[转贴]：外国建筑师眼中的中国城市现状

popoc

好了，以上是一些背景照片，此照片在网络上出现后，立刻引起了大家的热烈讨论，毕竟中国对大多数西方人来说，仍是一个神秘的国家。他们对当今的中国城市现状了解并不很多。以下是一些又意思的回复：

A: Great series of photos but such a urban trajedy（都市悲剧？？）. Its like something out of Orson Well's 1984. I can see why you say it's 'threatening'. I can only predict that in the future it will be China's version of The Bronx ('50-70's).

B：It has to be added that there are (older) parts of Shanghai that are as full of life as one can expect of a Chinese city. People are everywhere, and the street becomes the place were everything happens. This makes for a fascinating urban mix that is not to be found in the western world. Living conditions in these quarters are probably not always ideal, but it really shows the potential of dense urban living. The sad thing is, that although some measures of preservation have been taken, a lot is being torn down to give way to new high-rises.

C: I find it interesting that the urban condition which is most interesting to us as architects is the one which is not so interesting or valuable to the residents and city planners as borne out by this thread ...
Puts me in mind of Demolition Man (yeah I know it was a crappy film), where the utopian society flourished by literally burying the dsytopian and undesirable element of society underground.

Then you get get Ridley Scotts (Bladerunner) vision of the future where new and old kind of co-exist in a happy medium.

But what is right? As architects we are often happiest when we have difficult urban realities to deal with, but the planners of our cities never see it that way - why? Can they not deal with undefined edges, where differing uses and types spill into different zones ...

D: Amazing photos---and very big questions. Such fast and intense urban development, I think, is most likely doomed--at least in its first incarnation. Even though we all try to produce creative, thoughtful and sensitive designs, our efforts most often can't compete with the evolution of design and use that come from a generation's (or more) experience of a place. Most of the urban values that we cherish come from the evolution of design/use that comes over time.
Perhaps there's no way for planners (with architects included) to create the urban values of the old city without that process of aging/evolution. I'm really struck by the scariness of the images and the vastness of the development going on. Like Allister said, there's a "cyclical development of cities"---let's hope that the future stages in that cycle make Shanghai a success. It will be a challenge.

下面是New York Times 一篇关于中国建筑与艺术的文章
Amid Ghosts of the Red Guard, The Avant-Garde Now Blooms

By CRAIG SIMONS
Published: September 1, 2004

BEIJING, Aug. 31 - In his gray fleece jacket and pressed khaki pants, Xu Yong looks more like a department store manager than a maverick who is one of the most successful promoters of avant-garde art in China and a protector of its historic architecture. Standing in 798 Space, his contemporary art gallery in northeastern Beijing, next to a row of faded photographs of a woman firing a handgun, Mr. Xu carefully thanks the city government for supporting the Dashanzi International Art Festival, a collaboration among 74 galleries and private art studios in a refurbished 1950's-era weapons factory.

It is perhaps his mild demeanor, coupled with his fondness for making art and old architecture profitable cultural enterprises, that has helped push the Communist leadership here toward aiding the arts and protecting the past. Two years ago Factory 798 was largely abandoned and physically crumbling, a forlorn complex of warehouses and workshops built by East German architects using World War II reparations money. It was given a number rather than a name, in the old-fashioned Communist manner.

Like many of China's state-owned enterprises, it was seemingly doomed, with only a few of its structures still in use. And, as with most of the oldest buildings here, there were demolition plans; in this case the mammoth work areas would be knocked down to make room for a business-development park.

Then artists began to move in, attracted by cheap rents and stunning spaces. By the time a friend took Mr. Xu to see the factory, a handful of musicians and painters had renovated studios. He was immediately attracted to the architecture. "It was obvious that the place had great cultural and historic value," he said.

That realization prompted him to lease a workshop of about 13,000 square feet, clean away a decade of disrepair and open his gallery, 798 Space, the complex's largest. In April 2003 the gallery attracted about 5,000 visitors and international news media attention with a show of avant-garde art appropriately titled "798 Reconstruction." This was followed by an influx to the area of artists, as well as the opening of galleries from Germany, Britain, the United States, Singapore and Japan.

For Mr. Xu, 50, part of the factory's value is intrinsic. The compound was active in the 1960's and 70's and many Maoist slogans (like "Chairman Mao is the red sun in our hearts") painted on the walls during the Cultural Revolution remain visible. Such propaganda, once ubiquitous, is now rare, and the building is a powerful reminder. "The Cultural Revolution was terrible, so most people would rather simply forget it," Mr. Xu said in an interview, "but we need to take stock of the past."

In October 798 Space sponsored a show of works by 48 Chinese and German artists that included haunting references to the Mao years: the video artist Wang Wei filmed children eerily repeating Maoist slogans; the installation artist Gu Dexin presented two containers of frozen animal brains and hearts; a mammoth Mao Zedong arm (obvious to anyone who has seen the statues of Mao that still stand all over China) rose out of a doorway.

Other artists showed more incendiary works. The photographer and installation artist Chen Guang exhibited an erotic video on a large screen on the factory grounds. "He showed the work at 2 in the afternoon," recalled Robert Bernell, the owner of an art publishing house and bookstore in the factory. "It created a big stir."

Such exhibits (one artist ripped up a Communist Party flag during a performance piece) have upset some Chinese leaders and, Mr. Xu said, there has been debate about whether to allow such a free art space in the capital. Another issue has been property rights. The city granted Seven Stars, the company that owns the land, the right to create an industrial park, but the artists, including Mr. Xu, want the buildings protected as an arts center similar to the Tate Modern in London, which is in a renovated power station.

The artists were supported by officials who said that a flourishing art scene would help Beijing become a vibrant city. Long Xingmin, the assistant party secretary of development and planning ministry for Beijing, visited the galleries in April, and the vice mayor of Beijing has weighed in to support the artists. Visiting dignitaries, including the president of Switzerland, have also stopped by the complex to offer support.

For now, the scales seem tipped in favor of the art. When the developer moved to shut down the Dashanzi International Art Festival in late April, citing violations of parking and fire regulations, the government rejected the complaints and sent word that the show should proceed. "Even a year ago that would not have happened," Mr. Xu said, adding that he was told by "a reliable source" that the government planned to protect the area so it could establish an art district similar to SoHo in New York in time for the 2008 Olympics.

Such a center might become a major tourist draw. In the last decade Chinese contemporary art has found an overseas market, with recent shows of Chinese avant-garde art at the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Venice Biennale as well as a show titled "Between Past and Present: New Photography and Video From China," which opened at International Center of Photography in New York on June 11 and will run through Sept. 5. "The 798 Factory could become the top location for cutting-edge avant-garde art, not only in Beijing and China, but in all of Asia," Mr. Xu said.

He has been equally successful at protecting China's ancient architecture after an early interest in photography. He said that after the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976 and the artistic climate began to loosen, he became interested in photographing hutongs, the twisting residential alleyways clustered around the Forbidden City in Beijing and once home to the emperor's relatives and courtiers.

"Too much valuable architecture has been destroyed," he said. "Largely the destruction grew from a common perception that the hutongs were reminders of China's economic stagnation as the rest of the world surged ahead. When foreigners wandered into the lanes, locals were embarrassed. They thought the buildings were backward."

In 1990 he published "Beijing's Hutong: 101 Images," a collection of black-and-white photographs. Two years later he opened Hutong Tours, a travel agency that in 2002 took 140,000 tourists through the lanes. Foreigners willing to pay $12 for guided glimpses of the alleys proved to city officials that history has more than just sentimental value. "In China, if you're going to protect historic architecture, you have to show that it has practical use," he said.

The Beijing architect Du Dong said, "Had it not been for the attention of tourists, the destruction of the hutongs would have been more thorough." The government has now set aside several hundred lanes for preservation.

Mr. Xu said that he hoped to help China find value where most Chinese see only decay, and to prove that culture is not, as Mao believed, merely an instrument of the state but a vital part of the nation's life.