Abstract
The negotiation of China's
architectural heritage has been, since Liang Sicheng's pioneering
efforts at constructing an indigenous architectural history, an arena
permeated by diverse and sometimes conflicting international actors
and influences. China's ongoing re-urbanization programs have
inescapably accentuated different ways of understanding the value of
architectural patrimony and conservation. Just recently, when Liang's
former residence, a symbol of preservationist attitudes, was
demolished, an official tackled criticism with the now too-common
answer that a replica would be built.
In front of
solipsistic cultural approaches of political and cultural authorities
both foreign and Chinese, the proposals of a group of
internationally-trained Chinese architects, designers and artists
have aimed at bridging between different cultural traditions and
social needs, synthesizing aesthetic, cultural, and even political
traditions into site-and-time specific projects that search for
alternatives to the milieu of contemporary, globalized cities.
The notion of recycling,
as previously explored by anthropology (Helen Siu) and urban studies
(Madeleine Yue Dong, Michael Dutton) scholars, offers a chance to
conceptualize the work of different artists and social agents, like
architects Liu Jiakun and Wang Shu, or artists Xu Bing and Song Dong, whose work can
be characterized by an intelligent reusability, the vindication of
amateurism and the recycling of transnational elements, all of them
put to work to revive tradition and culture while producing
socially-sustainable alternatives to the speed and scope of China’s
developmentalism.
In this sense, my
presentation focuses on the figure of designer, curator, and
self-assigned social engineer Ou Ning. As researcher and
documentarist, Ou has produced a number of films about urban
phenomena for an unquestionably transnational audience. Similarly,
his job as curator of the Shenzhen-HK Architecture Biennale in 2009
has underscored his privileged position in the intersection of
international actors and China's intellectual community.
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