Micro-Urbanism:Dialogue between Hou Hanru and Architect Chang Yung Ho.

Yung Ho Chang is one of China's leading architects. After studying and teaching in the US for 15 years, he returned to his native Beijing in the early 1990s to establish its first private architecture firm, Atelier FCJZ ("Fei Chang Jian Zhu" or "Unusual Architecture").

In the unprecedented rapid and radical modernization and urbanization process in China, questions of international influence and Chinese tradition, as well as globalization and local specificity, have become the main issues in architectural and artistic debates and practices.

Having experience of living and working in both the West and China, Yung Ho Chang critically observes and analyzes the current urban explosion in China and proposes highly inventive solutions.

Inspired by both the transformational capacity of traditional Chinese architecture and urban planning, as well as contemporary developments in architecture, economics and technology, Yung Ho Chang's firm have developed new concepts and approaches, namely "Micro-Urbanism," to negotiate the urban condition of high density and complexity.

From April 22 to May 22, 1999 an exhibition entitled " Street Theater" took place in Apext Art in New York (curated by Hou Hanru and Evelyne Jouanno). This was to be Atelier FCJZ's first solo exhibition in the US. Chang created a site-specific installation to provide the audience with a direct and corporeal experience of his architectural vision and projects. One part of the installation functioned as a "Street Theater" (the other a "Peepshow Theater") in which a dialogue between Beijing's urban reality and Chang's innovative projects in the city takes place. Visible from outside and inside, it is also an intelligent and efficient "translation" of a made-in-China context while adding strong visual impact to the New York street context.

Yung Ho Chang's new adventure is to attempt bring an architectural investigation into the context of the visual arts and follows on from his exhibition design for two versions of "Cities on the Move" exhibition in the Vienna Secession and the Louisiana Museum in Denmark.

CHANG Yung Ho: Currently, a good number of people look at contemporary Chinese architecture in terms of oppositions between East and West. I think the real issue involves questions of how one perceives Western influence on contemporary Chinese architecture and does import of architectural ideas and structures always equal invasion?

Throughout history, Chinese culture has assimilated more than a few ideas from the outside. In fact, many cultures are able to take something from others and make it into their own. During the process of assimilation, however, the idea loses its foreign-ness and becomes just another idea. Therefore, to understand Chinese architecture today through an East vs. West argument is rather too simplistic .

Hou Hanru: Are you saying that the pursuit of a Chinese identity is motivated by the presence of Western culture in China?

CYH: To a certain extent, yes. Foreign culture is like a mirror, which makes you realize that you are or should be different from the other. Then the complex process of rejecting, learning, and absorbing begins . And then you begin to ask: What is Chinese? What is not? What are the cultural definitions? Is this contemporary Chinese or ancient Chinese? Though one never get a clear answer to any of these issues.

Chinese believe in the middle-of-the-road approach, meaning everyone is a conformist. Can an individual still be effective in such a society? And how? This for me is an interesting challenge. In my architectural practice, the size of the project is not relevant. It is always a part of a larger context. However, can an architect as an individual create a positive influence upon this larger urban context of China through the design of a part, even a rather small part? That is how I like to define my practice.

With more contact with the outside, we have certain pressures that many other Chinese architects don't experience. Most Chinese architects are free of any moral burden in taking on an idea which has been done before. That for us is impossible. We are constantly working under some kind of Foucault-esque gaze. This gaze is also looking for a Chinese identity. I believe Chinese or Asian identity is more than a formal issue; it is far more complex. In our work, it is something uniquely Asian, that is to do with urban density.

Beijing May not be the best example of such a city, as Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong, are all much denser. However, density can be seen as the outcome of engaging in such an urban life style.

HHR: Speaking of density, there is an interesting phenomenon that the architect Rem Koolhaas refers to with regard to Asian cities, and now influences the way the Dutch regard their own environment. All of sudden, they realize Holland is the densest country in the world, it seems to has become a fashionable topic among architects.

CYH: However, Americans' attitude towards density has been always negative. Density for them tends to mean lower living standards. A quintessential Modernist idea. Le Corbusier's Radiant City is based on fresh air and sun light. And air and light is the antithesis of density.

Another concern in our work is the relationship to the found object. A conversation I had recently with the artist Chen Zhen was very enlightening on this subject. He talked about the importance of transformation of found objects or ready-mades employed in works of art.

In the SMOCA (Small Museum of Contemporary Art) project we are designing for the artist Cai Guoqiang, we are incorporating previously used building materials. It will be critical to how we transform these particular found objects or building parts when dealing with traditional construction methods. We are attempting to design a roof by putting together four found traditional wooden trusses of various sizes. Due to the difference in size, the resulting rooftop will certainly not be traditional, if not quite strange. A very rational design method is used and it leads to an irrational product. I'm acutely interested in this process.

I hope to realize another proposal this year involving traditional courtyard houses in Beijing. Numbers of small sheds have been built in the yards of the hutong's by the residents themselves, such as kitchens or additional sleeping areas, etc. The quality of these sheds is very limited and I often wonder what can be achieved if architects were to be involved in their construction. As long as the residents were in agreement, I would like to take some architecture students and help them to redesign and rebuild the sheds.

HHR: This is a positive take on otherwise destructive modifications of an old architecture.

CYH: Yes. These existing, spontaneous additions could be seen as quite a negative addition to a traditional space. Yet, if you analyze such a phenomenon, there is an inevitability and rationality behind them. Architects should not turn their heads away from it, right?

HHR: This reminds me of the term "light urbanism" which is being discussed in architectural circles in the West and attempts to take the chaos of everyday life into consideration of the architectural design of city planning.

CYH: It might be forced to do so if such efforts are made systematic. I refer to "micro-urbanism" whereby if every single building, regardless of its size, achieves a positive relationship with the city, the city will certainly become a more dynamic place to live.

Having a group of people and buildings together does not make a city, although you have what might be seen as a settlement. Singular buildings could have a "macro side" - a building grows into or becomes a city - as well as a micro side - where a kitchen, a toilet, or a storage equally form part of the urban context.

This notion is significant for Beijing today, and it should not remain just an idea on paper. Unlike what often happens in the US, it is possible to put such idea into action. Therefore, we are looking for one courtyard house to do; or a shed for one family, if not all the sheds in a yard.

This approach we have is also about defining the role of the architect within society today.

End.

Huaqiao Hotel, Beijing. February 20, 1999