Modern "Chinese" Architecture

Shanghai Expat Forum Index » Community Discussion Forums » Chinese Culture Discussions

Author

Message

karnex420

Raver

Joined: Mar 08, 2004
Posts: 488
Location: Shanghai, China
Status: Offline

Posted: Nov 09, 2004 - 08:42 AM
Post subject: Modern "Chinese" Architecture

I'm searching for highrise design that is "Chinese", not modern art, square box buildings, or foreign anything. I've seen Palaces and temples but is it really impossible to have a tower look like it came from here?
"Unto This Last", John Ruskin

Kiwi

Post Boaster

Joined: May 07, 2003
Posts: 4763

Status: Offline

Posted: Nov 09, 2004 - 11:06 AM

I'm sure there must be some, though nothing springs to mind from Shanghai. The Jinmao Tower maybe? But then it really only hints at 'chineseness'.

How about the building with the 'bamboo' look in HK? I think Taipei 101 also looks rather Chinese.

On the other hand I have heard Taipei 101 unfavorably compared to a stack of those US-style Chinese take-out boxes. Cynics eh?

Of course the cynics also say that Taipei 101 will look even more 'typically Chinese' when it collapses during the next major earthquake. For some reason they built it in an area with notoriously unstable soil (the only area of Taipei to suffer major damage in the 921 quake). Nice building, but I don't think I would want to work in it.

karnex420

Raver

Joined: Mar 08, 2004
Posts: 488
Location: Shanghai, China
Status: Offline

Posted: Nov 10, 2004 - 01:13 AM

Awsome. http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=100765

I knew it could be done.
How do you pull up the bamboo stuff? I suppose you could call that building material at hand. (Bamboo scaffolding) floors me. My children are ironworkers in Vancouver and we were laughing at pictures of it before I came over. Pretty impressive though. I hear they only go up five stories though. I would like to see international safety standards here though with the way wind gusts in Shanghai. Imagine steelworking here.

Nadgeee

Barker

Joined: May 21, 2005
Posts: 152
Location: Sydney
Status: Offline

Posted: May 21, 2005 - 10:45 PM

john ruskin is an awsome writer. how did u come across him? i read him in my architectural course.

modern chinese architecture does not exist. they are just reductive functionalistic machines with kitch orientalist decorations. china is doing what japan went through in the 1930. there is no architectural discourse in China!!!!!! that is very alarming, as architecture is the bases of a civilised culture. it simply encompases everything. it has been said that architecture is 'the greatest of all arts and mother of all sciences'

this the the reason im going to shanghai. We need more expat architects to revive chinese architecture.