The innovative expression of Chinese traditional culture and art in contemporary architectural design

Abstract

Recent improvements in contemporary Chinese society will not only be reflected by new economic models, cultural products, scientific and technological achievements and aesthetic values, but also manifest in diverse unconventional new methods of architectural design.

In the twentieth century, one of the main issues in architectural debate was to find a new synthesis between modernity and national tradition. However, outcomes were often reduced to borrowing some formal features from the past to uncritically combine with the ubiquitous international style and other trends. It was only at the end of the century that some authors in China began to work on a deeper connection with traditional cultural values. Their projects keep the essence of all times specific national character in a work which, however, undoubtedly belongs to our present time. This research picks selected pioneering cases to study how design and art in contemporary Chinese society develops and innovates departing from the deeply set ideologies of traditional Chinese national culture. The relations between architecture and society, architecture and man, architecture and environment, architecture and history and architecture and culture will be analyzed through the study of present-time Chinese architects’ with successful attempts at contributing unique architectural alternatives for contemporary China: Leoh Ming Pei, winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1983, Cui Kai, prestigious member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Wang Shu, winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2012 and others.

As the main goal of the present research, it will be emphasized that it is possible nowadays to pave new ways of architectural design which are capable of fulfilling requirements and functional needs in modern times, but are simultaneously, truly, meaningfully in connection to the country’s highly appreciated ancient values. These were expressed in diverse manifestations of Chinese culture and art through the different historical periods, mainly in architecture, city design, gardening and painting.

By combining modern architectural languages and design methods with the traditional Chinese aesthetic and culture, these masters have created an architectural pattern marked with Chinese cultural features, which not only present a historical continuity with the best traditional examples, but also provides a new perspective for gaining a better understanding of the old culture as well as draws attention to the true spirit of their work.

This work tackles this question from a quite wide perspective which includes aspects from history, politics, philosophy, religion, landscape, garden design, poetry, connection to nature, light, space, materials and building techniques. The research was developed simultaneously to another one in the same research unit which focuses exclusively on -and so goes deeper into- one of the most relevant concepts of this approach: Chinese traditional painting and architectural poetics in present day architecture and design. Both researches complement each other so opening a field -a new and fertile one- for further exploration, practice and research.

Through the balance of the adoption of their own intuitions, the conscious utilization of new building materials, and the respect for Chinese history and culture, these designers have been constantly developing and improving creative ideas and aesthetic notions, and carried an unremitting practice in the creation of an all-encompassing, past, present and future Chinese architectural space. They have started the engine of a new contemporary design which is deeply committed to geographical, natural, cultural and historical context, in opposition to the globally dominant formalism that is currently repetitively sweeping across China and the rest of the world.