Chapter 61 60. New Architecture, New Future

The new CCTV building, the National Grand Theatre, the Bird's Nest, and the Water Cube, these brand new buildings standing in Beijing are the country's new architectural landmarks, and they are called the architectural version of the ambition of a great power by the Western media.The CCTV new building is located in the CBD business center area of ​​the East Third Ring Road in Beijing; the National Center for the Performing Arts is located in the west of Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, the west side of the Great Hall of the People, and the south of West Chang'an Avenue; the Bird's Nest and Water Cube are located in the newly built Olympic Park near the North Fourth Ring Road Inside.Where they were built and the style with which they were built, it is impossible for these buildings to go unnoticed.This makes them controversial buildings, but it also evokes the vitality, tolerance and openness of this country.They represent the country's gesture and determination to bid farewell to the past and embrace the future.

Perhaps for some, there is nothing scarier than giving the disgruntled the chance to finally express themselves.They have a natural disdain for the rules that already exist, seeing them as constraints imposed on them rather than guarantees within which they can operate safely.When their own maxims are recognized, they are more blatantly mocking that which established specialists tremblingly regard as maxims. Rem Koolhaas can be used as an example.Once in an interview, Koolhaas said, "In the Netherlands, our works are regarded as a complete failure"; in his acceptance speech for the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2000, he said angrily: "We are still Immersed in a Dead Sea of ​​Mortar. Architecture will not last until 2050 if we do not liberate ourselves from 'eternity' to think about new, more urgent, more current problems." He has another famous quote, Let the Chinese, who are proud of their 5,000-year civilization, watch the CCTV building he designed rise from the ground day by day, sound terrified: "Fuck the cultural background!"

These architects never seem to learn to respect this ancient country.Another well-known architect, Zaha Hadid, said in an interview, "Beijing is very exciting because of its size and the ambitions it can accept. Many places are building, which is different from the West. The West doesn’t build houses every day and anytime.” But then the interviewer’s question angered the Iraqi-born architect.The visitor said: "When designing a building in a place, do you try to understand the architectural tradition of the place first?" Zaha Hadid replied: "I don't think there are any traditions here, which ones are left behind? I Didn't see a lot of traditional buildings, they don't exist anymore - I mean that's a pity... building for the future... I guess it's not a matter of heritage or not. We're trying to build a new platform for the city, it Can really grow on top of that. As for tradition, the difficulty is that they take away the really interesting traditional architecture and replace it with something that they think is traditional but it's not.. Live in harmony with the surroundings and blend in... I don't believe it Harmony. What is harmony? Harmony with whom? If there is a pile of shit next to you, you will emulate it, because you want to be harmonious with it? Why would you want to be harmonious with something so bad? The result of harmony is What? I think the current state of the trend is critical. I prefer to use the word 'context'. So what we've done in the past 20 years has changed the meaning of 'context' in architecture: it no longer means trying to imitate your adjacent It makes the appearance achieve a kind of harmony; it starts a new concept, which makes the next building have a different context. One of the main changes in the current architecture is that we obtain modernity in this way. Rub Go to everything and start a new style..."

These architects began to try to erase the traces of the old one by one in Beijing, and bring a new style to this rich and even heavy past.It's just that these new experiences are too violent for many people to accept.These temporary new buildings are very different from the past. The first is the National Grand Theater designed by French architect Paul Andrew for China, and then the Bird’s Nest designed by Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. , the National Swimming Center Water Cube designed by Australia's PTW Architects, and the China Central Television Building designed by Rem Koolhaas himself-it's a pity that there are no works by Zaha Hadid.

Paul Andrew's design has been unprecedented opposition and impact. On April 1, 2000, Paul Andrew flew from France to Beijing to attend the groundbreaking ceremony of the National Center for the Performing Arts. As a result, at 8 o'clock that morning, the Owners Committee of the National Center for the Performing Arts informed various news media that the groundbreaking ceremony for the Grand Theater was cancelled. On June 10, 2000, 49 academicians, including He Zuoxiu, Wu Liangyong, Zhou Ganzhi, Zhou Jing, Zhang Jinqiu, etc., jointly put forward their opinions on the grand theater plan during the academician meeting of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering; 11 days later, 6 On April 21, 108 architectural experts including Shen Bo, Zheng Xiaoxie, Zhang Kaiji, and Hou Renzhi jointly submitted a letter of opinion to the Ministry of Construction, expressing their dissatisfaction with the grand theater plan.According to the summary of Xinhua News Agency reporter Wang Jun, the dissatisfaction expressed by these well-known Chinese intellectuals includes: first, the design of the National Center for the Performing Arts is unreasonable, and the area and cost seriously exceed the standard; second, the unreasonable design has damaged the function of the theater. .The resulting National Center for the Performing Arts is second- and third-rate in terms of function, but the cost is super-first-rate, including the useless shell that costs a lot of money to build; third, the huge shell will bring huge waste of electricity and warmth, and Due to the dusty weather in Beijing, frequent cleaning is required.

The opinions of 49 academicians are full of fierce words: "This is not a dispute between schools... We think this is a dispute between 'content determines form' or 'form limits content'; it is a dispute between scientific design and unscientific design ;It is a debate whether the building needs to be functionally reasonable, economical (not economical in the general sense) or divorced from China's reality and ignore Chinese traditional culture. Many of them are unreasonable in design and use, violate the basic laws of architecture, and even contradict It is based on basic scientific common sense. Some foreign public opinion claims that this is the best negative teaching material in architecture!" Among the 11 members of the National Center for the Performing Arts Design Selection Committee, 7 publicly expressed their opposition to Andrew's proposal.Pan Zuyao, a famous Hong Kong architect, called Andrew's design a "big idiot" and "is against our national tradition and local characteristics. It only destroys Tiananmen Square without construction, and there are many mistakes in the design."Canadian architect Arthur Erickson said Andrew's National Theater had "added a shroud like a flying saucer" and was "extremely disappointing".

Paul Andrew, who was under attack, argued in an interview with reporters: "Any new thing will cause controversy. When a new thing appears, there will be controversy, but the old will be replaced by the new." "To protect A culture should be developed so that it has vitality. To develop it will lead to risks, and it will be in danger, but it cannot give up development because of this. If we don’t want to take risks, we should stay on the flat ground.” “At that time, the people The Great Hall is built in Tiananmen Square, while the Forbidden City is classical. In this sense, the two are in conflict. However, each era has its own architecture. If a city is always stuck in its old ways, it will lose sight of its future. " "I firmly believe that after many years, this work will be accepted by everyone, even those who oppose it."

Despite the opposition, the Grand Theater with a total investment of more than 2.6 billion yuan still started construction and was put into use in 2007.Since then, a silver oval building has appeared on Chang'an Avenue.Long Yingtai said in an article that after an Italian architect failed to bid for the Beijing Grand Theater, he said sourly, "I thought that designing a theater for an ancient city with a history like Beijing, common sense tells me that this new building It must be in harmony with the historical atmosphere of the ancient city, and traditional Chinese elements must be integrated into the new building.Unexpectedly, the winning bid was such a thing, it seemed to have fallen from sparks.It was only then that I realized that the Chinese actually hoped to make a clean break with their own traditions.I was totally wrong. 'The Bird's Nest and the Water Cube have also come under intense attack, especially the Bird's Nest, which has famous architects as its targets. In 2004, a group of academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering also wrote a letter, saying that the Olympic project was in pursuit of form, and the cost was high, ignoring safety and practicality.The bird's nest was slimmed down, the openable roof was cancelled, the seats were reduced, and the total investment was reduced by 400 million yuan to 3.13 billion yuan. The "Water Cube" (with a total investment of 1.02 billion yuan) was delivered on January 28, 2008. The Bird's Nest was put into use for the first time on April 18, 2008. Haas’s CCTV Tower is not yet in use—another well-known building, China World Trade Center Phase III, is less controversial than the CCTV Tower.When describing Koolhaas's design, some people used the word "extremely crazy", while others used "challenge the limit".Because the building appears precarious, the two skewed towers are connected at the top by an equally twisted floor.It doesn't take any knowledge of architecture to know that building such a building would be technically difficult; or, to put it less politely, common sense would suggest that no one would build a building this way.As proof, it is said that since the construction of the new CCTV building started and the structure was erected, the Beijing Central Business District Management Committee often received calls from enthusiastic citizens: "Hey, just to remind you, the two The building is crooked!" Every time a taxi driver drives past the bustling East Third Ring Road, he will be filled with emotion when he sees this distorted building, and most of the passengers will express a few words about construction affairs in cooperation.Some young artists who are keen to show off have created an artwork that consists of building a miniature structure similar to Koolhaas' CCTV building and then bulldozing it.The artist filmed the whole process with DV and played it repeatedly.

Koolhaas defended his design in a report in the lecture hall of the Architectural Design Institute of Tsinghua University, "First, this is a rational building; second, it is a creative building; third, it is continuous, The creation of integration; fourth, it reveals the astonishing beauty...The hordes of skyscrapers are everywhere in the world, they have completely lost the ability to define the urban environment. New architectural experiments are needed, and my design is To create a new definition of skyscrapers." Ironically, he first played a rendering of the National Center for the Performing Arts on the computer, saying: "China does not know what Western architects are selling, what is first-class , what is second-rate."

Because of the CCTV building, Koolhaas has become one of the most well-known architects in China, and he often takes VIPs to visit this new Beijing landmark when major events happen in Beijing.Critics of Koolhaas said that Koolhaas should know in his heart that he would never get such an opportunity to build such a deviant building in a mature community in the West, and he took advantage of a certain psychology of the Chinese government.Those who support him also agree with this statement, but in a tone of appreciation, Koolhaas's assistant, Zhao Liang, who teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Xinhua reporter Wang Jun: "I think history will definitely remember this. Moment. Many years later, we will definitely find that only in Beijing at this moment, and probably only in such a place in the world, such a thing will happen: let an architect who may be considered crazy by others design such a A building that comes to mind, that has been criticized and praised."

The Wall Street Journal called CCTV's new building an "architectural version of the ambition of a great power."Indeed, nowhere is this country better represented than by these newly erected buildings: ambitious and unafraid to be unconventional, but with a sense of self-confidence oozing with unconventionalism.They may be an attempt by the regime to brand itself, but the attempt already demonstrates the country's utterly fearless openness.Rem Koolhaas also said: "The most interesting thing about architecture is that it always goes to the new world, not back to the old world." The same is true for this country, it can only go to the new world, not to the old world. Return to the old world.