It is the newest dreamscape in a capital clotted with them. When it opens in about two years on the east side of Beijing, Chaoyang Park Plaza, a ring of glass towers molded to look like mountains in a classical Chinese landscape painting and designed by the renowned architect Ma Yansong (馬岩松), is to feature apartments, offices and shops.
However, in an unusual online ad campaign that began in late October, the project’s developer is saying that the complex “could be Beijing’s last abnormally shaped landmark building to enter the market in the coming 10 years.”
Recently, a saleswoman eagerly said that Beijing’s government might not permit “this type of artsy shape” any longer.
Photo: Reuters
While the caution might turn out to be just sales hype, it was also a clear attempt to capitalize on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) recent call for an end to “weird architecture.”
Ever since he issued his admonishment at a high-profile symposium on the arts on Oct. 15, government officials, planners and builders across China have been scrambling to figure out what it means for them.
No official elaboration has emerged on what Xi might have meant by “weird.” However, a report on a social media platform carried by the People’s Daily, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) newspaper, predicted that “in the future, it is unlikely that Beijing will have other strangely shaped buildings like the ‘Giant Trousers’” — a colloquial reference to the China Central Television headquarters, a hulking, long-limbed edifice designed by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren.
Photo: Bloomberg
There are other examples. As government-driven uniformity gave way to a tangle of political and market forces over the past three decades, avant-garde foreign and overseas-trained Chinese architects have burst on the scene, making booming Chinese megacities staging points, critics have said, for radical visions that could not be built elsewhere.
Scandals over cost, corruption and safety have hounded the construction of imposing new marvels in Beijing, including the television headquarters, the National Center for the Performing Arts — also known as the Giant Egg — and the National Stadium, built for the 2008 Olympics and nicknamed the Bird’s Nest.
ARTISTS’ OUTLOOK
Xi’s rebuke has reverberated among China’s architects and planners.
In interviews, central and local government planners said they had been asked by their superiors to apply stricter design guidelines on project approvals. Criteria in some local competitions for public commissions have been revised.
Designers and developers said it had reignited debate over the financial and aesthetic excesses of urban design in China. Many wondered whether it would dampen creativity more than it would curb freakish designs.
“[CCP] General-Secretary Xi’s speech is of great significance to our industry,” China Academy of Urban Planning and Design vice president Wang Kai (王凱) said.
Since Xi’s statement, Wang and other urban planners with state institutions, under the direction of China’s Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, have been exploring ways to translate his prescription into tangible measures.
“We have been in meetings practically every day,” Wang said.
Official statements vary as to what form these measures might take and when. However, some suggest that the government will take overt steps to classify and pre-empt “weird” buildings.
Late last month, the state-owned Legal Daily quoted an official with the housing ministry as saying that it was establishing standards to identify the “weird architecture” that should be rejected.
Beijing Deputy Mayor Chen Gang (陳剛) said the city would apply more detailed urban planning requirements to prevent “weird architecture” and “implement necessary rules on the size, style, color, form, shape and materials of buildings,” newspapers reported.
Guangdong Provincial Academy of Building Research deputy director Yang Shichao (楊仕超) said the ministry was seeking to establish general standards.
A building will not be deemed “weird if it does not consume excessive materials, if it suits the local climate, if it fits the local culture and if it provides the necessary functions,” Yang said.
Wang said that based on the discussions that he attended, the ministry would probably not define weirdness based solely on a building’s shape, color or materials. Instead, planners are expected to focus more on controlling costs and constructing green and low-carbon buildings.
However, local governments are also to set broad style guidelines for architects and adopt stricter procedures for approving public projects, he added.
The ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
CORRUPTION FEARS?
Many “shocking and weird buildings” around China have been the vanity projects of officials out to advance their own careers, with insufficient regard for the costs, Wang said.
“Why does everyone have objections to certain buildings in Beijing?” he asked. “Because it is public funds, ordinary people’s money being spent.”
Since taking power, Xi has waged a far-reaching campaign against official corruption and extravagance, and targeting “weird architecture” appears in line with that. However, his appeal has won mixed reviews from architects and developers.
Wang Shu (王澍), who in 2012 became the first Chinese architect to receive the Pritzker Prize, said that Xi was addressing a real problem.
“The greatest quantity of strange buildings in the world has converged on China,” he said.
However, turning a leader’s remark into regulations could be equally problematic and not conducive to producing fine architecture, he added.
“No more weird buildings does not mean we should have dull buildings,” he said.
Unlike Chaoyang Park Plaza’s promoters, most developers have, understandably, tried to avoid the “weird” label.
Pan Shiyi (潘石屹), the chairman of SOHO China, a firm that is nearly synonymous with eccentric designs — including two developments in Beijing by Pritzker-winner Zaha Hadid — said that Xi was referring to “those ugly buildings” built by others, not his own, beautiful, ones.
However, others said the comment has already instilled a new conservatism among officials and competitors for commissions.
Gong Jianxin (龔建新), director of the Kunshan Institute for Architecture and Color Studies in Jiangsu Province, said that while bidding recently on a project to build a trade center in Shenzhen, his team decided not to pursue “peculiar-looking” designs.
As for Chaoyang Park Plaza, whose developers celebrated it as possibly the last stand of architectural weirdness in Beijing, on a single day last month it sold more than 1 billion yuan (US$161 million) worth of space, a sales agent said.
She said she could not measure how much the ad had helped.
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