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of history. I just visited some projects here
in Spain where I see that connection with
what you were saying Chinese architects feel.
GD: But you yourself are part of a different
kind of fusion: you live in New York, teach
in China, and travel around the world. You
know how to identify those resemblances
between Chinese and Spanish architecture,
and talk about a nostalgic concept of beauty
that I’d like to know more about. As I see
it, both countries face different conditions
and cultures, as well as a different period
in contemporary history.
VB: Many of the leading independent ar-
chitects in China are now building on small
scale in the countryside. And you can find a
number of interesting projects here in Spain,
also built outside of big cities. I just went
to see the work of RCR in Olot, a town out-
side of Girona. They work with the context,
with abandoned or historic buildings, and
blend the old and the new. I feel this is also
happening in China. There is a kind of re-
discovery of history and traditions, and a
sort of refusal to start from zero and create
something that jumps into the future. For
instance, your Alila Yangshuo Hotel is based
on the foundations and ruins of a build-
ing from the late 1960s, but it’s treated as
ruins. It’s an interesting shift, and you can
see this happening in Spain as well. There
is a respect for what was there before, and
I think that this attitude is different from
that of architects years ago. Instead of try-
ing to create this completely new, artificial
object, now it’s a lot more about creating an
environment, accommodation, comfort and
working for the public.
GD: Modernism is almost like a revolu-
tion in terms of how the architecture en-
gages with the system of production of this
technology. Even the mindset, the culture,
and religion change its philosophy. Also,
the architecture system becomes more and
more closed, more focussed on a final object
in which all the components in architecture
are integrated into a system. For instance,
a cell phone, like this iPhone, is perfectly
designed. Everything inside is such a smart
system that it starts rejecting any relation
with the exterior, because it is a closed
object. This idea can be exported to many
fields, but in architecture, since modernity,
a more introspective model is produced.
Only if we have in mind the place, people,
heritage, or tradition will it be possible for
the system to open up and let users interact
with all these conditions, making the ar-
chitecture more inviting, more comfortable.
