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Learning from CCTV | publication

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:45:32 +0000

Learning from CCTV | An Interview with Rory McGowan | Mark Magazine#24

In Mark Magazine #24 (February-March 2010), Bert de Muynck | MovingCities published an interview with Beijing-based structural engineer Rory McGowan [ARUP and ARUP in Beijing]. “Learning from CCTV | an interview with Rory McGowan” is now online.

The interview, which took place at the ARUP headquarters in Beijing in June 2009, touched upon a lot of different topics; the engineering behind the CCTV-project, the evolution in fundamental engineering design in the near future, his involvement with the Tokyo Kansai airport team in the 1990s, his close collaboration with Rem Koolhaas/OMA during the past 17 years, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange building and Rory’s advice for the future generation of architects.

A few quotes from “Learning from CCTV | an interview with Rory McGowan“:

At first I was taken aback: it was outrageous but at the same time was a drop dead serious proposal. We all knew what the OMA circumstances were based on our prior experiences with them, like the hyper building and other projects in the 1980s and ’90s.

We had to demonstrate that any key column at any location in the building could be removed without disproportionate consequences. CCTV is actually overdesigned.

What we demonstrated is that by using the same material in another way you can create a completely different geometry and building typology.

The main feature of Kansai is its dynamic wing structure. Renzo Piano’s office had learned from the Bercy shopping centre not to do ‘a blob’ again. As a result, the geometry of the airport is a toroid and was seen as a really clever way to do repetitive geometry, redefining architecture in its wake.

Architects are becoming more and more deskilled. At the same time building design is becoming more and more technically driven.

Shenzhen Stock Exchange by OMA | November 14, 2009

full article: “Learning from CCTV | an interview with Rory McGowan” – Mark Magazine #24 (Feb-March 10)

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Learning from CCTV | publication

Breaking down Beijing + URBAN CARPET

admin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:09:31 +0000

Area around Gulou Dajie subway station | September 17, 2009

Urban Carpet 8x5 by Instant Hutong | Urban Carpet: Brown (Xi Si Bei, 2009)

With a two and a half month hiatus, MovingCities is following up on the hutong destruction around Gulou Subway Station. After introducing the area and the discussion about Beijing’s hutong preservation/hallucinations, we now look at half-hutongs: a combination of dust and debris, bricks, and semi-transparent green plastic meshes covering rubble and ruins. Snapshots of semi-structures followed by a short intro to Instant Hutong’s latest project: URBAN CARPET 8×5.

Area around Gulou Dajie subway station | October 9, 2009

URBAN CARPET by Instant Hutong

An art project by architects Marcella Campa & Stefano Avesani, Instant Hutong investigates the borderline case of Hutong districts in old downtown Beijing.

The Hutong Districts form a large uninterrupted urban carpet made by one floor courtyard houses/’siheyuan’ that fill the spaces in-between the lanes/’hutongs’. (…) After recent extensive demolitions, the Hutong culture is nowadays undergoing the risk of being totally destroyed: one of the goals of our work is to increase the consciousness of this culture, tempting the Hutong districts and offering new ways to look at them.

Their latest work - URBAN CARPET – offers just that: street public temporary events happening all along year 2009 in order to share the Instant Hutong project with people and bring it back to the city districts it was inspired from.

Urban Carpet 8x5 | images by Instant Hutong, Beijing 2009

URBAN CARPET 8×5 is a set of five one-day exhibitions, shown to the hutong dwellers inside the courtyards and on the public lanes: 8 carpets (180×180cm embroidery on canvas: pink; green; orange; brown; red; cyan; grey; blue) representing different maps of hutong areas in downtown Beijing, with a size of approximately one square kilometre and a population of 30000 – have been isolated and presented as autonomous town within the big city.

If you happen to be in town don’t miss their next and last event: 五 5th URBAN CARPET, November 7, 2009 (10am – 6pm) at Private residential courtyard house, no.56, Zhuzhong Hutong, Gulou Xi Da Jie, Xi Cheng District.

More info:

download URBAN CARPET 8×5 .pdf
check Instant Hutong’s behance gallery

Pictures by movingcities.org (except Urban Carpet by Instant Hutong)

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Breaking down Beijing + URBAN CARPET

THERE IS NO I IN TEAM | Berlin radio show

bert — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:59:17 +0000

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.

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THERE IS NO I IN TEAM | Berlin radio show

Beijing >> Zibo

bert — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:16:49 +0000

Beijing South Railway Station | September 4, 2009

We always had a strange fascination for Zibo. It has been on our radar since we found it positioned at the end of the alphabetical list of China’s cities with more than 1 million inhabitants. And because nobody seems to care about it. Due to a nice coincidence of interests we embarked last weekend on a four hour high-speed train trip to the south. Zibo 淄博!

Recently the public voted, suprisingly, Beijing’s South Railway Station as number one of the “new Beijing top ten spectacles in architecture” (google-translate). And a spectacle it is. But not overall, as we found out on our way back. The oval-shaped station was designed by the UK/Hong Kong architecture firm of Terry Farrell and Partners in collaboration with the Tianjin Design Institute. Project description (pdf alert!). In essence it doesn’t differ to much from your random airport and it probably a great place for those who lament the disappearance of die-hard nineties high-tech architecture. We couldn’t leave it fast enough.

Fast forward to Zibo, located in China’s Shandong province. Nobody expects Zibo being the zippiest of all China’s cities. But more on that in following posts. While speeding down South, peaking at 245 km/h, we were shooting China. Somewhere half-way the lady sitting next to us asked why we were taking pictures. MovingCities, we confessed. We also hold that the fleeting and passing forms of progress intrigued us. There is a continuous disappearance of architecture, the temporal expedition to mutating cities, along places where all stages of urban development can be seen in the span of a couple of hours. Or because it deals with the paradox of speed, as phrased in “The Aesthetics of Disappearance” (Semiotext(e) 1991) from the urbanist, political theorist and critic of the art of technology Paul Virilio, as following:

In the last century we had already become aware of the paradox of speed: “The train doesn’t make voyagers of us but packages that are expedited…” (…) “We can imagine for the future,” writes Charles Schreider, “a transformation (of reality) into video signals stored on tape, or better yet a decomposition and coding of images in digital signals capable of storage in various materials…” The development of high technical speeds would thus result in the disappearance of consciousness as the direct perception of phenomena that inform us of our own existence.

One rule (the same for aerophotography): always make sure to have a windowseat. Shaken and stirred speeding from Beijing to Zibo.

Beijing South Railway Station | September 4, 2009

Beijing - Zibo | September 4, 2009

Pictures by movingcities.org

Special thanks to Gao Ying, Cherry Song & The Dutch Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

Upcoming:

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Beijing >> Zibo

Building Beijing | part IV

bert — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:42:28 +0000

To CBD | August 29, 2009

Haussman is haunting Beijing. While driving around, we traversed the territory by cab. From within it, Beijing reveals another image; there is the unavoidable largeness of space, buildingblocksbigness and omnipresence of green corridors along its ringroads and inner-city highways. A strange symphony of snapshots -like slowing down and speeding up.

Paris’ 19th century change due to the Haussman-plans is a frequently made comparison in the debate on Beijing’s urban development. To oftentimes it is used to camouflage an in-depth reading of the large spatial transformation that the Chinese capital has been undergoing in the past decades. It feels as if many wish there was a Haussman hidden in the urban change machine, sitting their to be blamed for the city’s contemporary construction culture.

In her book “Republican Beijing: The City and Its Histories, 1911-1937” the scholar Madeleine Yue Dong discusses Beijing during an interesting period, as a transitory moment, a present crushed between the weights of an oppressive traditional past and an unalterable modern future. Relating to that period pulls the Haussman-card as following:

In contrast, late-nineteenth-century Paris witnessed spatial transformations on a large scale. Inspired partly out of fear of the populace, Haussman’s plan for building new avenues in Paris sought to break up centers of insurrection by gaining access to the slums where the working class lived. The result, however, was that in peaceful times the avenues that Haussman constructed became public space, and during revolutions the people built barricades with paving stones to block access by government. In contrast, Beijing’s alleyways and courtyards were left alone unless specific construction projects passed through them. Since cars and streetcars did not enter the small hutong, many of these narrow alleys remained intact. As a result, many streets remained narrow and meandering, and many pockets in the city were left untouched.

Today specific, and also non-specific, construction projects have passed through the whole of the city. Hyper-Haussmannerism.

Drive around Xizhimen Subway Station | July 22, 2009

Drive to and fro Wangjingqiao | July 28, 2009

Drive from Gulou Subway Station to CBD | July 29, 2009

Pictures by movingcities.org

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Building Beijing | part IV

Building Beijing | part III

bert — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:10:40 +0000

Beijing nearby Wangjingqiao (4th ringroad) | August 22, 2009

What do we see when we scan Beijing’s skyline? Is it an amalgamation of architectural elements where one can’t be distinguished from the other, where there is no primacy? Is Beijing one of those city’s that do not have a skyline? Recently we lifted ourselves from the groundlevel and aerially appropriated the city. Follow-up and snapshots.

Some explain the ongoing urban development of Beijing by quoting Mao Zedong’s notorious 1949-statement. The Chairman, when overlooking Tiananmen square from the Forbidden City, proclaimed “we’ll see a forest of chimneys from here!” The Dutch writer and researcher Martijn de Waal contextualized this in “Beijing and Beyond” (2004) as following:

Not long after the revolution of 1949, partyleader Mao and then mayor of Beijing Peng Zhen climbed the rostrum of Tiananmen square and gazed at the horizon of the city that now was theirs to transform. Imagine, the chairman had pronounced with great enthusiasm. ‘We’ll see a forest of chimneys from here!’ The city, in the eyes of the communists was an ugly place. A capitalist stronghold, whose inhabitants pursued decadent bourgeois lifestyles. That, they decided had to change. Cities would no longer be places of consumption. They would be turned into places for the new working class.

Consumption is replaced by production which in turn is followed by consumption. This evolution has determined the image of today’s Beijing in any direction one tries to read the city’s horizons. It is hard to understand what we see from anywhere. And it hardly matters if it is ugly, planned, rational, well-thought off or just the result of a building burst. Trying to decipher the skyline’s sense, by observation, interpretation and speculation, one questions the analysis Eyal Weizman made in the interview we conducted with him in 2008:

…the economical cycles operate with a delay in terms of architecture. But the sophistication of contemporary financial mechanisms and the speed in which investments can be actualized and articulated in space makes the Chinese city skyline appear like a financial graph.

Couldn’t any cities’ skyline just appear like a financial graph? And while looking at this images below what does one see? A simple territorial Rorschach test?

Beijing nearby Xizimen subway station | August 22, 2009

Beijing nearby Wangjingqiao (4th ringroad) | August 22, 2009

Beijing CBD from development on Baiziwan Lu | August 22, 2009

Pictures by movingcities.org

Previous:
Building Beijing | part I | MovingCities
Building Beijing | part II | MovingCities

Upcoming:
Building Beijing | part IV | MovingCities

http://movingcities.org/

Building Beijing | part III

Building Beijing | part II

bert — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:29:29 +0000

Central Business District | Beijing, August 14, 2009

We are no strangers to purposeless wanderings in Beijing’s Central Business District. On this transactional territory we find towers (in flames), residual spaces, rational randomness or examples to learn from. World top planning news and snapshots.

Beijing’s Central Business District is like…

[Not a question we would like to answer. Rather we wonder how to single out those urban and architectural developments that differentiate one city from another. The question is how to instigate the collapse of the culture of city comparisons.]

…”New York Manhattan” according to official sources. But to many more places as the “CBD area is a symbol of the globalization of Beijing, like Manhattan to New York, Shinjuku to Tokyo, and Dockland to London.” In order to deal with this swindle of similarity, on July 22nd, 2009, 7 planning and design companies met in Beijing to think about a future for Beijing’s CBD. A recent article called “World’s Top Planning and Design Agencies Gathered in CBD, Drafting an Environmental Friendly Area in the East” stated the purpose of this generic gathering:

The collection aimed at absorbing advanced designing idea and drafting out the new CBD area. This area will be well spatial formed, people oriented, and environmental friendly as an energy-saving business center, and will guide the future constructions of Beijing. It is expected to become the most dynamic area in the city. With good natural environment, energy-saving infrastructure, this area will become an example of the city in future technology development trend.

The 7 companies include SOM, ADPI, KPF, Foster and Partners and the following three Chinese planning and design institutes: China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, Guangzhou Urban Planning & Design Survey Research Institute, Urban Planning & Designing Institute of Tsinghua University.

Central Business District | Beijing, August 14, 2009

Pictures by movingcities.org

Previous:
Building Beijing | part I | MovingCities

Upcoming:
Building Beijing | part III | MovingCities
Building Beijing | part IV | MovingCities

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Building Beijing | part II

Building Beijing | part I

bert — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:34:38 +0000

Area nearby Dongzhimen subway station | July 25, 2009

After destruction, construction! While large parts of Beijing are lost, new appear. During the past weeks we undertook some accidental urban re-explorations, drifted between a spectrum of scales, crossed ringroads and monitored a metropolis subjected to post-Olympic development. Beijing is becoming a linked hybrid.

The art of continuous urban astonishment is easily mastered in China’s capital. Empirical research suggests that the pace of development features pre-2008 characteristics and districts are in the process of urban consolidation. Despite signs of civic life, everything still smells new, dusty, and one is constantly surrounded by the sound of jackhammers. Time for a new “Letter from Beijing“?
At the same time vibrant migrant life get mixed with massive middle-class consumption, garbage collectors blend in with gucci-grabbers and all sort of vehicles are caught into everlasting traffic jams.

Dongzhimen Nanxiaojie| July 25, 2009

Like so many we are these days reading the McKinsey “Preparing for China’s Urban Billion“-report [2009]. In it, Beijing is said to be a symbol of Chinese urbanization and epitomizing in many ways urban China. More specifically money, metropolitan movement and mobility are central in this:

The fact that the city currently offers relatively modest land discounts of 25 percent to incoming businesses – and even then to a few chosen industries – is evidence that it does not have to compete very hard for companies to locate in the city. This in turn leaves the city free to use its land increasingly as a source for revenues to fund urbanization. (…) Thus far, however, the city has skewed development to the northern areas of the city while southern areas remain underdeveloped. Every district is still thinking in terms of maximizing its own advantage rather than thinking about what would benefit the city as a whole. (…) The average speed of vehicles in the city center has dropped from 45 kilometers per hour to only 10 kilometers per hour over the past ten years.

The conclusion of the Beijing chapter goes as following:

..the city will need to leverage its land more strategically, apply concepts of sustainable development to its urban planning, and significantly improve its quality of life, most notably in limiting pollution and congestion. Should it be able to do all of these things, Beijing has the potential to grow into a modern supercity with a projected 27 million people by 2025.

Linked Hybrid | July 25, 2009

During recent Beijing bike rides we passed the Linked Hybrid-project (Steven Holl Architects / Beijing Capital Engineering Architecture Design Co. LTD) nearby Dongzhimen subway station. The complex is aimed at sustainability LEED Gold-rating, has been called “an ultra-modern expression of 21st Century living” and named the “best tall building in Asia and Australia” by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). In the end 2500 people will inhabit the building.

For a supercity of 27 million one needs 10 800 hybrids.

Beijing | July 25, 2009

Pictures by movingcities.org

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Building Beijing | part I

Hutong Histories 2009 | part III

bert — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:03:50 +0000

Area around Gulou Dajie subway station | August 7, 2009

In the final chapter of our Hutong Histories trilogy we provide more background, new images and touch upon recent updates in the Qianmen redevelopment, a much contested and hutong-hyped area located South of Tian’anmen Square. Oh Charles, Where Art Thou?

Around Gulou Dajie subway station, machines are replacing men. After weeks of knocking down walls, finally small bulldozers are entering the territory. Most likely to speed up the destruction and flattening the area in the coming weeks. As mentioned in the first post, these works are done in order to create a new subway station connecting Line 2 and Line 8. The current demolishing seems necessary in order to curve around the Drum & Bell Tower, which is located 1km South of the wrecking works. There is few information about these works, with exception of this article (not so good CN>EN Google-translation) and the following diagram:

Line 2 meets Line 8 at Gulou Dajie subway station | source: beijing.qianlong.com

In reaction to the first Hutong Histories post, Bryan Finoki from Subtopia asked us if “there are new forms of activism desperately trying to render something positive out of the rubble.” An attempt of response would be to refer to the “Picking up some durian fruit on Jiu Gulou road“-post on Danwei. It is the English translation of the Chinese first coverage of the destruction surrounding the Gulou Dajie Subway station station:

The owner sat on top of some rubble with a dazed look, when he saw us in the crowd, he stood up and took from the fridge the durian fruit he had “saved for us”.

The reason for this: planned evictions to make room for the number 8 subway line. He received the notice a long time ago and has been looking for a place. But the landlord has also signed with the Eviction Office, and didn’t bother with what the original tenancy contract stated. On Saturday they called on the phone and by Monday somebody came to evict the fruit sellers.

Area around Gulou Dajie subway station (left side ringroad) | August 7, 2009

A slight return to pre-Olympic times when one of more eccentric hutong pre-Olympic preservation plans, for the Qianmen area, was launched by Prince Charles. In June 2008 The Guardian published “Charles takes on China to save Ming dynasty houses from Beijing’s concrete carbuncles“:

“Through his links with China the prince learned about the hutong housing being lost amid all this rapid development and he has offered his foundation’s help,” the prince’s spokesman said. “It is not about criticising Chinese development per se, just about ensuring vulnerable heritage is not lost.”

A June 2009 article in People’s Daily called “Heaven Street: Fake-over kills businesss” looks at the present state of the Qianmen area and sketches a rather grim picture of the effects of the renewal effort (it is safe to state that Prince Charles didn’t had a hand in this):

“Let’s all just hope this project fails so it can serve as a warning to other cities about protecting local cultural heritage.” (…) “Hundreds and thousands of original residents were expelled from Qianmen before the project began,” said Hu, “but the suburban housing they were promised as compensation for moving out has not even begun being built yet.”

Area around Gulou Dajie subway station | August 7, 2009

SOHO China, the developers behind the Qianmen project, have been facing a series of difficulties during the past year. Their attempt to open the area in time for the 2008 Olympic Games was nearly and only temporarily met and currently October 1 2009 is scheduled as the new opening day. In “Builder Soho China Stumbles in Beijing” (December 2008) the difficulties are explained as follows:

Until last year, Soho China had avoided sensitive projects. Then it decided to take on the redevelopment of a labyrinth of alleys and lanes in Beijing’s old quarters.The Qianmen district was one of the last functioning old-town neighborhoods in the city of 17 million people. Soho’s plan was to rebuild the district into a pedestrian mall of faux-1920s shops.

But the project quickly ran into trouble. It had the backing of the local district government, but contravened Beijing’s historical preservation plans, which had called for Qianmen to be protected. When nongovernmental activists learned of the project, they protested. One group, the China Heritage Foundation, posted an eight-page critique of Soho’s plans on the Internet, saying it threatened to wreck a valuable neighborhood.

Potemkin preservation? In the mean time hutongs are slowly disappearing, transported in trucks, pulled down by manpower. A couple of snapshots.

Area around Gulou Dajie subway station | August 7, 2009

View from Oriental Bay Hotel on Gulou Dajie subway station area | August 7, 2009

Pictures by movingcities.org

Previous:
Hutong Histories 2009 | part I | MovingCities
Hutong Histories 2009 | part II | MovingCities

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Hutong Histories 2009 | part III

Hutong Histories 2009 | part II

bert — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:00:34 +0000

Area around Gulou Dajie subway station | August 4, 2009

In the second installment of our Hutong Histories 2009-series we look into the phenomenon of punctual preservation as put on the agenda by the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (BJCHP) and show an update on the destruction of the area surrounding Gulou Dajie subway station.

Area around Gulou Dajie subway station | August 4, 2009

The BJCHP Center is a registered Chinese NGO that works at the grass roots level, dedicated to heightening awareness about preservation and protection of the hutong heritage. Recently they put the planned “Destruction of Former Residences of Famous Architects” on the agenda:

Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin were two of the most famous Chinese architects of the 20th Century. They designed the national emblem and the Monument to the People’s Heroes. The highest award in China for architectural design is also named after Liang Sicheng. In 1930, Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin left Shenyang for Beijing [then Beiping] and established their residence at No. 24 Beizongbu Hutong [formerly No. 3].( …) Even though Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin are internationally-renowned architects and, therefore, their residences should be preserved, the Cultural Heritage Department has so far taken absolutely no legal action to prevent the destruction. The laws on cultural heritage protection have not changed drastically over the last 20 years, but they have always demanded that sites of historical value be protected.

Area around Gulou Dajie subway station | August 4, 2009

A recent article on Xinhua seconds this opinion. “Demolition of historic homes raises questions about Beijing’s development ” mentions that the former residence of Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China, is under renovation. This process of punctual preservation is facing some obstacles although:

“Since 2005, we have done several preservation projects in the former homes of influential people in modern Chinese history,” says Wang Yuwei, an official with the Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage. (…) “But it’s not feasible to relocate all the residents in all those old buildings and turn them into museums. The government cannot afford it and some of the residents are not willing to move,” Wang says.

Our upcoming post on the celebration of the collapse of pre-Olympic “Beijing Hutong Preservation”-bubble will deal with the phenomenon of the hutong “fake-overs” and “paper preservation”. An update on the yesteryear plans and ambitions by Prince Charles, SOHO China and the Qianmen-area will serve as an example. For now a couple of snapshots of ongoing destruction in the Gulou Dajie Subway station area.

Area around Gulou Dajie subway station | August 4, 2009

Pictures by movingcities.org

Previous: Hutong Histories 2009 | part I | MovingCities
Upcoming: Hutong Histories 2009 | part III | MovingCities

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Hutong Histories 2009 | part II

Hutong Histories 2009 | part I

bert — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:22:52 +0000

Area around Gulou Dajie subway station | July 14, 2009

Last year we talked about “hutong hypochondria“, referring to people suffering from an excessive preoccupation with the city’s history and who usually becoming obsessed with little alleyways, with stones that are strangely mixed with cardboard and wood structure. This suffering was Olympic and today the proponents have left the scene and the debate. In the mean time, Beijing’s hutongs are still disappearing at rapid pace. And one wonders, where have the memory masochists gone to?

During the past month a large area (approximately 250 by 250 meter) south of the Gulou Dajie subway station has been gradually demolished. Right around the corner from where we are live, the city is disappearing. Reason for the destruction is the extension of Line8 subway line, known as the Olympic Branch Line, in Southern direction (detailed info on those plans). The line is expected to open in 2010 and will connect on the Gulou Dajie subway station with Line2.

Area around Gulou Dajie subway station | July 14, 2009

A small trip down on memory lane: it was remarkable to see last years’ international media and bloggers being all over the place about the combination of starchitects operating in Beijing and the destruction of Beijing’s inner-city. The hutongs were an easy victim for a group of ‘architectural critics’ to provoke a horror scenario for the future of China’s capital. Following list of pre-Olympic publications are emblematic; From Mao to Wow! (Vanity Fair), In Changing Face of Beijing, a Look at the New China (New York Times), Secrets of the Bird’s Nest (The Guardian), Forbidden Cities (The New Yorker), Out of the Blocks (The New Yorker),…

Next to these mainstream mongers, some of our more favorite blogs also featured in pre-2008 Olympic Games times posts about the collapse and fencing of Beijing’s historical structures; Beijing’s hutong destruction (We Make Money Not Art), The End of the Hutong (Phronesisaical), Great Wall 6 (Subtopia),… to name a few.

Area around Gulou Dajie subway station | July 14, 2009

One of our contributions to this yesteryears’ debate was the publication of “Making Minced Meat of Memory” in MUDOT (May, 2008):

China’s most obvious metropolitan martyrs are the courtyard houses and the hutongs, the traditional roads or alleys running within the Second Ring Road from east to west through the city blocks. Their disappearance provokes in architecture circles a similar sentiment as the disappearance of the penguins on Antartica for the consciously antiglobalizing but worldly masses.

In next posts we’ll be catching up with this topic and exploring the work of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center during the past year. For the moment we only question why the topic of the disappearance of the hutongs disappeared from the agenda. Are the hutongs the victims of their own hype? If we don’t debate it, does it mean we don’t care (and we actually have never cared about it)? Whatever happened with the aforementioned media-mongers? Leave you comments and favorite hutong-hyperlinks in the comment section. From us, snapshots.

Area around Gulou Dajie subway station | July 14, 2009

Pictures by movingcities.org

Upcoming:
Hutong Histories 2009 | part II | MovingCities
Hutong Histories 2009 | part III | MovingCities

Related MovingCities-publications:
A Letter from Beijing | MARK Magazine #09 (Aug-Sep 07)
Residual vs Icon | POLAR INERTIA (Feb 08)
Making minced meat of memory | MUDOT (May 08)
Mediocrity and the Metropolis | JongArsitek (May 08)

http://movingcities.org/

Hutong Histories 2009 | part I

Shenzhen >> Beijing

bert — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:53:35 +0000

Land Reclamation for Shenzhen Airport New Terminal | July 8, 2009

While taking off from Shenzhen, heading towards Beijing, we enjoyed an excellent view over the ongoing expansion of Shenzhen Baoan International Airport. Already having spotted the massive land reclamation from the seaside, the newly built area will cover a total of 13.23 square kilometers and a future new airport designed by Fuksas Architects.

Land Reclamation for Shenzhen Airport New Terminal | July 2, 2009

The new aiport aims to handle 30 million passengers and 1.5 million tons of cargo per year by 2015. The Airport Technology-website features a decent coverage of the objectives, plans and different phases (up till 2035!) of Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport New Terminal. Dezeen at the other hand, featured in April 2008 excellent images and project description of the design for the new terminal by Fuksas Architects.

Loosing focus over Shenzhen | July 2, 2009

Although departing Shenzhen under excellent conditions for aerophotography, we only noticed afterwards that some problems arose. Whether it was the scratched and dirty airplane window that caused the camera to shift focus, or the infinite focus setting on the camera itself that refused to work, we will not know. But we ended up with a lot of unintentional Tilt-shift photography, the type of miniaturized metropolitan images of which SmashingMagazine recently collected 50. URBANPHOTO recently pointed us in the direction of the work of videographer Keith Loutit who is spending a year filming Sydney in tilt-shift time-lapses.

Keith Loutit | Little Sydney

The Keith Loutit Vimeo-channel provides several updates on the Sydney-project. Tilt-shit photography is the kind of stuff one can do in Photoshop or, at your own risk, do it yourself by building it, for Peanuts as this tutorial states.

In our case, slightly focused buildings in a fog of urbanity were just the outcome of a incorrect zoom on infinity. Regardless, a couple of snapshots.

Shenzhen - Beijing | July 8, 2009

Pictures by movingcities.org

http://movingcities.org/

Shenzhen >> Beijing

SAKO Architects | publication

bert — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:53:40 +0000

Keiichiro Sako, SAKO Architects | Beijing, February 2009

In Mark Magazine #20 (June-July 2009), Bert de Muynck | MovingCities published an interview with the Beijing-based Japanese architect Keiichiro Sako [Sako Architects] entitled “Mr. Blunt”. Full interview now online.

SAKO Architects office | Jianwai SOHO, Beijing

In the interview Keiichiro Sako talks about his experience as project architect for the Beijing Jianwai Soho-project by Riken Yamamoto. In the spring of 2004 he started his own firm in Beijing, together with a translator. Now, five years on, Sako Architects has 24 Japanese and three Chinese architects and four translators. In the interview the architect sheds a light on projects such as the Romanticism-store (Hangzhou), Lattice Project (Beijing), Mosaic Project (Beijing) and Bumps in Beijing (Beijing). In search to grasp his style, he explained as following his method of working:

For me, the most important issue is to find a theme and express that in my design. The clue is to make sure my ideas totally make sense when the project is finished, to make the drawing reality. In the Mosaic project, in Beijing, for example (published in Mark #15), we applied a mosaic on a very large scale. By doing so, I believe I can give a new meaning to a design method that already exists. In the Bumps project, also in Beijing, a 100,000-m2 residential and commercial building, I pursued the same by stacking black and white boxes. In that way, I can create diversity in a very simple way.

Keiichiro Sako, SAKO Architects | Beijing, February 2009

Pictures by Mónica Carriço | movingcities.org

read full article: “Mr. Blunt | Keiichiro Sako | SAKO Architects”
published in Mark Magazine #20 (June-July 2009)

Other publications in MARK Magazine;
A Letter from Beijing | MARK Magazine #09 (July-August, 07)
An interview with Ai Weiwei (CN) | FAKE Design | MARK Magazine #12 (Feb-March, 08)
Olympic Architecture | MARK Magazine #14 (June-July, 08)
Babel for Billionaires | MARK Magazine #15 (August-September, 08)
Mongolian Private Meadow Club by MAD | MARK Magazine #16 (October-November, 08)
Anything That Is Good Is Called Lekker | Mark Magazine #17 (Dec 2008 – Jan 2009)
Local Hero | An Interview with Wang Shu (CN) | Mark Magazine #19 (April-May 2009)
The Importance of Slowness | Wang Hui (CN) | Mark Magazine #19 (Apr-May 2009)

http://movingcities.org/

SAKO Architects | publication

China Summer Workshop | announcement

bert — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:48:15 +0000

Beijing Second Ring Road | 2008

Upcoming Saturday July 18th MovingCities will hold a short presentation as part of the China Summer Workshop in Beijing. Taking place at the Abitare Courtyard, the meeting is organized by European Alternatives and supported by Abitare China and the China-Europa Forum. The 2-day workshop will be looking at the role of the intellectual and the artist in a European and Chinese context, with a focus on questions of nationalism, globalisation, and the meaning of public space and urban context.

The Workshop Programma has just been made available, in Chinese and English, on the China Summer Workshop-page. Amongst others participants include Rotterdam based Belgian architect and philosopher Gideon Boie (BAVO), London based Indian cultural theorist Baskar Mukhopadhyay, Paris-based American art critic and former editor of Parachute Magazine Stephen Wright, Chinese artist Huang Rui, Chinese artist and founder of The Long March space Lu Jie and Chinese architect Liang Jingyu (Approach Architecture).

If you are around in Beijing, or planning to come here in the coming days, feel free to pass by. Exact times and programation of speakers have not been made public yet, update will follow. Anyway, we expect the workshop to lift off from 10am-ish on Saturday and Sunday at the Abitare Courtyard.

Abitare: No.18 DaShiZuo Hutong, 100009 Beijing XiCheng District (GoogleMaps)
地点：北京Abitare庭院 ; 北京市西城区大石作胡同18号

http://movingcities.org/

China Summer Workshop | announcement

Beijing >> Shenzhen >> Macau

bert — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:47:31 +0000

On Thursday July 2 MovingCities flew from Beijing to Shenzhen and went from there with the boat to Macau. An extensive series of snapshots and more aerophotography. All travels in function of the Macau Skyline Architectural Research-workshop.

Beijing - Shenzhen - Macau | July 2, 2009

Pictures by movingcities.org

http://movingcities.org/

Beijing >> Shenzhen >> Macau

Line13 Redux | review & student works

bert — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:15:57 +0000

Line 13 Redux | workshop area: Longze station, Badaling expressway and its surroundings

On June 19, three and a half weeks after MovingCities kickstarted research and design for Beijing’s short and intense two-day Line13 Redux-workshop, the students of the School of Architecture and Community Design (University of South Florida, Tampa) presented their first analysis and design proposals. An overview.

Line 13 Redux | by Stephanie Herring & Brennen Huller

Line 13 Redux | by Maryam Younes & Chablis Applewhite

After the Line13 Redux Fieldtrip and one and a half day show-us-the-instant-analysis workshop studio, the students participating in the USF ‘Summer Studio in China‘ continued throughout the past weeks further investigation. Under the guidance of Assistant Professor Shannon Bassett they developed site analysis, concepts and were asked to define their program of intervention. The “review” of June 19 was intended to discuss the first results produced so far.

Line13 Redux Workshop Review | June 19, 2009

Invitees included Professor Ann Bergren (B.A.S.E. / UCLA), Juliane Demel (CAUPD), Michelle Lin (FRAME magazine China) and Mónica Carriço+Bert de Muynck (MovingCities). For a full textual and visual overview of the Line13 Redux-workshop so far, check the below links. We’ll keep you in the Line13-loop about further developments.

Line 13 Redux | workshop pages

Line13 Redux
Line 13 Redux | Workshop Field Trip (part 1): Beiyuan-Lishuiqiao
Line 13 Redux | Workshop Field Trip (part 2): Longze
Line 13 Redux | Studio
Line 13 Redux | Review
Line 13 Redux | Students’ work (in progress)

http://movingcities.org/

Line13 Redux | review & student works

The Importance of Slowness | publication

bert — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:12:12 +0000

Two Artist Studio's | by Wang Hui | Limited Design

In Mark Magazine #19 (April-May 2009), Bert de Muynck | MovingCities published a small article called “The Importance of Slowness” about two artists’ studios in the suburbs of Beijing designed by Wang Hui | Limited Design. In it, the architect explains why he didn’t go to his office for two months and how century old trees dictated the design of the studios.

Two Artist Studio's | by Wang Hui | Limited Design

Born in 1969, Wang Hui possesses everything needed to make him the helmsman of a new generation of Chinese architects: his work is precise, distinctive and admired. At the same time his career and designs seems to go against the dictatorship of speed that Chinese architects are subjected to. The interview took place in Beijing’s “Today Art Museum” and touched up his experience of working at Atelier FCJZ, setting up MIMA Design and his current architectural activities with Limited Design:

At this moment, attitude is very important. Many architects are doing the same things – crazy, unlimited stuff, including city planning and huge buildings – but I’m trying to distance myself from that sort of work, to look back and analyse certain phenomena, and to think for myself. I’m almost 40, but that’s quite young for an architect. My question is how to use architecture to think about society, about human life, about people’s lifestyles. But I think my thinking is very limited, so my work is limited.

Pictures by Limited Design

- – -

read full article: “Wang Hui | Limited Design | The Importance of Slowness”
published in Mark Magazine #19 (Apr-May 2009)

Other MARK publications:
A Letter from Beijing | MARK Magazine #09 (Jul-Aug 07)
An interview with Ai Weiwei (CN) | FAKE Design | MARK Magazine #12 (Feb-Mar 08)
Olympic Architecture | MARK Magazine #14 (Jun-Jul 08)
Babel for Billionaires | MARK Magazine #15 (Aug-Sep 08)
Mongolian Private Meadow Club by MAD | MARK Magazine #16 (Oct-Nov 08)
Anything That Is Good Is Called Lekker | Mark Magazine #17 (Dec 08- Jan 09)
Local Hero | An Interview with Wang Shu (CN) | Mark Magazine #19 (Apr-May 09)

http://movingcities.org/

The Importance of Slowness | publication

Line13 Redux | workshop field trip

admin — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 04:00:02 +0000

Beijing Line 13 | Northern Section

Line 13 Redux workshop | Beijing, May 25-26, 2009

On May 25 and 26, 2009, MovingCities was invited by Shannon Bassett, Assistant Professor at School of Architecture and Community Design | University of South Florida, Tampa, to give a short design workshop. After dealing in last years’ ‘Line13 Superlinearity‘-workshop with the Northern section of Beijing’s elevated subway line, ‘Line13 Redux‘ focussed on the intersection of the Badaling Expressway and Line13 as the locale for research and intervention.

Line 13 Redux fieldtrip | Beijing, May 25, 2009

On Monday May 25, Line13 Redux kicked off with a fieldtrip on Line13. Departing from the Dongzhimen subway station we moved to the first stop on the Northern section of this subway line, the Beiyuan subway station. From here we walked along dusty roads, large construction sites and a large canal to the Lishuiqiao subway station. Half a year after our previous walk in this area – see ‘Looping Line13‘ (December 2008) – it wasn’t difficult to understand in which direction this area is currently developing: it seems that in-between the Beiyuan and Lishuiqiao subway station one of Beijing’s largest residential housing development is currently under construction.

For an extensive documentation of the present state of this area, check the images on Line13 Redux | Fieldtrip (Beiyuan-Lishuiqiao).

Line 13 Superlinearity fieldtrip | Beijing, May 27, 2008

Throughout the past years MovingCities developed a couple of self-initiated investigations around Beijing’s Line13 and has been fortunate to develop some of its findings further by giving the aforementioned workshops. Our interest can be summed up as follows:

Line13 is the mobility spine that makes Beijing move. It is an elevated subway line cutting through large parts of the modern city. With Beijing’s attempts to spread its urban growth into a polycentric model, Line13 re-organizes this ambition; connecting nodes of polycentric development. Surrounding the line are zones where economical, sociological and cultural tensions co-exist.

Street market panorama (source: Carlos Gil/USF - click to enlarge)

From Lishuiqiao we took Line13 to the most Western stop on the Northern section, Longze subway station. Here the subway line intersects with the Badaling Expressway, a 70 kilometer highway connecting Beijing with the Great Wall. Since its construction in 1996 (finished in 2001), the Badaling Expressway has acted as an important attractor for urban development in the North-Western part of Beijing. Around the Longze subway station, where the expressway meets the subway line, four distinct and programmatically autonomous areas can be discerned; a semi-legal and self-built migrant village, an area called ‘car city’, a low-rise residential area and a high-rise upscale residential area.

For an extensive documentation of the present state of this area, check the images on Line13 Redux | Fieldtrip (Longze).

Line 13 Redux fieldtrip | Beijing, May 25, 2009

In the afternoon we headed to the Crossboundaries studio where the workshop took off. In an upcoming post we will provide background and the outcome of this short and intense Line13 Redux-workshop. Stay tuned.

For now, have a look at our project pages:

Line 13 Redux | Workshop Program
Line 13 Redux | Workshop Field Trip (part 1): Beiyuan-Lishuiqiao
Line 13 Redux | Workshop Field Trip (part 2): Longze
Line 13 Redux | Studio

Pictures by movingcities.org

http://movingcities.org/

Line13 Redux | workshop field trip

Crossing | publication

bert — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:44:22 +0000

Crossing exhibition | SOU FUJIMOTO ARCHITECTS

Bert de Muynck | MovingCities publishes “Crossing: Dialogues for Emergency Architecture” on the ArtForum Chinese website. The piece discusses the 16 proposals from Chinese and foreign architects shown at the earlier reported exhibition at the National Art Museum of China.

Crossing exhibition | ENCORE HEUREUX + GSTUDIO

Marking the first anniversary of the May 12th Wenchuan earthquake, the “Crossing: Dialogues for Emergency Architecture” exhibition aims to raise awareness over the prevention and relief of natural disasters and epidemics. From the review:

All in all, Crossing: Dialogues for Emergency Architecture was an excellent exhibition. Organized jointly by NAMOC, CAFA and curators Zhou Shu and Pan Qing, it presented diverse proposals – in terms of scale, aesthetics and functionality – from an inspiring group of emerging and established architectural practices. The organizers have been able to present these proposals, and guarantee the quality the architects desired, in a safe museum environment where art meets architecture. Strangely this did not weaken or obscure the emergency and urgency that the solutions provoke.

Read full review: “Crossing: Dialogues for Emergency Architecture” | ArtForum

Pictures by movingcities.org

http://movingcities.org/

Crossing | publication

Crossing | Beijing exhibition

bert — Sat, 16 May 2009 04:21:01 +0000

Crossing exhibition opening at NAMOC, Beijing | May 12, 2009

On Tuesday May 12 the “Crossing: Dialogues for Emergency Architecture“-exhibition opened at the National Art Museum of China . Marking the first anniversary of the May 12th Wenchuan earthquake, the exhibition shows 16 proposals from Chinese and foreign architects. Their aim is to raise awareness over the prevention and relief of natural disasters and epidemics. Introduction and snapshots of the opening.

Jointly sponsored by the United Nations Development Programe (UNDP) and the Ministry of Culture of the P.R.C., the objective of the exhibition, according to Fan Di’an, the Director of the National Art Museum of China, is the following:

The works in this exhibition not only reflect the practical qualities of emergency architecture – such as environmental protection, energy saving, local materials, convenient transportation, low cost, and ease of building – but also architecture’s humanistic significance. (…) This exhibition also goes beyong signifying practical and humanitarian qualities. It seeks to highlight emergency architecture’s artistic and organic characteristics. There are many similarities shared between art and architecture, the most important of which is the spiritual experience that accompanies the best examples of works found in both fields.

Crossing exhibition | OBRA (left) and Radic + Puga + Sotomayor (right)

Currently, MovingCities is in the process of writing a review on the exhibition, this will be posted in the coming days. For now we provide the links to the websites of the participating architects, followed by the links to their projects on the “Crossing: Dialogues for Emergency Architecture“-website.

Crossing: Dialogues for Emergency Architecture | Architects

CAL-Earth / Nader Khalili >
Lv Pinjing + Foundational Instructions Faculty Team, School of Architecture, CAFA
CAFA /A4 A4设计组 >
ECAL / Martino d’Esposito >
ENCORE HEUREUX + GSTUDIO >
Estudio Teddy Cruz >
I|K Studio (via archdaily) >
JIA KUN ARCHITECTURE >
Keio Uni. Ban & Matsubara lab. + Southwest JiaoTong Uni. (via TreeHugger/PingMag) >
Leondelima >
OBRA >
PRODUCTORA >
RINTALA EGGERTSSON ARCHITECTS >
Smiljan Radic Clarke + Gonzalo Puga Larrain + Osvaldo Sotomayor Rojo >
SOU FUJIMOTO ARCHITECTS >
Song XieWei + Han Tao + Xi Xiaojing >
Tham & Videgård Hansson Arkitekter >

UPDATE Crossing: Dialogues for Emergency Architecture | publication | ArtForum

Crossing exhibition opening | May 12, 2009 | Beijing

Crossing exhibition | Lv Pinjing + Foundational Instructions Faculty Team, CAFA

Crossing exhibition | OBRA

Crossing exhibition | Radic + Puga + Sotomayor

Crossing exhibition | Tham & Videgård Hansson Arkitekter

Crossing exhibition | Leondelima

Crossing exhibition | ENCORE HEUREUX + GSTUDIO

Crossing exhibition | CAL-Earth / Nader Khalili

Crossing exhibition | RINTALA EGGERTSSON ARCHITECTS

Crossing exhibition | SOU FUJIMOTO ARCHITECTS

Pictures by movingcities.org

http://movingcities.org/

Crossing | Beijing exhibition