矶崎新：一个世界公民眼中的中国 ｜展览序言

China through the Eyes of a World Citizen

Zhu Tao

How to uphold a global vision and a cosmopolitan mindset, at the time dominated by state-nationalism and populism?

How to respect and promote the qualities and potential of local cultures, in an era when globalization and homogenization are sweeping the world?

This exhibition hopes to provide an architect's answers to these questions.

The exhibition presents a careful selection of twelve architectural and urban design projects by the master architect Arata Isozaki among his many works in China over the past nearly three decades. Each work is imbued with profound historical awareness, rich contemporary significance, active dialogues between China and the world, and all are expressed in powerful spatial languages.

The exhibition title contains two keywords:

‘China’ first - the exhibition reviews how Isozaki 's Chinese practice has made various connections with China's historical and contemporary sociocultural contexts.

Isozaki has a lifelong love of traditional Chinese culture and continues to pay attention to the transformation of contemporary Chinese society. He began his practice in China in 1994, at a time when the country was embarking on a rapid urbanization process. During the following nearly three decades for each of his projects, Isozaki has been striving to use innovative spatial languages to respond to China's traditions and ongoing dramatic changes, as well as to explore future possibilities, whether the projects are located in the heart of an ancient city or in a vast empty new urban district.

For example, in his competition entry for the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing (1998), Isozaki uses the emerging computer graphic algorithms to create a giant curved roof, in an attempt to provide his own contemporary answer to Chinese architects' century-long exploration for the “big roof” as National Form. And in the Zendai Himalayan Centre in Shanghai (2003-2010), he collages heterogeneous elements, such as fluid surface algorithms, the City in the Air, and Chinese character graphics, altogether to form a hybrid mega-structure that is both traditional and distinctly contemporary.

‘World Citizen’ the second - the exhibition explores how Isozaki examines Chinese issues with his global perspective.

Isozaki is a World Citizen Architect who transcends state and national boundaries. In his practice in China, he always addresses Chinese issues in the global context, and also incorporates various world cultural resources into his Chinese projects.

In his designs, there are always active dialogues between China and the world. Countless magical imageries across time, space and cultures, have emerged: Michelangelo's marble-paved, oval-shaped Capitoline Hill in Rome is transformed into a ‘void,’ an artificial lake in the Sub-center of the Zhengdong New District CBD (2009-present). The directional axes, derived from Chinese Feng Shui principle and intersecting with the bending curve of Venice’s Grand Canal, leads to the spatial configuration of the Mirage City in Zhuhai (1994-1995). The stealth fighter that embodies cutting-edge technology, with its ultra-thin volume, hovers over the Hunan Museum (2011-2017), guarding the museum’s core display down below, the Mawangdui Han Tomb, a heritage dating back more than 2,000 years....

“World Citizen” has another meaning: in many of his projects in China, Isozaki continues to work on several spatial themes of universal significance that he has been recurrently investigating throughout his life. This exhibition highlights two of them in particular:

Theme 1: ‘Technology and Ruins’ - Isozaki, on the one hand, continuously and fervently explores: how various new technologies, such as large-span space frame structure, mega infrastructure, cybernetics, robotics, and internet, etc., can bring about spatial liberation for human beings? At the same time, on the other hand, he often reveals his pessimistic view on the future of technology and cities. If, from a developmentalist perspective, ancient ruins can always ‘incubate’ new cities; then, conversely, no matter how advanced and magnificent new cities are, they will invariably collapse and be reduced to ruins in the future.

Isozaki's contradictory judgments about the intertwining and cyclical relationship between past-future, rebirth-ruin are reflected in the ambiguous image of the two glass halls supported by gold and silver trees in the Shenzhen Cultural Center (1998-2007). They are also incarnated into a fierce confrontation between the "Expo Cloud" ceiling above and the “Ruined Theater” below in his proposal for the Shanghai World Expo Performing Arts Center (2006).

Theme 2: “Decentralizing Archipelago” - In the classical definition, the role of architecture is always associated with the maintenance of power, hierarchy, center and order. However, Isozaki, who began his practice in the 1960s when the ‘post-modern’ discourses were emerging, has frequently tried to use various spatial tactics to resist the single, absolute “center.” Sometimes he uses ironic methods, such as transforming the classics into inversion and ruin-like fragmentation to directly subvert the "center"; sometimes he tries to create discrete and networked "archipelagos" to indirectly dismember the “center.”

For example, in the Mirage City in Zhuhai (1994-1995), Isozaki proposes to build an artificial island in the South China Sea, far away from the mainland. Equipped with the emerging and supposedly “decentralized’/decentralizing” internet technology, the island would become a base for open and free information exchange in Asia, a new utopian town.

In terms of exhibition layout, in addition to displaying nine architectural projects in the central Main Hall, we have also transformed the Prologue Hall and Sub-Exhibition Hall at both ends into immersive experience spaces. On the one hand, we want to present the Shanghai World Expo Performing Arts Center and two urban design projects (The Sub-center of the Zhengdong New District CBD and Zhuhai Mirage City) in a special spatial atmosphere; at the same time, we want these two groups of works to perform dramas with the themes of "ruins" and "islands" at the beginning and end of the exhibition respectively - one is a dark tragedy, and the other bright comedy.

Running through the three exhibition halls is a set of Isozaki's unique architectural paintings, including two silkscreen print series, "Reduction" and "Darkness." These paintings use minimalist approach to highlight the core spatial concepts and formal elements of each architectural design. Each painting presents a pure, autonomous poetic fragment, and together the artworks reveal the diverse charm of Isozaki's architectural “ruins,” or “archipelago.”

For the display of individual architectural works, in addition to using conventional mediums, such as models, drawings, conceptual sketches and photos, we also produce two special sets of drawings for each project: the "Spatial Section" and "Mind-Island Mapping."

The “Spatial Section” highlights the foreground. It aims to summarize the architectural value of each project. Isozaki's spatial conception, in my opinion, is concentrated in his distinctive and classically cultivated “Tripartite” spatial configuration - base, body and roof. Therefore, dissecting his architecture vertically and displaying it in “sections” seems to be an appropriate method.

The "Mind-Island Map" restores the background. It attempts to sort out the historical contexts and origins of thoughts in each project. Combining the style of archaeological fragment display and the drawing methods of ancient nautical charts, we try to show how Isozaki in each project navigates through the “fragments” or “archipelago” of historical context, technological innovation, traditional inheritance and the evolution of architectural discipline itself, and how he weaves thoughts, refines languages, and ultimately adds his own fragments/islands to the vast sea of human civilization.

After nearly three decades of unremitting efforts, Arata Isozaki's works in China have formed a wonderful archipelago. We are honored to use this exhibition to invite everyone to visit his islands one by one, to appreciate the wonder of each, and to navigate in-between them, experiencing how they echo each other across distance.

The islands echo each other. What they jointly demonstrate is a China through the eyes of a World Citizen, a China that is pluralistic, open-minded, cherishing its traditions, looking to the future, and actively interacting with the world.