image: Meiya Lin, Emigrant Serial Number_2: Passing the Torch, 2007

THERE IS NO I IN TEAM is a three-day event at PROGRAM, Berlin. Running from October 15th to 17th it brings together cutting-edge  video, live audiovisuals and performance art and creative communities from both China and Berlin. MovingCities will be part of Friday’s radio show on the topic of China’s Creative topography and Getting Lost Together.

Announcement from the curators:

The event is structured around the idea of making a live radio show focusing onrhizomatic networks stretching out from China to Berlin. The guests for THERE IS NO I IN TEAM belong to the same network of people who create their artistic projects on an individual basis but yet become public through a team of people who provide a context to make it public.

Taking its title from an American motivational statement, used to encourage people to abandon their own ego and self so as to be an effective part of the team, the project has been curated by a ‘team’ of European and Chinese curators (Pauline Doutreluingne, Keri Elmsly, Keith Whittle, Jiang Jian, Leo de Boisgisson, Anne Rottig and Beatrice Leanza) each contributing a unique cultural viewpoint, whilst also sharing their firsthand knowledge of contemporary China and its rapidly expanding arts and music scene, in all its cross-disciplinary nature and differing methods of representation.

Recently MovingCities was interviewed in Beijing by Leo de Boisgisson [86/33LINK] and we’re exctied to see how our previous collaboration – as part of This Is My City 09 – is gaining further momentum across continents and airwaves. Our contribution will happen on Friday October 16 from 4:00–6:00pm, as part of a radioshow including talks with Lin Yu (CN) and performance by Christine Woditschka (DE).

Dead J & Chen Xiongwei (performance) | source: Shanghai eArts Festival 2008

Leo de Boisgisson, Dead J & Chen XiongWei | Macau Urban Panorama Workshop, July 2009

If you’re in Berlin, or planning to go there in the coming days, make sure to check out the THERE IS NO I IN TEAM-program. Special attention goes to the evening of October 16th when there will be an audiovisual performance of Dead J and Chen Xiongwei [check out Colored and Endless City-remix of the Macau Urban Panorama Workshop]. Be prepared for some outer space dub electro mixed with cold and warm soundscapes of Dead J melting into urban-sketches drawn by Chen Xiongwei.

For further information please contact pauline [at] berlin-china-bridge [dot] com or visit the Berlin-China Cultural Bridges (BCCB) website.

http://movingcities.org/

THERE IS NO I IN TEAM | Berlin radio show

FutureTense | ABC National Radio

FutureTense is a weekly half-hour podcast program aired on Australian ABC National Radio that takes a critical look at new technologies, new approaches and new ways of thinking. This week’s theme is “Urbanisation and our relationship with the city” and includes interviews with Adam Greenfield, Bert de Muynck, Professor Richard Florida and Dr. Tony Fry. Podcast now online!

A couple of weeks ago FutureTense presenter Antony Funnell conducted a phone interview with MovingCities asking questions about our work in relation to the changing nature of urban development in China, starting from the point that given that China’s vast cities are in a time of transition, what are the various processes shaping and being shaped by that transition?  The podcast tackles the following issue from different perspectives, skilfully navigating between the influence of ubiquitous media, spiky urban development and climate change on the way we understand the city:

The 21st century will see ever increasing levels of urbanisation. In this program we look at the way we engage with the city. What do we need to take into account to ensure greater harmony between our future needs as individuals and the needs of the metropolis.

The “Urbanisation and our relationship with the city” podcast (download mp3) also features writer and critical futurist Adam Greenfield, author of “Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing” (New Riders Press, 2006) and inventor of the term ‘moblogging’ (short for Mobile Blogging).

Further on there is Dr Tony Fry (Adjunct Professor, Design Futures Program, Griffith University) whom we met in the context of “City Move Interdesign workshop” (Mar-Apr 09) in Gällivare, Sweden. Tony Fry recently published “Moving Cities & Immobile Mentalities” on the DesignPhilosophyPolitics-website. An extract:

One of the largest challenges is moving at-risk cities. What this actually means is still unclear. Certainly, it means moving people, although moving social structure and communities is another matter. It might mean moving the economy, or creating a new one. It could mean moving a lot of the material fabric of a city, or none. Then there is the massively complex issue of to where people are to be moved and how all of this can be paid for.

Counter-Mapping Creative Industries | UC#33 Creative China Introduction

Finally, there is the well-known Professor Richard Florida (Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and Professor of Business and Creativity, University of Toronto) and author of the notorious “The Rise of the Creative Class” (Basic Books, 2002).
Nowadays it seems Florida’s theories and speculations are severely under pressure, exemplary being the recently published article, in Canadian newspaper The Star, “Why Richard Florida’s honeymoon is over“:

The urban guru arrived two years ago as the toast of the town. Today, his critics argue he is a glib salesman and elitist. How did such a sweet marriage go wrong?

Links:
FutureTense | ABC National Radio
Urbanisation and our relationship with the city | FutureTense Podcast

http://movingcities.org/

Future Tense | ABC radio interview

RED+CROSSING | NAMOC | OBRA Architects (2009)

Perspective magazine (Hong Kong) features in its February 2009 edition ‘OBRA at work in China’ – a text by Bert de Muynck | MovingCities. OBRA Architects, founded by Jennifer Lee and Pablo Castro in 2000, operates from New York. Throughout 2008 both Castro and Lee visited China four times, twice in the context of ORDOS100, once to present their ‘Beijing Tripod, Blank 2008′ installation in the Median Art Gallery and now with ‘RED+CROSSING’ in the context of the Crossing Now: Dialogues for Emergency Architecture-project, an exhibition organized by the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) and Beijing‘s Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA).

Villa of Captured Distance | ORDOS100 | OBRA Architects (2008)

‘OBRA at work in China’ zooms in on the involvement of OBRA Architects in China, while also highlighting projects like BEATFUSE! (PS1, NY, 2006) and their Freedom Park -proposal (UIA, South-Africa, 2003).

BEATFUSE! | PS1 | OBRA Architects (2006)

While working in China has its advantages and disadvantages, it is clear that OBRA is interested in a long-term relation while being cautious about exploiting this context. As Pablo Castro explains:

“There is a context here where, without being presumptuous, we, architects in general, can help to form many of the unfulfilled modernist projects in Europe and the US. With insight and experience these can perhaps be applicable to China. This deals with the notion that design can improve everybody‘s life, leading to an architecture based on a consideration that doesn‘t separate form and function or solely depends on the use of latest technology. This might propel architecture into a different position within the construction of a society. Everything seems to happen at the same time in China, all those opportunities, and that is part of the reason why we are interested.”

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‘OBRA at work in China’ by Bert de Muynck | MovingCities
Published in Perspective Magazine, February, 2009

http://movingcities.org/

OBRA at work in China | publication

UC#33 Creative China | on the book shelves

UC#33 Creative China | cover

Urban China#33 is out! The special ‘Creative China: Counter-Mapping the Creative Industries’ issue was guest-edited by Mónica Carriço, Bert de Muynck and Ned Rossiter; and designed by Hendrik-Jan Grievink.

The magazine is in Chinese (with select texts published in English). An overview, including all texts in English, is available at our project website: OrgNets.net. Also visit the Urban China#33-page on MovingCities for a summary of the content and background to this issue.

It may be possible to request copies throughout China and abroad, though the issue has sold rapidly and is in limited supply. For detailed information on how to order this issue, see UC#33 OrgNets ordering page.

Counter-Mapping Creative Industries | UC#33 network of contributors

Recent news from Urban China Magazine include the establishment of a mirror version of their website, iURBANCHINA, and an upcoming exhibition, called “Urban China: Informal Cities” (February-March 2009), at the New Museum (New York):

Urban China: Informal Cities is a multifaceted exploration of the groundbreaking and influential magazine Urban China. The exhibition brings together a retrospective of the publication with a space transformed into a physical manifestation of its pages.

LINKS

• Urban China #33 | MovingCities summaryUC#33 out on the news stands
• How Foreign Architects became International Architects: A Case Study of China’s Creative Construction Agenda | by Bert de Muynck
• Urban China Magazine
• OrgNets
• Transdisciplinary Research on Creative Industries in Beijing (2007)
• Archinect: Urban China, Crisis, and the Bootlegging of a Magazine (June 2009)

http://movingcities.org/

Urban China #33 | Creative China

Central Academy of Fine Arts (Hangzhou) | Image courtesy of Amateur Architecture Studio

Following up on part one of the interview with Professor Peter G. Rowe, the second half is directed towards understanding the mechanisms of the urban development that stem out of the Asian expanding metropolitan environment. Thereby questioning the notion of east-west and import-export relations in the field of architecture and urbanism, Peter Rowe reflects upon the urban development of Shanghai, emerging new forms of engagement amongst Chinese architects with the city, and the importance of “the temporal dimension” and how this would affect our practices.

Shenzhen, January 2008

Stirring away the debate from a blind fascination with hypermodernism and/or hyperhistory when confronted with the development of the Chinese City, Peter Rowe sees a future in continuing and adapting some of the urban and architectural evolutions set in motion throughout the long development of China and it cities. Or as he states:

I don’t see anything wrong in going back to certain parts of Beijing or Shanghai and doing modern interpretations. In my view there are three alternatives: one is that you totally preserve, brick by brick, the structure and change its use, the other is that you apply a conservation strategy keeping an evolving culture more or less in place, or thirdly it is replaced by something which is a reinterpretation of many spatial principles, but not necessarily with the exact appearance.

The full interview by Dan Handel is now online:
“The Chinese City in the East Asian Context” | An interview with Professor Peter Rowe

http://movingcities.org/

Peter Rowe | interview part II

Shanghai, November 2006

In his second dispatch, architect Dan Handel interviews Professor Peter G. Rowe.
By providing insight into his study of the contemporary city in the Asian context Professor Rowe reflects on today’s development of research, understanding, communication and analysis of the metropolitan environment. The interview took place in Professor Rowe’s office at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, on the 29th of October.

Professor Peter Rowe | FUIUF Conference | Shanghai, November 2006

In the first part of the interview (below) Dan Handel asks Peter Rowe about his attitude towards the use and relevance of statistics in urban research and how this potentially distorts our perception of metropolitan reality. Rowe then explains the position of the “Chinese City” within the larger East Asian urban development, illustrates some of its characteristics while breaking away from some popular notions on it.

Part two (in upcoming post) is directed towards understanding the mechanisms, and their value, of urban development that stem out of the Asian expanding metropolitan environment, thereby questioning the notion of east-west and import-export relations in the field of architecture and urbanism. He reflects upon the urban development of Shanghai, an emerging new form of engagement amongst Chinese architects with the city, the importance of “the temporal dimension” and how this would affect our practice. Or as Professor Rowe states:

Given that architecture lasts for a long time and takes quite a while to develop, and that we are talking about urban dynamics which are by definition temporal, we would definitely have to explore some techniques to describe that. I think there’s a very rich future for that kind of engagement.

Jakarta, October 2008

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Dan Handel: During the past years, the 50/50 urban rural divide became a dogma tic part of the global and local agenda’s of urban policy makers, researches and exhibition designers. This has lead to a situation where the contemporary city is made comprehensible through a suffocating strategy of visualizing data and organizing quotes, mixed with ‘the stereotypical image of the megacity’, one fusing the formal with the informal, the destruction with the construction. The growth of the city and analysis of the contemporary city has been an important aspect of your work and started in times before this explosion. What is your opinion on the use of data as means to represent cities, and even generate planning? Do you think it’s useful? Is it being overused in urban research?

Peter Rowe: I believe that when you are presenting data about cities, it has to be organized and communicated into the framework of a coherent story. I mean, we talk about lies, damn lies or statistics right? You can find an overload of statistics and references, from multiple points on the subject you are dealing with. To me the question is how to organize statistical information in a manner that sheds light on some broader urban concepts and/or stories. In that regard, I think it can be quite powerful. It is true that in the architectural realm of thinking this method has lately been used more frequently. Talking about this as an explosion is probably true, as we see a rising amount of these type of references used in work, but we must acknowledge that the empirical and numerical studies of cities have been around for a very long time. If we look at other disciplinary areas in planning it is very well developed. In my own work, I try to not to indulge in it, but to use it in the benefit of making points or describing differences in magnitude. To me it is important to connect these with a broader conceptual understanding of the ways by which cities are moving forward and not as simply a crutch to lean on.

DH: So in a way it should be used to support a narrative?

PR: Yes. Sometimes when I’m doing work I come across series of numbers and data and say “wait a minute, I am wrong” (laughs). Empirical information can be a sobering device in a research project. Often you go along with some preconceived notion about the way things work and then come upon some data that seem to point in the opposite direction. There is an interesting process of rethinking involved in that. One of my favorite examples of this, is the huge claim that Chinese cities are enormous on scales of magnitude larger than anywhere else in the world and its growing tremendously rapidly. But when you actually go through the data we have and analyze it, neither of these two claims hold any particularly truth. Indeed the growth rates have been high, but they are not unprecedented, if you consider the migrations in Italy or the reshuffling in the US, during the post WW2 period on a normalized basis. What is unusual about China is that the period of growth is longer. The numbers don’t suggest it is unprecedented in any way except in sheer magnitude. Which makes sense in a nation of 1.3 billion people.

Shenyang, July 2006

DH: How do you position the development of “the Chinese City” within the larger context of an urbanizing East Asian context? Should we see it as an exception, latecomer or follower?

PR: It seems to me that the East Asian cities have conformed themselves to a certain level of generality regarding some of the notions we have about urban development processes. First of all, people leave the countryside, go into factories and cities, where industrial production is gradually being replaced by service industry, and the formation of cities occur as a part of that. The ways in which this is being done – in terms of the various tactics being used in order to boost economic development and the resulting urbanization – seem to conform to a general discourse about development in emerging countries. All cities in East Asia conform fairly well to this model. That said, one distinguishing feature that these cities share – not necessarily in contrast with other places in the world, but definitely unlike the US – is that the majority of this development occurred in nations where fairly authoritarian regimes are in power. It is usually a strong, top down, model which exists in East Asia that leads to a double scenario. On the one hand, during times of rapid growth, and in order to sustain that growth, you have to put plans and strategies rapidly in place, resulting in a wide adoption of internationally available concepts for shaping the city, which have the tendency to make urban environments somewhat more homogeneous. On the other hand, in most of these East Asian circumstances, there is also a strong cultural and historical underlay in the cities that gets mixed in.

Lately, as some of the developments in these areas calmed down a bit, people are beginning to look around and are taking care of some of the problems resulting from this first round of urban development. Examples can be found in the amelioration of space based on issues of identity and historical awareness. Suddenly they are concerned about the environment and their amenities, so then it becomes referential back to the place itself. Of course, in a detailed examination every city is different…

Shanghai, November 2006

DH: But would you say Chinese cities are not different in that context?

PR: In that regard, I think you might also ask what about the differences between northern and southern China? I know China well enough to know that city formation, history and so forth vary across its territory. While some cities, like Beijing, developed very much along the lines of canonical forms of the classical imperial city, other cities, like Shanghai, never were of that status. One answer to your question stems from the level you are looking at it: East vs. west, Japan vs. China, and in what flavor: is it about pure morphology, building type and so forth. The Chinese city can be analyzed from different perspectives, from something quite similar to what we know in the West up to something that is absolutely unique. My own point of view is that when you look at the middle level, there are probably enough distinguishing features suggesting outcomes that are East Asian in their complexion but not necessarily Chinese. But of course there are numerous exceptions to that.

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Prof. Peter G. Rowe interviewed by Dan Handel (to be continued)

Pictures by MovingCities

Dan Handel. Architect, research coordinator at City/State Unit, Bezalel Academy of Art and Architecture, Jerusalem. He is currently studying at the Architecture department, Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Peter G. Rowe

Peter G. Rowe is the Raymond Garbe Professor of Architecture and Urban Design and University Distinguished Service Professor at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, where he has taught since 1985. Between 1992 and 2004 he served as Dean of the Faculty of Design, following appointments as Chairman of the Department of Urban Planning and Design (1988-1992) and Director of the Urban Design Programs (1985-1990). Author and editor of book publications such as “Shanghai: Architecture and Urbanism for Modern China” (Prestel Publishing, 2004), “Architectural Encounters with Essence and Form in Modern China” (with Seng Kuan, MIT Press, 2002) and “East Asia Modern: Shaping the Contemporary City” (Reaktion Books, 2005); Peter Rowe’s courses include “Urbanization in the East Asian Region” and “Modern Architecture and Urbanism in China.“

http://movingcities.org/

Peter Rowe | interview part I

China According to China | 0300TV

Completely filmed by Diego Grass Puga | 0300TV before 2008’s Beijing Olympics and edited right after its ending, “CHINA ACCORDING TO CHINA” presents a set of thoughts by five local architects on China’s current situation and history.

This special isn’t an effort to portrait a certain scene [the profiles of each character are quite diverse] but to establish four issues that every Chinese architect has to deal with in today’s practice [opening-up, speed, agriculture & education] all of which may set the parameters of future development for Chinese architecture –and this is no prophecy: power has always proven to be Architecture’s most diligent ally.

Instead of branding/promoting individual genius, this is a story of how an [almost] obsolete discipline struggles to follow the pace of China –just like everyone else, everywhere.

“China According to China” presents a set of thoughts by five local architects on China’s current situation and history. Foreword by MovingCities. Ai Wei Wei [FAKE design], Jiang Jun [Urban China], Yu Kongjian [Turenscape], Wang Shu [Amateur Architecture Studio] and Ma Qingyun [MADA s.p.a.m.] are in charge of defining the issues that every Chinese architect has to deal with in today’s practice, all of which may set the parameters of future development for Chinese architecture.

The full documentary can be found, watched and downloaded on 0300.TV and on our newly created CHINA ACCORDING TO CHINA embedded research page. Watch it!

http://movingcities.org/

CHINA ACCORDING TO CHINA | 0300TV

Diego Grass Puga | 0300TV

“What is exactly happening here?” | movingcities.org

Back in the pre-Olympic Beijing times, when Beijing’s urban development was in full force, fast forward, closely watched and mesmerizing, the paths of MovingCities and 0300TV crossed in a very fruitful and productive way. 0300TV is, to us without any doubt, the web’s premier architectural television channel. Ran from Chile, the ass of the world as architect/director Diego Grass Puga described his native country to us, 0300TV is a collective of highly creative architectural aficionado’s.

Diego Grass Puga, along with two camera’s, some tripods, empty dvd’s, a mind full of architecture, a critical state of mind to look behind the facade of hype and hyper-development and a desire to capture the essence of contemporary Chinese practice, interviewed MovingCities for the “CHINA ACCORDING TO CHINA” documentary he is working on.

The documentary is completely filmed before 2008’s Beijing Olympics and edited right after its ending and presents a set of thoughts by five local architects (Ai Weiwei/FAKE Design, Wang Shu/Amateur Architecture Studio, Qingyun Ma/MADA s.p.a.m., Jiang Jun/URBAN CHINA Magzine, and Yu Kongjian/Turenscape) on China’s current urban and architectural development. The documentary is now available for watching and downloading on the 0300TV-website. We will post, in the coming days, on the content of it.

Line13 BeiYuan Subway Station

We took Diego Grass Puga on Line13 – MovingCities’ open air office – and stopped in BeiYuan subway station. At the time we were in full preparation for the Line13 SUPERLINEARITY-workshop and thought it would be good to conduct the interview in a setting without context. On an abandoned and seriously dilapidated children-playground, located next to a freshly demolished dog training center, we found the left-overs of a culture of leisure and appropriated it instantaneously.

For now some pictures of the interview itself, while in the coming days we provide some background to the “China According To China” documentary. As we don’t want to limit your curiosity, have a look at 0300TV.

Line13 Beijing | 0300TV pre-olympic tour | May 2008

Diego Grass Puga | Architect/Director 0300TV

MovingCities @ BeiYuan-setting for the interview | CHINA ACCORDING TO CHINA 0300TV

Environment of BeiYuan Station | movingcities.org & 0300TV

Pictures by Bert de Muynck & Mónica Carriço | movingcities.org

http://movingcities.org/

CHINA ACCORDING TO CHINA by 0300TV | interview

Decolonizing Architecture

movingcities interviewed Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal on their new project, ‘Decolonizing Architecture’. Set up in collaboration with Eyal Weizman, and produced by the Haudenschild Foundation, the project attempts to use architecture as an “arena of speculation” about possible futures of Palestine.

Rather than undo the power of Israel’s architecture of occupation, the project seeks to turn it on its head, reorient and thus liberate its potential, thereby dealing with the political problem of the re-use of the architecture of exclusion, violence, and control. The transformation of the suburban single-family house of Israel’s colonial architecture may thus suggest a possible repertoire of actions for the urbanization of suburbia at large.

Decolonizing Architecture

After presenting their critically acclaimed Stateless Nation-project in the context of the Architectural Biennale di Venezia in 2003, Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal’s new project ‘Decolonizing Architecture’ is selected as a contribution to the upcoming Architectural Biennale di Venezia, Sept 14 – Nov 23 2008.

While in Bethlehem last March movingcities interviewed Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal on the ‘Decolonizing Architecture’-project, the state of the city in Palestine, the rhetoric of the process (which is feeding nothing), architecture biennials, art, occupation, the wall and their motives to do this research and design. Utopia or Dystopia? Art or Architecture?

Read full Decolonizing Architecture – An interview with Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal.

http://movingcities.org/

Decolonizing Architecture | Interview

Professor Moshe Zwarts | Amsterdam, March 2008

Alternative Multifunctional Underground Space Amsterdam | Zwarts & Jansma | 2008

Bert de Muynck | movingcities interviewed professor Moshe Zwarts, from Zwarts & Jansma, on the plans his office developed for a city under Amsterdam.

Early 2008 an ambitious plan was launched to realize roads and carparks under Amsterdams historic city centre, called AMFORA (Alternative Multifunctional Underground Space Amsterdam). This is a plan by Strukton and Zwarts & Jansma. This infrastructural plan solves parking problems and contains facilities for sports, leisure and recreation.

The proposal for a city under the city of Amsterdam is to construct a network of 60-meter-deep (195ft) underground tunnels to provide up to 6m square meters of new space in the crowded historic center. movingcities talked with professor Moshe Zwarts, Zwarts & Jansma Architects, about thier proposal for an underground city in Amsterdam, a plan floating in-between futurism and necessity, the challenges involved in construction and culture, the state of the city, Amsterdam’s ambition to make it to the UNESCO World Heritage List and the possible future of the plan.

Read full “City under the City” interview .

http://movingcities.org/

City under the City | Interview