunny day.
At
roof level, an assemblage of building blocks
rises from below like rock
formations. The retrieved
brickworks, roof
tiles and rough concrete castings
make up the rustic building envelope.
Interesting
open-air courtyard for functions and
special gathering. The other courtyards were
inaccessible to the
public.
There are permanent exhibits of artefacts and foregone
city heritage lest you
are an ardent fan of the local history.
One
point to note: Time your visit, the museum staff would
signal for your
departure by 4:30pm, a good half hour
before the official closing time of
5:00pm.
The
cold and rainy day prohibited detailed
exploration of both the roof terrace and
the ground floor surrounding.
something of an experiment for the architect.
Extract of “Local
Hero – An Interview with Wang Shu” published in Mark Magazine #19 April-May,
2009
Mark Magazine(MM): The Ningbo Historic Museum [sic] is the result of an international
competition held in 2004. What is the
main concept underlying the design?
Wang Shu (WS): I combined two ways of thinking: I
envisioned it as both a small city and a small mountain. Ningbo is a new Chinese city with standard
urban planning, featuring wide roads, big squares and low building
density. This is a bad planning model,
it doesn’t take into account China’s vast population. I work in the city because I want to improve
its structure. But here I can’t do
anything; the place is so empty. So I
designed the building as a small city in its own right. On a different note, I want to tell people
what live in this city used to look like.
Ten years ago this was a very beautiful harbour city. Now everything is demolished. So I collected and recycled building materials
from the area. For this reason, even
though I won this competition, local government officials didn’t like my
design.
MM: Why not?
WS: They think theirs is a modern city that needs a
modern building. But when the building
was finished and the people saw the real thing, they loved it. I think it’s a very interesting process. You look at some architecture on paper and
like it immediately, but people seeing something like this have a hard time
imaging how it will be built and what it will look like. It’s beyond their thinking and experience.
Mm: An important aspect of your approach is the
relationship between architecture and landscape design. In today’s China’s cities, that relationship
seems to be lost. How come?
WS: In china
we have lost the tradition of building cities and of creating architecture that
is part of the landscape. In my design
for the Hangzhou campus, for instance, I positioned the buildings at the foot
of the Xiangshan (Elephant) Mountain in such a way that each building enters a
different dialogue with the mountain, offering different views of it. To me, a building as an object isn’t
important. It’s the building’s relation
with nature that most interests me. I
have tried to develop some new building types on the campus. In China we have a limited amount of building
types we can put together to make a city.
We’re in need of some alternatives, so we developed new prototypes –
like the courtyard building and water building.
They are templates for modern interpretations of the pagoda, the temple
and the courtyard. Many of my buildings
are similar to the Chinese garden: they have many entrances, and it’s not clear
where the main entrance is.
MM: The facades of your buildings are often composed
of recycled bricks and tiles. Are the resulting patterns designed or
accidental? How much control do you have
over all the bricklaying involved?
WS: In the eastern part of this province, near the
sea, people suffer from typhoons, which cause many houses to collapse. They don’t have a lot of time to rebuild
them, so they put the bricks back together randomly. I find the resulting architecture very
beautiful. I did design the pattern on
the walls of this museum. When the
construction process started, people worked behind a scaffold. It was very secretive. Nobody saw what was happening, including
me. Obviously, the craftsmen change my
design, but when they took the scaffold down I loved it, precisely it was
beyond my control.
MM: In your design process, you combine writing,
painting, calligraphy and sketching. Can
you explain how this works?
WS: I design very similarly to the traditional
Chinese painter. I don’t sketch very
much, but I do study cities, valleys and mountains. Then I stop.
I think for about a week and don’t draw.
In the case of this museum, one night I couldn’t sleep and it
immediately emerged. To me, every design
is about both poetic thinking and mathematics.
I sat on the bed, drew it in my mind and calculated the size of the
building. When that was done, I took a
small piece of paper and a pencil. I
drew everything directly: numbers, structure, size, space, stairs, where to locate
the entrance, functions and so on. Then
I drank tea. During the second stage of
a project, I use a pencil and a ruler for very accurate plans and sections,
showing the positions of windows and doors.
I give my work to the assistants.
They draw it again, using the computer.
When that is finished, we discuss the materials and the details. This month I have to design three museums, so
my studio stops working for one month.
Everyone goes home, so I can work on my own. I send them to the countryside for research
or give somebody a list of books about Chinese paintings, French philosophers, movies
or any subject that might be helpful.
This is their homework. When they
come back, we have a discussion, and then we work again.
MM: You seldom work with commercial developers,
choosing instead to work in most cases with local governments. Do you find the process of creating while negotiating
with commercial developers too difficult?
WS: There are three very difficult stages during the
building process. The first is how to
convince the government. The second
deals with designing working details and with other construction issues. Many architects fail in this stage. They may have a good idea, but more often
than not it’s poorly executed. The third
stage is the hardest of all. When a
building is finished, the Chinese rarely think of it as a work of art. They treat it as a container with many
functions that they can change randomly and at will. This is very difficult for me. I can control the first and second stages,
but I have no influence on the third. In
the Contemporary Art Museum in Ningbo, for example, we designed two large
floors. When we presented our plans,
local authorities told me they had the money to build the museum, but no money
to operate it. They need a space they
could let out in order to generate money.
I told them that, apart from selling fish, they could do whatever they
wanted on the ground floor to make money.
But art should b o the first floor.
When I said this to the mayor I used Marxist theory, explaining that a
basement is about economy and an upper floor about art. I hope he got the joke.
MM: Does this unthoughtful attitude reflect a lack
of respect for the architect?
WS: The architect is in a higher esteem than ten
years ago. But people do not consider
architecture to be art. They might think
a building is more or less beautiful, but that’s not enough. I do not think people really understand my
ideas and what I try to achieve, but maybe in ten years they will.
MM: Do you see yourself an international architect,
like Ma Qingyung or Ma Yangsong?
WS: They are really international. I am just a local architect. I’m not smart enough to be as fashionable as
they are.
MM: But would you like to be? To me, it seems as though your architecture
explains more about the reality of China than some of your colleague’s
buildings.
WS: A good architect should have a thorough
experience of the society he comes from.
Between 1990 to 2000 I had no commissions, and I did not want a
government or academic position. I just
wanted to work with craftsmen, gain experience on the ground and take no
responsibility for the design – only for the construction. So I worked on the lowest levels of the
society. Every day I worked at building
sites from eight in the morning until midnight.
While working and eating with the craftsmen, I started to wonder what
had happened to our experience of tradition.
Gradually, I gained confidence while learning everything about
construction methods. Continuity is very
important in my opinion. Tradition is continuity. During those years I began studying the
history of art in Europe, India, Africa and America; as well as philosophy,
cinema and contemporary art - a practice I continue today. I believe in starting with a broad vision and
condensing it the fit the local situation.
(Quotation and interview extract courtesy of “Local
Hero – An Interview with Wang Shu” published in Mark Magazine #19 April-May,
2009)
(All drawings from Amateur Architecture Studio)
嚴肅的業餘追求
〈中文摘要〉
王澍(1963-
)的現象有點傳奇。這說法並非源於他在二○一二年，只憑數個建築設計竟獲「普立兹」奬。他的不同不單只在理念上與中國國內的主流大相逕庭，而是引伸出的作品在國際領域上亦俱相當感染力。簡單說，王的突圍有如一默默工作的厨師在飲食文化匱乏的國度裡脱穎而出，繼而獲得米芝蓮星奬。從這角度再說，當今建築師，因種切考量，大多志於追遂名利與潮流；然而王澍這土炮以清晰智慧拒絕利誘，花上十年時間經營細規模事務所，尋找小眾項目，實屬罕有。
鑒於大潮流的帶動，中國大陸都市及建築在這數十年發生史無前例的巨變。除了經濟得以發展，建築文化進程乏善可陳；庸俗，醜陋及商品設計充斥各省市。這粗暴的洪流，沖擊中國文化的沉澱，個人身份的記印亦遭蠶食，情况永遠不復逆轉。
在這危機裡，王澍提供案例將故有歷史文化注入現代建築語言。他走的道路及採纳的設計語言，不容易被分類。其中他的作品涵蓋對族群建築勾畫新定義、對受忽略的承傳重塑底蘊以及對自身社會垢弊發出吶喊。
王澍的張力是跨領域，他成功地從劃一性的現代建築發展出優秀的地區語言。從寧波歷史博物館具體來說，這作品予人提供中國美術觀的嶄新角度。透過運用棄置的建材，恰恰將瘋狂的拆遷烙印在博物館外牆上恆久活現。智者會以顛覆角度欣賞這創作。感性的，如筆者本人，經常回味這區區數寒暑的雋永建設，靈巧地切入多代人的珍貴回憶。
本文節錄的精彩訪問見英語原文。
