Final Blog Entry, But Not Final Thoughts

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 19^th. 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.

Proposed Baotou Geological Museum

Some highlights from the month have been visiting a couple of Xian Dai’s projects, singing at karaoke and buffet night, getting caught in a typhoon, visiting People’s Square and the Shanghai Urban Planning Centre, getting “kidnapped” by some of my friends one afternoon to have “better food than at the cafeteria” along the Wujang Road Leisure Street, and taking part in a strange food tasting extravaganza at the Yu Garden Bazaar. The ‘stinky tofu’ is… interesting.

Yu Garden Bazaar

I, and most of my department, went on a trip to the Shennongjia Forestry District in the Hubei Province from August 22^nd-27^th 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 25^th, 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.

Despite some issues, the cities of China have vastly improved and expanded in the wake of the recent economic boom in this country. The massive population of the country has begun to level out, and though there is a growing income inequality, China’s poverty rate is dropping according to some reports. To form a complete, accurate picture of the state of Chinese development will require further investigation and reading. Time has been limited here in Shanghai. There have been great improvements to the infrastructure of many Chinese cities, as our trip to Beijing following its worst flooding in over 60 years can attest to. China moves quickly, and its future has yet to be written.

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.

Presentation and M50

First thing this morning, after a half hour department meeting, I gave my presentation on architectural education in the USA to my coworkers and other members of our department. During one of the first weeks, a few of my coworkers had asked me if I would put a PowerPoint or PDF presentation together so they could see some of the work I’ve done and learn more about the process for becoming an architect in the United States. I’ve been receiving some feedback for the past few weeks about what everyone wanted to see, so I decided to try and cater to everyone’s interests.

The slideshow was partly a presentation on the full process for becoming a licensed architect in the USA, partly a portfolio, and partly a visual explanation of the cities I’ve lived in. A small, running theme to tie the presentation together was a chronological biography of my journey from Sleepy Eye to Minneapolis to Oaxaca to Portland and finally to Shanghai. When I got to the slide about the cost of tuition for both my undergraduate and graduate degrees and the course requirements, everyone let out a gasp and started frantically speaking to each other in Mandarin. To preface this, I should add that I used Google translator to try and change most of the bullet points in the presentation to Chinese characters. Just as I was wondering if I accidentally wrote something profane, Asihan, one of my coworkers who was acting as my translator, turned to me and explained that our tuition cost is much higher than in China. If I understood her correctly, the yearly tuition cost for my coworkers had been about 7000 RMB or a little under $1000.00. Other than this shocker, the presentation went wonderfully and we held a short Q&A session afterwards. Apparently I ended up translating all of the text to something understandable though not necessarily grammatically correct. There were a few times when I would turn to Asihan after speaking, and all I would get would be a blank stare and, “What? I do not understand professional words. My English is not that good.” Somehow everything worked out perfectly.

The language barrier is one of the most priceless experiences here in Shanghai. Avik was telling me that the other day when he was discussing his current project with one of his coworkers, he asked, “What kind of materials are we using for this project?” and his coworker replied, “This project is located in the Huangshu city.” Just a part of daily life here at Xian Dai! Sketching and hand gestures are key.

Over the weekend, Avik, Reina, and I had the chance to visit the M50 Galleries, a village of old warehouses that have been converted to artist galleries along Suzhou Creek. It was a beautiful, industrial labyrinth of street art, artist studios, and mixed-media galleries that seemed to grow larger the more we explored.

Beijing

Last weekend (Thursday through this Monday) Avik, Reina, and I took the train to Beijing and back, a trip that was almost postponed. During our first week, our supervisors at Xian Dai told us that we needed to see Beijing for a full China experience. We were to pick whichever weekend we thought would be best for our trip and we would be able to have an extended weekend break. We decided that traveling to Beijing during the first month of our internship would be best so that when deadlines pile up during August, we would have more time in Shanghai. It also gave us a chance to plan out what we still need to see in Shanghai. I’ve got quite the list in my sketchbook. Anyway, during the weekend when we visited Suzhou, the weekend before our intended Beijing journey, the city experienced its worst flash flood disaster in about 60 years. We kept reading news reports and discussing our plans with coworkers to determine whether it would be a safe, ideal time to visit Beijing. It sounded like they cleaned up quickly, so with a little bit of uncertainty, we boarded the train for a 12 hour ride.

We met up with our tour guide, Vanessa, at the Beijing South Station, and were driven via van to our hotel. According to Vanessa, some of the areas we drove through had recently been flooded with 1-2 meters of water. Beijing cleans up fast. I was surprised by how smoothly the cleanup and disaster relief must have been carried out. After checking into our hotel, we decided to wander around a bit and ended up having a hotpot meal a few blocks away.

Early the next day, we woke up, had a quick hotel breakfast, and traveled to Tiananmen Square. Beijing, or at least the sections of the city we traveled through, were at more of a human scale than Shanghai. Not as many towers, and the streets seemed to have a toned down, less frantic pace. From Tiananmen Square, we passed through the Meridian Gates and into the Forbidden City. Everything in the Forbidden City was designed according to the rules of Feng shui, and was therefore extremely axial. After passing through throngs of people in larger than life courts and gates, we eventually came to the concubine living area. This part of the Forbidden City was filled with smaller courtyard gardens and we saw the well where the Dragon Lady, one of the most powerful concubines, was drowned.

From the Forbidden City, we traveled to a Mongolian portion of Beijing and took a rickshaw ride through the hutongs with Pamela, a guide who knew more about the area. We stopped for lunch at a small family house and had a home cooked meal while watching a Chinese version of Wipeout. After taking the rickshaws back to the van, we stopped by a silk museum where we were able to hold some silkworms and see different techniques for weaving and shaping the silk threads.

Our next stop was the Temple of Heaven, which was last restored in 2005 and is where people would come to pray for the harvest. After a full day of running around Beijing, we took a quick break at the hotel, ate far too much food at a small restaurant nearby, and drove to the Chinese opera. I won’t even pretend to have understood what the plot was. All I can say is that it was unlike any performance I have ever seen. There was a general who was under attack and his wife did a mesmerizing dance with two swords while singing a warbling song. She ended up committing suicide with the general’s sword so that she wouldn’t be in the way of his escape. There were also two soldiers who performed a stylized wu shu battle with swords and a princess who got herself drunk because the emperor wouldn’t come to a party she was holding in his honor. There seemed to be a lot of family drama, and beyond the crazy costumes and intriguing performances, I didn’t quite grasp the entire story. The experience was almost more beautiful and mysterious not understanding the language. We left the opera and rode back to the hotel in a downpour of lightning and rain. Luckily, there was no severe flooding during this storm.

Our second full day in Beijing was mostly spent outside of the city. We began the journey with a 1 ½ hour drive to the Great Wall. After riding an old lift through the mist to the top of the wall, Avik, Reina, and I spent a couple hours exploring the towers of the wall and wondering what life must have been like for the guards who had lived there. Possibly because of the fog and mist, there were very few tourists at the wall which made the adventure much more meaningful. My first day back at Xian Dai, Bai Gong, the project architect who has become a mentor to me, told me that I was a “hero” for visiting the Great Wall. Apparently, it’s a symbol of strength to visit the old structure.

After our wanderings along the Great Wall, we went back to the van and had a winding ride through the hills to the Ming Dynasty Tombs. There, we learned a little more about the imperial history of China and saw another set of axial structures. On the ride back to Beijing, we stopped by a jade gallery / restaurant for lunch. Irony struck as we drove by the Beijing Olympic stadiums and stopped to take some photos around the same time the Olympic games were beginning in London. We had a bit of free time to wander around the city in the afternoon, and then met at a small restaurant for a dinner of spicy beans and fish meatballs with cucumbers. The sun had set early, and Avik, Reina, and I went out for a little nighttime jaunt down a wonderful pedestrian market street, stopping for some mango ice cream along the way. We then journeyed back to the hotel through some back alleys and stumbled upon the first truly residential-feeling area we’ve been to so far in China. Instead of housing towers surrounded by traffic, these were a complex of 5 story residences set off from the main streets. In Beijing, it felt like it’s more about buildings being designed for the people as opposed to Shanghai where it’s almost like the people are just fit into the buildings.

We began our third day in Beijing with a visit to the Beijing Zoo. I can freely admit that I did not enjoy the experience. It was still worth witnessing, though. The pandas were cute, but there were an insane amount of people flooding the premises. It made a hot, humid day even more uncomfortable having to fight our way through herds of people. Needless to say, we did not stay long.

This was the first day the sun came out in Beijing, and it was perfect for out next destination. The Summer Palace and grounds was probably my favorite site we visited during our stay in the city. A series of pavilions, walkways, bridges, and pagodas were scattered around a lotus filled lake. Here we learned more about the history of the city and culture and were able to see the Dragon Lady’s house. We had a peaceful ride across the lake in a dragon boat and watched a few ladies performing a modern take on a traditional dance in one of the larger pavilions. The Lama Temple was our next stop, another long axial progression through gates and Buddhist shrines, but with a different architectural style. The temples started with the Laughing Buddha, and culminated with a monumental, 26 meter tall Buddha that had been carved from a single white sandalwood tree and was clad in bronze. Photography was not allowed inside the temples out of respect to the number of Buddhists who were praying and lighting incense. There was a large wheel at a corner of the temple, which we all spun clockwise, to bring us good luck in finding happiness, fortune, and longevity. Spinning it counterclockwise would bring bad luck.

For dinner, we ate the Peking duck. After finishing off every last morsel of food, we made our way to a Chinese acrobatics performance. We arrived early, so we had time to wander to a large building nearby, which was a mall with a crazy, amorphous central core. The acrobatics show was spectacular. Some of the highlights were a bunch of guys tumbling and jumping through tiny hoops, two contortionists who balanced plates and glasses on their hands and feet while spinning around, and the end of the performance where ten girls rode in circled on the stage, all on top of a single trick bike moving in different formations and waving fans around. It’s difficult to describe the actual performance. Take my word for it, though. It was amazing.

After a successful trip to Beijing, we arrived back in Shanghai on Monday night and woke up early Tuesday morning to head back to work. While I was away, my department received a new project for a high-end business club which will be located in Hefei, the capitol city of the Anhui Province. Although I’ve still been involved with the Baotou project, this week most of my time has been spent developing massing and site design for the club. Both of the projects have deadlines on August 20^th.

I'll keep the blog updates coming, though they will probably continue to be a bit scattered!

Suzhou

Yesterday’s excursion to Suzhou was definitely a success. After getting up bright and early and having a quick breakfast of bao, Reina, Avik, and I made our way to the Shanghai Train Station for a half hour ride to garden city of Suzhou. We began the adventure, first visiting the Humble Administrator’s Garden (Zhuozheng Yuan). Our theory was that by visiting the main touristy garden first, we would beat the crowds. This was not exactly the case. It was easy to see that the 10-acre garden was beautiful, but the swarms of Chinese tourists and multiple tour guides with megaphones did somewhat kill the atmosphere. There were still some wonderful surprises and moments to be had, however. In a few sections of the garden, we found ourselves almost entirely alone and able to truly see the garden. There was also a section with cave-like walkways which were both exciting and a great escape from the heat.

Our next stop after the Humble Administrator’s Garden was the Suzhou Museum (Suzhou Bowuguan), which was designed by I.M. Pei in 2006. It was his final and favorite work, and in my opinion the museum did a fantastic job of reinterpreting the traditional architecture we saw within the city. The Suzhou Museum is “uniquely personal” for I.M. Pei. In 2002, when he was asked by the Suzhou government to build a large museum on hallowed ground adjoining a complex of 19th-century historical structures and two gardens listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites, he leapt at the opportunity. Although I.M. Pei was born south of Suzhou, in Guangzhou, and grew up mostly in Hong Kong and Shanghai, his ancestors lived in Suzhou for hundreds of years. He spent several memorable summers in the Suzhou gardens as a youth.

The Suzhou Museum project was, of course, very controversial, much like his glass pyramid was at the Louvre. It may just be the architect in me, but I think the project did a fantastic job of retaining its own identity and still respecting the World Heritage sites it lays between. As a museum, the interior spaces were filled with surprises, but still didn’t distract from the art held within. To be perfectly honest, the art was interesting, but Reina, Avik, and I were much more interested in the architecture! I’m sure most of the Chinese tourists thought we were a little nuts, trying to capture the perfect photos, not of the art, but of the interior spaces.

Leaving the Suzhou Museum was an unexpected experience. We left I.M. Pei’s work and found ourselves in a labyrinth of historical Chinese corridors and courtyards. It was beautiful and also difficult to navigate. We eventually made our way back out to the Suzhou streets and canals. We still had some time before lunch, so we decided to take a boat ride through the canals. It was a gorgeous and relaxing ride after the hours we had spent walking so far, and you could really start to see Suzhou outside the tourist’s perspective. Halfway through the ride, our “gondolier” started speaking to us in Mandarin. We had no idea what he was saying so we just smiled and nodded. The man burst out singing what must have been a traditional song. It was so unexpected, I couldn’t help but smile. I decided right there that the day was officially sealed as a great day. Our gondolier continued to serenade us throughout the boat ride, and Reina, Avik, and I clapped and cheered for him after each song. When we docked, we decided that it was time for lunch.

We found a small restaurant along one of the side streets and split some spicy tofu and pork, a vegetable that may or may not have been eggplant, and a skillet of beef and peppers. We took some time to relax, digest, and plan out our next sequence of destinations. We left the restaurant and started south for the Temple of Mystery (Xuanmiao Guan).

The Temple of Mystery is a two-tiered 3^rd century Taoist temple which was damaged during the Taiping Rebellion during the 19^th century. Many people were lighting candles inside and outside of the temple. The temple itself is surrounded by what was described as an ancient Suzhou style bazaar. The park in front of the temple was a wonderful public space and reminded me of some of the smaller parks I visited in Oaxaca. Reina, Avik, and I took some time to sit and watch a man who was singing in a gravelly voice similar to Tom Waits and dancing a pseudo-graceful ballet.

Next, we made our way east, in search of the Kunqu Opera Museum (Kunqu Bowuguan). Since we were taking the back alleys of Suzhou which were much more interesting than the main streets of the city, we ended up overshooting the Opera Museum and found ourselves facing a sign that seemed to claim the Couples’ Garden Retreat (Ou Yuan) was behind the whitewashed wall. There was a gate nearby and inside was an empty lot. I was wondering whether this was some sort of parody or artistic statement of a garden, when Avik pointed out the arrow at the bottom of the sign and the distance marker. The Couples’ Garden was a ways away and empty lot was just an empty lot. Oops!

We circled back to the Opera Museum, and found ourselves in a ghost town of a building. The three of us found ourselves completely alone in a beautiful Chinese courtyard with a steady breeze slowly filtering in. It was an almost spiritual experience, escaping the rampant tourism and chaos of the streets and being able to experience the untrammeled wonder of a traditional structure. We agreed that these are the moments that make the journey, the unexpected stops along the way. It was fun seeing the touristy sights, but the unanticipated moments are much more special. “Travelers don’t know where they’re going, tourists don’t know where they’ve been.” I consider myself a traveler.

After we finally left the museum, we made our way along the canal, past numerous boutiques and teahouses, stopping for fruit smoothies along the way. Or final destination before wandering back to the Suzhou train station was the North Temple Pagoda (Beisi Ta), a 250 ft (76 meter) tower. It was initially built in the 3^rd century, like the Temple of Mystery, and it was completely reconstructed in the 16^th century.

We were wiped out but satisfied at the end of our outing. After a half hour train ride back to Shanghai and a quick taxi ride back to the hotel, it was time to get some rest.