Confusion as China plans to check construction of ‘weird buildings’

BEIJING,

It’s the newest dreamscape in a capital clotted with them. When it opens in two years on the east side of this city, Chaoyang Park Plaza, a ring of glass towers moulded to look like mountains in a classic Chinese landscape painting and designed by the renowned architect, Ma Yansong, will feature apartments, offices and shops.

But in an unusual online ad campaign that began in late October, the project’s developer is saying that the complex “could be Beijing’s last abnormally shaped landmark building to enter the market in the coming 10 years”.

Recently, a saleswoman eagerly warned that the government might not permit “this type of artsy shape” any longer.

While the warning might turn out to be just sales hype, it was also a clear attempt to capitalise on President Xi Jinping’s recent call for an end to “weird architecture”.

Ever since he issued his admonishment at a high-profile symposium on the arts on October 15, government officials, planners and builders across China have been scrambling to figure out what it means for them.

No official elaboration has emerged on what Xi might have meant by “weird”. But a report on a social media platform carried by People’s Daily, the Communist Party newspaper, predicted that “in the future, it is unlikely that Beijing will have other strangely shaped buildings like the ‘Giant Trousers’” — a colloquial reference to the China Central Television headquarters, a hulking, long-limbed edifice designed by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren.

REVISED COMMISSIONS

There are other examples. As Communist uniformity gave way to a tangle of political and market forces over the past three decades, avant-garde foreign and overseas-trained Chinese architects have burst on the scene, making booming Chinese megacities staging points, critics argue, for radical visions that would be unbuildable elsewhere.

Scandals over cost, corruption and safety have hounded the construction of imposing new marvels in Beijing, including the television headquarters, the National Centre for the Performing Arts (also known as the Giant Egg) and the National Stadium (built for the 2008 Olympics and nicknamed the Bird’s Nest).

Xi’s rebuke has reverberated among China’s architects and planners. In interviews, central and local government planners said they had been asked by their superiors to apply stricter design guidelines on project approvals.

Criteria in some local competitions for public commissions have been revised. Designers and developers said it had reignited debate over the financial and aesthetic excesses of urban design in China. Many wondered if it would dampen creativity more than it would curb freakish designs.

“General Secretary Xi’s speech is of great significance to our industry,” said Wang Kai, vice-president of the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design here. Since Xi’s statement, Wang and other urban planners with state institutions, under the direction of China’s Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, have been exploring ways to translate his prescription into tangible measures.

“We’ve been in meetings practically every day,” Wang said.

Official statements vary as to what form these measures might take and when. But some suggest that the government will take overt steps to classify and pre-empt “weird” buildings.

In late November, the state-owned Legal Daily quoted an official with the Housing Ministry as saying that it was establishing standards to identify “weird architecture” that should be rejected. Beijing Deputy Mayor Chen Gang said the city would apply more detailed urban planning requirements to prevent “weird architecture” and “implement necessary rules on the size, style, colour, form, shape and materials of buildings,” newspapers reported.

SHOCKING BUILDINGS

Yang Shichao, deputy director of the Guangdong Provincial Academy of Building Research, said the ministry was seeking to establish general standards. A building will not be deemed “weird,” said Yang, “if it does not consume excessive materials, if it suits the local climate, if it fits the local culture and if it provides the necessary functions.”

Wang said that based on discussions he attended, the ministry would probably not define weirdness based solely on a building’s shape, colour or materials.

Instead, planners are focused more on controlling costs and constructing green and low-carbon buildings. But local governments  will also set broad style guidelines for architects and adopt stricter procedures for approving public projects, he added.

The Housing Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Many “shocking and weird buildings” around China have been the vanity projects of officials out to advance their own careers, with insufficient regard for the costs, Wang said.

“Why does everyone have objections to certain buildings in Beijing?” he asked. “Because it’s public funds, ordinary people’s money being spent.”

As for Chaoyang Park Plaza, whose developers celebrated it as possibly the last stand of architectural weirdness in Beijing, on a single day in November it sold more than 1 billion renminbi (Sh14 billion) worth of space, a sales agent said. She said she could not measure how much the ad had helped.  

This does not mean Beijing will grow dull 

Since taking power, President Xi Jinping has waged a far-reaching campaign against official corruption and extravagance, and targeting “weird architecture” appears in line with that.

His appeal has won mixed reviews from architects and developers, however. Wang Shu, who in 2012 became the first Chinese architect to receive the Pritzker Prize, said that Xi was addressing a real problem. “The greatest quantity of strange buildings in the world has converged on China,” he said.

But turning a leader’s remark into regulations could be equally problematic and not conducive to producing fine architecture, he added. “No more weird buildings doesn’t mean we should have dull buildings,” he said.