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China
Breathing new life: Tulou tower and plug-in, Lantian village, China by Rural Urban Framework + University of Hong KongSubscription
New into Old 2019 Highly Commended: with their tulou renovation projects, Rural Urban Framework alongside students at the University of Hong Kong are transforming ideas about urbanising the rural
Pushing the envelope: SO-IL, USASubscription
Ahead of the curve: Office Off Course, ChinaSubscription
The global village: building a future countrysideSubscription
No longer bucolic backwaters but networked centres for e-commerce, Chinese Taobao Villages are shaping the post-human landscape
Lu Wenyu: the emphasis on craft and precisionSubscription
The architecture and teaching of Lu Wenyu emphasises the virtues of craft and precision, using historical knowledge as the catalyst for innovation
Chinese archive
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Yiwu: China's trinket town
The Chinese city of Yiwu is undergoing a modern-day Gold Rush of novelty item suppliers
China’s shift from urban development to rural reconstruction
Source of both peasant revolution and cultural continuity, the countryside has long held a place in Chinese mythology
‘Bamboo has a fragile form of beauty, but in reality, in terms of tensile capacity, culms are stronger than steel’
An exploration of bamboo and adobe to support an ecological lifestyle at the Longquan International Biennale
‘Shenzhen’s Biennale regurgitates Central Party concerns in a festival of restraint’
The tenth offering of the UABB is a patrician approach to the ‘problem’ of urbanising China
‘Modern Beijing is no palimpsest city: its evolution is one of wiping off and replacing’
Is the ubiquity of ‘culture’ in the conservation and reuse of former industrial danweis related to a desire to conceal historical traumas and the political dimension of urban change?
‘Art is the impetus for the major transformation of Shanghai and beyond’
The cultural transformation brought about by urban development branded with art is a successful hybrid of state and market forces
‘This was a romantic art with mountain peaks of fantastic shapes and cloud-capped terraces’
Although landscape was long the primary theme of Chinese painting, the role of architectural depictions was an incredibly important one
Can the hutongs be saved?
Beijing Design Week shines a light on the marginalised hutong population of Dashilar, but in so doing feeds the gentrification machine
Folio: A Little Bit of Beijing
A graphic novels depicts the poetic charm of life in the hutongs, but also the difficulties
Editorial: Can infusing a building with a democratic plan encourage democracy?
Architects have been circumspect in their criticism of the Chinese state during the building boom that has bankrolled the profession through the recession
‘These mournful years, unproductive of building, were, however, productive of thought’
In the early twentieth century, China’s period of modernisation was also one of ‘foreignisation’
‘Nowhere is the Chinese counter-revolution more apparent’
China’s growing market for contemporary art has spawned an equally revolutionary crop of new buildings
‘Always and everywhere the mystic sense of a community with nature makes its influence felt’
In 1947, Sir John Pratt documents his grand journey across China
Outrage: ‘The cruel hukou system in China must stop’
The registration system victimises migrants from rural areas
Chinese Architectural Theory
The pattern of Chinese life is made up of the formalities of Confucianism and the informalities of Taoism. It is in the house that the demands of the former are satisifed
‘Quantity is rarely matched by quality’
Back in 2008, China’s focus on rapid expansion left architecture in the slipstream
‘Home-grown Chinese architects trained in America return with creative integrity’
Today, a new generation of architects shows a renewed commitment to design
Outrage: ‘If you think teachers are more important than school design, ask Sichuan’
When my children are away from me, I want them to be safe. Building design is central to that safety.
Tiananmen Square: the history of the world's largest paved square
Drawing its symbolic strength from its foregrounding of the people, Tiananmen Square is the architectural void at the core of the urban transformation of Beijing, from ancient imperial city to new socialist capital
IM Pei’s unbuilt 1948 Shanghai Museum
IM Pei’s first project, a Museum for Chinese Art published in 1948, explored themes of Chineseness he returned to 60 years later with his Suzhou Museum, but was misunderstood by Western critics
The ghost town Ai Weiwei built
The Western media mock the emptiness of the vast Chinese city of Ordos, but the true failure is Ai Weiwei’s disastrous attempts at development
A masterplan for China, XJTLU University Suzhou
Speakers from over 20 countries contributed to an exciting, critical and unfettered debate about the future of development in China
A masterplan for China, XJTLU University Suzhou
Speakers from over 20 countries contributed to an exciting, critical and unfettered debate about the future of development in China
Pedagogy: XJTLU, Suzhou, China
Despite historic roots in two eminent institutions − Xi’an Jiaotong University, founded in 1896 as the Nanyang Public School, and Liverpool University, the oldest university school of architecture in Britain − the recently established Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), a Sino-British partnership with a freshly minted Department of Architecture, feels completely new
A message to China
Wang Shu, the Chinese recipient of the 2012 Pritzker Prize, is a champion of architectural heritage in a country that has erased much of its built past
View From Suzhou, China
As the COP17 talks emphasise the need for action on climate change, China is using sustainable development as a political tool
National Library of China by KSP Jurgen Engel Architekten
Oriel Prizeman examines six recent libraries in the first of a new quarterly series on typology
O Outro, O Mesmo, São Paulo, Brazil and Shanghai, China
Cardboard shakes off its functional connotations to form an unlikely material for two art installations
Guangzhou, China – A rock and a high place: British architects complete major projects in China’s third city
Guangzhou Opera House testifies to the city’s huge cultural ambitions
Shanghai, China – The branding of nations: using buildings to bid for Chinese cash
All the word’s stage: countries show off at the Shanghai Expo keep to catch China’s eye
Macau, China – Boom town Macau mimics Vegas
Once a peaceful,historic resort, gambling boomnow sparks a dash for brash in the Vegas of the East
Feelings are Facts by Olafur Eliasson and Ma Yansong, Beijing, China
Eliasson and Yansong’s instalation challanges normal feelings of spacial awareness
The simplicity of Liu Jiakun’s workSubscription
November 2015: ChinaSubscription
1425: Vector Architects, MAD, Ai Weiwei, Original Design Studio, Amateur Architecture Studio, Wang Shu, Typology: Factories
Xu Tiantian: ‘The buildings are not iconic – they're more quiet’VideoSubscription
Xu Tiantian, founder of DnA (Design and Architecture), talks about acupuncture, ancient Chinese building techniques and rejecting icons after winning the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture at the Women in Architecture awards 2019
Wang Shu (b1963 - )Subscription
A poster boy confronting the issues that are failing Chinese architecture
‘We are able to experiment directly on the ground’Subscription
In conversation with Ma Yansong and Dang Qun from MAD Architects
A curated selection of the best architectural ideas in the world to
inspire your mind and feed your soul. Each special edition is created
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