Well. So much for keeping up with a weekly or even a bi-weekly blog! So much has happened in the past month that I will in no way be able to describe everything that has occurred in a single blog entry.
Baotou Master Plan
The Baotou project was completed and presented to the members of the government during the weekend of August 19th. They liked the plan overall, but there will be a few modifications. According to Bai, the geological museum was “very good.” The other two projects, the business club in Hefei and the project for four restaurants in Pujiang, have also been presented to their clients, though I haven’t heard back yet about the response.
I, and most of my department, went on a trip to the Shennongjia Forestry District in the Hubei Province from August 22nd-27th to take part in Bai’s wedding and to explore the major national park in the province. Beyond the other trips, explorations of Shanghai with Avik and Reina, and working at Xian Dai, this was the major event of my experience in China. The wedding took place on August 25th, and lasted the entire day. Unknown to me when we left for Shennongjia, I was to play the role of best man for my first time. The other days, we spent hiking through the countryside and local towns, feasting on foods even my coworkers could not identify, and singing the night away around a bonfire.
Shennongjia National Nature Reserve
Bai Xiaosong's Wedding
Xian Dai's Architectural Design Department One
Two days ago, after looking through thousands of photos from the wedding trip, finishing up some work, eating some more “traditional Chinese mutant fish,” exchanging emails, phone numbers, QQ contact info, and gathering around our department’s fish tank, I gave my umpteenth speech to my coworkers, expressing my thanks to them. “Whoa, whoa! Too fast!” Luckliy, Asihan was able to help translate. We’ve already begun the heartfelt “good-byes,” but will definitely stay in contact. Yesterday, Avik, Reina, and I were taken on a couple tours of some more Xian Dai projects, to the Pudong area, and to the building the firm will be moving into soon. We had a large lunch with the heads of our firm, and talked about our experiences and our mutual admiration. Bai has been gone, but he will be visiting Oregon this fall and we will meet up at some point during his trip. I am extremely grateful to my department, to all the friends I’ve made, and for an experience in China I will never forget.
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There is a blog entry I’ve been slowly thinking about for the duration of my experience here in Shanghai. It is somewhat an architectural and sociocultural overview of what I’ve learned. I’ve been hesitant to post it, because it is not very cohesive and needs a great deal more research, but you can perceive it as early musings of a work in progress:
Architecture and Urban Planning in China
It’s time for a blog entry of a more serious note. An urban architectural critique of sorts. I have been living in Shanghai for a while now, not nearly enough time to fully understand the city and culture, but enough time to form a basis for opinion. The small amount of side research I have been doing has helped, as well. Early on, at the end of our first week in the city, I wrote a poem observing some of the questions that rose from walking through the streets:
The Streets of Shanghai
I have walked along the streets of Shanghai,
Along tai chi in the park at daylight.
I have seen towers fading in the sky,
Turning to neon with the rise of night.
Though an '80s haze of cigarette streams
That slowly float up to a blinding height.
To a constant construction, glass and beams
But there remains endless abandonment.
Is it all a façade, these sparkling dreams?
There are alley slums behind the cement
That hide away in a silent “good-bye.”
When I’m gone I’ll wonder what it all meant,
And wonder if there’s any way to reply.
I have walked between the streets of Shanghai.
Though there are certainly slum areas hidden behind the alleyways, the poverty rate of Shanghai is not nearly as high as I expected. According to one report, stating China’s estimate, only around 4.1% of citizens living in Chinese cities are living below the poverty line.1 Whether the income/expenditure indicator of poverty used for the report is reliable is grounds for debate, however. I suspect the actual poverty rate is higher, though it is difficult to truly measure poverty as different living situations have distinct needs. Cities generally do not seem to be the problem in China. In fact, around 80-99% of China’s impoverished people dwell in the rural regions of western China, not urban regions.2 This rural, western region is where over half of China’s population live.3 The majority of impoverished people living in Chinese cities have migrated from rural regions hoping for, but not finding work. The government has apparently attempted to provide relief for the urban poor through the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MLSS), providing assistance to laid-off employees, but it was severely limited.4
In terms of a labor report from 2003, Shanghai has a “below average” poverty rate compared with other provinces in China.5 Shanghai is not necessarily much worse than many other global cities, the difference seems to be that, due to the incredible density of the city, the poor live close by the rich in the areas I have visited.
Additionally, Shanghai has very low crime rates as far as cities go, and it’s health care system is very good as far as basic health care is concerned. Health care in Shanghai continues to improve.6 There are even some scattered posters discussing the city’s program for a “Healthy Shanghai.”
Working in an architecture / engineering firm for around two months now has given me a much clearer picture of how architecture and urban planning is approached in China. As Avik observed about halfway through our internship, “This is kind of like Sim City.” For the majority of the cities, this is a very apropos comparison. Not having worked in an architecture firm within the United States, it is difficult to truly compare the design process, but the cities themselves seems to tell the story of China. Massive projects are constantly being built with incredible speed. A patriotic motto of China seems to be “If we can build it, we will.”
This speed was something Sir Norman Foster noted as his airport terminal to support the 2008 Beijing Olympics was constructed. “I was impressed by the technical abilities of local industries and craftsmen to deliver the building quickly and with quality. Beijing’s terminal is equivalent to all five of Heathrow’s terminals plus 17 percent of that total all under one roof; and while that has taken 50 years at London’s Heathrow, the same amount of space in Beijing was realized in just four!”7
A major issue I have noticed in many buildings, however, is that there is poor detailing and poor installation, leaving many buildings to leak and weather poorly. It’s almost as if the speed of construction has led to “disposable buildings.” The issue with the rapid urbanization that is occurring in China is the lack of thoroughness that can be applied with the speed of construction. The Government normally wants an accepted project to be constructed at a blinding speed. Detailing and installation is generally not great, and I am still shocked at the overwhelming reliance on sealant for most of the high-rise structures. Many of the glazed curtain walls do not even have mullions, but rely on sealant to join the glass panels. From our coworkers, we have heard that a new building will often last only 10-15 years before it needs to have a major renovation or retrofit. This is certainly not cost effective or sustainable.
One of the greatest questions for me right now is whether the Chinese culture of building is becoming lost in the flurry of international and futurist construction. I was having a discussion about the importance of culture in architecture with my mentor, Bai Gong, one day, and I received a more revealing picture of design in China. Many new architects and architecture students in China are entranced with a “Zaha Hadid” style of design, by which I mean creating crazy forms and then building them. This tends to lead to somewhat dead, out of scale buildings that catch your eye with their intrigue, and you take a photo and leave. I mean no offense to Zaha or her work, this was just the comparison made in Bai and my discussion. City officials and many clients also often want these types of projects to show how cutting edge they are.
Bai gave me a magazine with an article about Wang Shu to read. Wang Shu is an architect who was awarded the Pritzker prize for architecture in 2012. The Pritzker prize is basically the “Nobel Prize” of architecture. He was the first Chinese citizen to be awarded with this recognition, a key event for China’s role in architecture and design. Wang Shu is well aware of the issue of rapid urbanization and its effect on the world. He has stated that urbanization “needs to be in harmony with local needs and culture.” I personally think his projects are incredibly thoughtful and beautiful. They seem to be the embodiment of Chinese culture in build form.
Wang Shu is certainly not the only one who has noticed and warned of issues regarding rapid urbanization. During our trip to the M50 Galleries, a number of artists, such as Qing Sima, created exhibitions mourning the loss of older districts of Shanghai that were demolished to make way for new development. According to Qing Sima’s short bio, “it seems as though the old Shanghai is being lost.”
Many of the conversations with coworkers and friends tended to be about architecture or politics. Through these discussions, I’ve learned a few things about the process of architecture related to the government in China. I have a lot of reading to do once I get back to the USA so that I can fully understand how this country is governed, and what the role of architects is to the urbanization process as a whole. Politics was an issue that was incredibly difficult to discuss with the language barrier.
The central government allocates money to certain developing towns if they have resources that can be exploited. The people living in the area grow richer and the government is able to show its power through the use of resources in the area. Similarly, the government can retract money from certain areas if they are not seen as being useful. This also shows the government’s power. The governments of the Chinese provinces are simply there to enforce the decisions of the central government and they cannot argue against the government’s decisions. Architects, other than work for some wealthy private developers who purchase land from the central government, mostly work on projects for the central government in these new, developing cities. They are there to give the government ideas about what would be best for the city, or what buildings would be most beneficial. This is my understanding from conversations I have had with my friends and coworkers. Like I said, I have a lot of reading about China to do when I return.
1. Hussain, Athar (01-2003). "Urban Poverty in China: Measurement, Patterns and policies". Socio-Economic Security Series. International Labour Office, Geneva.
2. Wall Street Journal “Facts About Poverty in China Challenge Conventional Wisdom” April 13, 2009.
3. The Telegraph UK “China's wealth gap the widest since economic reforms began” March 2, 2010
4. Zhao, J. G. (2000). "Analysis of the Overemployment in SOEs". In Y. Wang and A. Chen. China’s Labour Market and Problems of Employment. Southwestern University of Finance and Economics Press. pp. 615–625.
5. Yan, Fei. Journal of Politics and Law. “The Rising Urban Poverty and Political Resentment in a Transitional China: The Experience of Shanghai.” Vol. 1, No. 1, March 2008.
6. Le Bas, Tom. Insight Guides: Shanghai City Guide. Apa Publications: Singapore,
7. Lu, Wang. World Architecture. “Interview with Norman Foster.” January, 2012. Issue 259. Beijing. World Architecture Magazine Publications.2011.
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