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larly in Beijing. It was also the year when
Wang Shu finished his Ningbo Museum;
probably the first time in years that a local
architect could compete with foreign ones.
It is interesting because you, just like many
important architects of your generation,
started working in China, but had studied
in the United States.
GD: I think the entire nation was trying
to use that event to build a sort of pride and
confidence in the identity of the new China,
the contemporary China that is integrated
into the world. That kind of mindset gave
the whole nation strength, inviting first
tier architects to design large-scale works
– such as the CCTV headquarters by OMA
and the Bird’s Nest stadium by Herzog &
de Meuron – and really get them built. But
after that there’s a very subtle change of
mindset, because most of the foreign ar-
chitects don’t have a very direct knowledge
and engagement with China. They encoun-
ter many difficult situations along the way
and it is hard for them to adapt to the
country’s mechanisms, so they don’t all
manage to settle successfully in China. At
the same time, architects of my generation,
but trained in the West, start to appear on
the horizon, with the clear advantage of
being local. In sum, we have learned the
techniques of contemporary architecture
and at the same time share that deep love
for our culture.
VB: Yes, I’d say there’s a counter-trend,
a kind of opposition on the side of Chinese
architects towards imported architecture,
that in some way was developing a national
identity that wasn’t their own. Your genera-
tion, on the contrary, proposed an alternative.
Not exactly Western and not exactly Chinese,
but rather a sort of fusion of both, and it has
generated a lot of interest among Western
professionals and critics. There is some sense
of creating something different, something
that’s related to culture, to the place, con-
temporary yet based on tradition. You can
see it in the use of materials and techniques.
GD: But what does architecture consist
of? To me, the most complicated and at
the same time satisfactory aspect is when
you truly engage with a place and discover
something of your own in it, culturally
speaking. You get to know the place. It is
a sort of emotional commitment that lies in
the heart of architecture as I know it. It is
where inspiration comes from. Architecture
must be able to engage with the local condi-
tion in multiple layers, but when you build
in places where you don’t know the archi-
tecture, the building becomes a product and
the architect becomes a brand.
VB: However, there is one character-
istic quality that unites all these works,
something which is rarely talked about in
academic circles, and that’s the subject of
beauty. Seductive beauty I would say, very
related to this idea of nostalgia and not just
the newness of the work: the nostalgic beauty
“Architecture must
always be able to engage
with the local condition
in multiple layers“
