Symposium: Transforming Chinese Urbanism

Lifestyle, Culture, Architecture and Cities in 21st Century China

Time: 23 August, 2008 from 2:00–8:00 pm
Location: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai
People’s Park, 231 Nanjing West Road, Shanghai, 200003, China

A symposium and debate organized by The Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) in association with The Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai (MoCA).

Introduction

As part of the second AA Shanghai summer school programme, Transforming Chinese Urbanism seeks to bring together current works and perspectives surrounding the inter-related themes of culture, lifestyle, architecture and cities in 21st century China. One objective of the symposium is to expose the projective imagination of a generation at the forefront of Chinese urban culture and to demonstrate the range of cultural and technological innovations occurring across a variety of design disciplines. A simultaneous objective is to scrutinize these phenomena in the context of broader urban processes and challenges. Through multi-disciplinary discussions the symposium seeks to unravel the implications of changing urban lifestyles, cultures and creative practices, and to debate the visible paradox between forces mobilizing wholesale change and the demands for permanence, sustainability, and cultural specificity. The event is aimed at students, professionals, and the general public.

In two sessions of 12 presentations each, a broad set of processes, practices and potentials in the realms of culture, lifestyle, as well as architecture and urbanism will be unveiled. Presentations in each session will lead to two debates on the status of current and possible future urban transformations in twenty-first century China.

Session 1: Future Visions
With an emphasis on Shanghai as an emblematic city of commerce and cosmopolitan culture, presenters in this first session will speculate on a series of future visions from a variety of design disciplines. The significance of these visions and propositions shall be examined by unravelling linkages with the major cultural, economic, social and environmental forces driving urban change.

Session 2: Urban Culture and Creativity
In this second session, contemporary creative practices in art, design, entertainment, fashion, leisure and media, will be the focus of a series of multi-disciplinary presentations. Broader topics will include reflections on the changing trajectories of policy and spatial development surrounding the creative industries, as well as understanding the changing role of cultural institutions such as museums, professional institutes and associations in influencing China’s urbanism.

Confirmed Participants/Presenters:
Session 1: Future Visions

Professor Wu Zhiqiang
Dean of Tongji University and Chief Planner of EXPO 2010.

Xu Wei Guo
Architect and Professor at Tsinghua University School of Architecture. Curator of the 2004, 2006, 2008 ABB Architecture Beijing Biennial.

Neville Mars
The body of work produced by Neville Mars is both diverse and characteristic. It moves between architecture, planning, research and art installations but has a clear focus on dynamic urban landscapes. In 2003, Neville founded the Dynamic City Foundation (DCF) and outlined a comprehensive research for China’s urbanization for 2020. The work will be published entitled The Chinese Dream – a society under construction (010 Publisher, June 2008). The project is available on-line and continues to evolve here.

Xiangning Li
Assistant Dean, Tongji University College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Associate Professor in History, Theory and Criticism.

Alejandro Gutierrez
Alejandro Gutierrez is an Associate Director at Arup Urban Design and has led a range of urban
development projects globally including the Dongtan Eco City in Shanghai. He also is an invited lecturer to London School of Economics, UCL Bartlett School of Architecture, Universidad Iberoamericana – Mexico – Universidad Catolica in Chile, Architectural Association, Foundation – UK, RIBA, Cities Action Summit and Globe 2006 in Vancouver, Canada. He has also done several interviews for international media, regarding sustainable urban development in the context of China and developing countries. Prior to joining Arup he was director for Cities Consultancy Unit at Catholic University in Santiago, Chile and also director for Cities and Environment area at the Architecture School in the same university.

Su Yunsheng
Vice-Director, Studio 6, Urban Planning Design Institute, Tongji University College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Co-editor of Urban China magazine. Has also taught in the AA Shanghai Summer School, in 2007 and 2008.

Bittor L. Sánchez-Monasterio
Has worked in the office of Archi-Tectonics, and has taught with Winka Dubbledum at the University of Pennsylvania, and at E.T.S.A.B in Barcelona. Currently working as an architect in Shanghai.

Samuel Y. Liang
PhD in Theory and History of Art and Architecture (2006, Binghamton University), has taught in China and the United States and is currently a lecturer in Chinese cultural studies at the University of Manchester. He has published a number of articles in academic journals of the US, UK, and China. His first and forthcoming book, titled Ephemeral Households, Splintered City: Mapping the Sojourners Shanghai, 1870-1900, charts the spatial, gender and material configurations of the first Chinese cosmopolitan culture in nineteenth-century Shanghai. His research interests include residential and public spaces in modern urban China; aesthetic exchanges between China and the West; Chinese architecture and landscape art. Currently he is working on a book-length project on spaces and imageries of home in twentieth-century urban China.

Stephen Wang
Stephen is a graduate of the Design Research Laboratory programme at the AA. He has practised at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam, as a member of think-tank AMO. Recent works include a digital-art installation with calligraphy artist Yang-Sze Tong, and a part in the master-planning proposal for the Taipei Cultural and Sports Park. He is currently completing a PhD in Social Policy at the London School of Economics (LSE), examining the politics of housing renewal in Shanghai.

Paul Katz
Paul is a principal of Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF). He has directed the company’s projects in China since 1993. He is currently overseeing the construction of Shanghai’s World Financial Centre – the tallest building in China.

Henrik Valeur
Creative director and founder of UiD, a networking urban consultancy based in the ֲesund Region of Scandinavia and in Shanghai, P.R.China. Curator of CO-EVOLUTION, awarded the Golden Lion for best national pavilion at the Architecture Biennale in Venice 2006.

Session 2: Urban Culture and Creativity

Professor Min Zhao
Professor of urban planning, and ex-dean of the college of architecture and urban planning at Tongji University. He specializes in urban land policy, strategic spatial planning and community planning in China.

Rosalie Huang
Creative director of VOGUE magazine in China, and editor and creative director of VOGUE Taiwan. She is also the host of Taiwan’s one and only online ‘real-time Fashion Show’ VOGUE TV.

Anson Chan
Anson is a Hong Kong practicing architect, now working as Vice President (Research and Planning) for Lifestyle Centre in Shanghai. He is focusing on commercial property developments, participated in various projects, like THE BRIDGE 8 (Phase 2), LIVING DESIGN CENTRE, INFINITI Shopping Mall, etc. He is also the founder of Point To Life Design Bookstore.

Tom Verebes
Tom co-directs the Design Research Lab (DRL) at the Architectural Association, and has taught in the DRL since its founding in 1997. He also co-directs Ocean D, a multi-disciplinary design practice based in London, Boston and New York. He has taught an AA Diploma Unit, and has been a visiting professor at ABK in Stuttgart. He also founded and directed the AA’s D_Lab Summer School (2006, 2007), and the AA Shanghai Summer School (2007, 2008). Associate Professor at Hong Kong University, from January 2009.

Rebecca Catching
Rebecca is a an art critic and avid China watcher. She has been following Chinese culture for the past four years as the Arts and Entertainment Editor of That’s Shanghai. She has written on a variety of topics including Chinese cinema, literature, film, music, dance and art and has an intimate understanding of the local cultural scene. She’s contributed to a variety of magazines including, Art Asia Pacific, Art Review, Billboard and the Far Eastern Economic Review and served as the consulting editor on Time Out’s Shanghai guidebook.

Gao Yan
Received a M Arch degree from AA DRL, Yan is a London-based architect with expertise in parametric design. He is currently the monitor of the Digital Design Group of Marks Barfield Architects, a member of Ocean D, and an oversea journalist/editor of World Architecture Magazine, for which he has guest edited two issues, Articulating Complexity and Parametric Design. He taught in 2007/2008 AA Shanghai Summer School, and recently co-founded the Network of Design Emergence.

Richard Wei-Tse Wang
Richard studied architecture at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and at the Design Research Laboratory at the AA School of Architecture, U.K. He has worked for the architectural think-tank AMO. He is currently completing a PhD at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, where he also co-coordinates the China Planning Research Group (CPRG).

Giel Groothuis
Giel Groothuis is an architect and graduate from Delft Technical University in the Netherlands. After working with several architects, such as Herman Herztberger, he founded his own practice in 2003. Since moving to Shanghai in 2005 he has worked on a large number of projects in China, ranging from public spaces, stadiums and commercial centers to exhibition design for the theme pavilion of the World Expo 2010. Next to his design work, Giel has co-founded FAR Architecture Center Shanghai and the urban research platform Sinocities. Giel has been a guest lecturer at various universities and seminars.

Lydia Kim
Lydia Kim (Germany/Korea) received her M Arch degree from AA Design Research Lab (DRL) at the Architectural Association in 2008. She has previously studied and worked in Germany, USA (Fulbright Scholar) and Hong Kong and lives in London since 2001 where she practises with Kohn Pederson and Fox Associates (International). Her AADRL thesis investigated in Parametric Urbanism on the example of the Shanghai Expo 2010.

Defne Ayas
Based in Shanghai, Ayas is a Curator for New York-based biennial PERFORMA, where she has been developing and presenting performances and performance-related programs since its inception in 2004. In Shanghai, Ayas works as a Curatorial Consultant for Bizart/Arthub, responsible for designing and programming cultural exchange projects between China and rest of Asia. Ayas is also overseeing, in Adjunct Faculty capacity, the development of the Visual Arts Program of New York University in Shanghai. Her research is primarily in new media and performance, and her interest in cultural exchanges.

Greg Girard
Greg Girard (born 1955) is a Canadian photographer living in Shanghai since 1998. He is the co-author of City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City and most recently Phantom Shanghai. His editorial work appears in publications such as National Geographic, Time, Fortune, Wired and other US and European titles.

Jeb Beresford
Jeb Beresford has been leading the Smc Alsop Shanghai office for over 4 years with a wide portfolio of mixed-use architectural developments and master planning projects underway. With a passion for imaginative, sustainable solutions to contemporary urban issues, Jeb has worked on a diverse range projects across the world, including Hong Kong Airport, GCHQ, Bradford Masterplan, Goldsmiths College, Gao Yang Cruise Terminal and the pioneering Schools for the Future initiative in the UK.

Warren Neidich

For more information see the event flyer here.