ORDOS 100 [2008]
ORDOS 100 Project Statement
The scope of the project is to Develop 100 hundred villas in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China, for the Client, Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd. FAKE Design, Ai Wei Wei studio in Beijing, has developed the masterplan for the 100 parcels of land and will curate the project, while Herzog and de Meuron have selected the 100 architects to participate. The collection of 100 Architects hail from 27 countries around the globe. The project has been divided into 2 phases. The first phase is the development of 28 parcels while the second phase will develop the remaining 72. Each architect is responsible for a 1000 square meter Villa. [source: ORDOS100 official website]
Phase I | April 12, 2008
MovingCities & ORDOS 100
“It’s funny… The desert’s a big place, but nothing really ever gets lost there.”
The English Patient, 1996
No better way to understand the role that architecture and urbanism are playing in shaping the contemporary city than finding some concrete examples. The ORDOS100-project is one of a particular kind, both in ambition, assemblage, discourse, creativity and experiment. Our engagement is one that explores the intermingling mechanisms of architectural media, discourse engineering, planning psychology and embedded empathy.
MovingCities in Ordos
MovingCities + media + ORDOS 100
International architects = international media coverage. As much as ORDOS 100 is an unique opportunity for international architects to build a 1000 square meter villa, a titillating constellation of creativity, a never before seen experiment, a collage city in action and a real estate investment where business is branding ORDOS 100 also challenges the discourse on architecture. For each architect another story, for each villa another interpretation, for every design another story, for each concept another legitimation.
How to understand what is happening? One important way to look at ORDOS 100-project is through the media coverage of this, leaving aside blogs and online forums and currently only in English. Both being peri-participants and observers of this circus of criticality, this festival of forms and meeting of minds, movingcities creates an image of a project, discussion and discourse in making. An overview of past, present and future headlines.
MovingCities publishes ORDOS 100
- “An interview with Ai Weiwei (CN) | FAKE Design” | MARK Magazine #12 | Feb/Mar 2008
- Belgian Architects in China | lecture Embassy of Belgium in Beijing | Apr 10 2008
- “ORDOS100: avant-garde architecture in the desert” | ArtForum.cn | Apr 22 2008
- “Babel for Billionaires” | Mark Magazine #15 | Aug/Sept 2008
- “How Foreign Architects became International Architects” | Urban China Magazine #33 | Jan 2009
- Ordos100 | Perspective Plus | Jan 2009
- Ordos100 | A+215 | Dec 2008 (via Polaris Architects, text dutch only)
(back to Embedded Research / ORDOS100)
ORDOS100 update
Creative land grabs in Inner Mongolia | The Ordos 100 spectacle revisited (by Michael Ulfstjerne, Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Cross Cultural and Regional Studies, Copenhagen University) | October 2012
