Drowning In Culture

After visiting Shanghai I firmly believe that the city beats Los Angeles in being the least pedestrian friendly. The above image was taken from one of the city’s many pedestrian bridges which are the only way of traversing the many megalithic boulevards that criss-cross the metropolis. Oddly enough, I have begun to formulate the conclusion that congestion (of the traffic kind) is coupled with spaces of extreme Capitalism. As the need to move physical capital (real goods) increases, planners awareness of the human scale diminishes. Shanghai certainly falls into this category, and whilst there I found that the city is in the rapid process of re-designing itself around the automobile (though the subway does get you where you need to go…again the spaces of capital). Urban planners have dealt with the inevitable problems of pedestrian fatalities by building a network of pedestrian bridges over city streets whose scale mirrors that of L.A.’s freeways. What results is a complex maze of tunnels and bridges that force pedestrians to reconstruct their cognitive maps of central Shanghai in order to avoid what happened to me on my quest to find a working ATM. Our group was ensconced in the Holiday Inn Plaza, which fronts the gargantuan strip of asphalt depicted in the photograph. In order to prevent pedestrians from running across the street Shanghai’s urban engineers have placed 42″ high fences curbside thus forcing one to walk up a block to a pedestrian bridge, and back down the block to their destination, suddenly turning a quick exercise in “jay walking” into a 20 minute round-trip jaunt, complete with deformed beggars and the occasional street hawker, who invariably add friction to the whole enterprise. To answer the obvious query- Hopping the aforementioned barriers is akin to leaping into the lanes at a NASCAR event and as anyone who has been to China can attest will put you into harms way.

The irony of the whole situation was that I had berated a group of my students for designing a similar type of infrastructural system a week earlier in our Nanjing studio. While at the time they obviously thought I was coming off as a blow-hard, since they had mediated the scheme by adding “shopping”, a fitting punishment would have been to lead them by the collar on my ATM venture, which undoubtedly would have either have convinced them of the inherent faults of their sadistic scheme or reminded them that they needed to renew their memberships  to the Marquis De Sade Society.

DO NOT BUILD CITY STREETS WIDER THAN IS NECESSARY TO JAY WALK TO AN ATM.

So after two weeks back in paradise my body is beginning to return to it’s original state. I’ve managed to rack up enough sleep to at least convince my body that sleeping till 7 is a good idea. I’ve also made the rounds to all of my favorite haunts and watering holes, telling folks of my travels, and through it all managing not to turn the trip into one long soundbite. However, since the studio was far from a vacation, I’m still working on refining my academic observations about China into a more developed article which I will probably work on in a few weeks once I catch up in the office. In the meantime, enjoy the images, which I will post when I find the time.

I woke up around 345 AM this morning wishing that I hadn’t slept on the plane from Beijing to L.A. As it turns out my body decided that tired or not, it was ready to start the day. 12 hours later I feel like “ass” and have been pretty much working since Emily and I got back from breakfast and grocery shopping at 645 AM (do the math, we accomplished a lot while most folks were still happily sleeping). L.A. is such a wonderfully dynamic city and I appreciate the diversity that Chinese culture lacks (ethnicity being a big part of it). I hadn’t been driving for more than fifteen minutes when some guy pulled up in a tricked out low-rider blasting based-out Hip-Hop music. The thing I’ll miss the most about China though is the intense sense of community that exists in the cities. In every district or neighborhood I visited (save for the French Concession in Shanghai) I found a rich and vibrant community, complete with privately owned commercial infrastructure. I don’t think I ever had to walk more than two blocks to grab a yogurt pot, a bowl of dumplings, or a razor for that matter. The intensity of the Hutong communities in Beijing really left an impression. Nowhere in my travels have I seen such a multi-layered, networked community. It really draws into question the notion of density and how it affects social interaction. If you ask a beijing resident if they’d trade their 3 SqM hovel for a nicer pad in a tower on the periphery, most would probably say “no”. I don’t think it has to do with architecture so much as urban planning. To be successful, the city of the future will need a complex network of architectures that resolve the dangling problems left by the Modernist tower block.

The new Beijing Airport is amazing. It took 5 years to design, engineer, and build what is now the largest airport in the entire world. Everything works wonderful except for one thing. Whomever was in charge of designing the restaurants on the secure side of customs designed everything, except the restaurants. 

There is only one to serve each arm of the entire terminal and if your gate is at the opposite end you’re screwed.  Emily and I dragged our bags for what felt like a mile to “The Border Cafe” which to be fair did serve us a nice sandwich and a fine shot of Jack Daniels. Note to China- folks stuck in airports in other parts of the world like to do more than shop the duty free. We like to drink and enjoy the occasional meal- especially now that the airlines are cutting back on food service (save for Air China, who feeds you till you are bursting). In any case, I guess if this is my only gripe with the airport than Foster deserves a pat on the back. For those planning to attend Beijing for the 2008 Games- bring a sandwich on your way out, you’ll need it.

So Emily and I spent our last day in Beijing tooling around Tiananmen Square and decided to check out the final resting place of China’s “Great Leader”. It was a little freaky, but we stood in line at Mao’s Mausoleum and before we knew it we were being ushered past a very orange (formaldehyde you see) looking Mao, draped in a hammer and sickle flag, and kept safe from would-be desecrators behind several layers of glass. He even had his own set of guards (I’m not sure if the job would be scary or just boring). Before we knew it we were back outside, blinking in the smog and haze of one of the most controlled spaces in the world. Tiananmen is pretty amazing. I’ve heard descriptions of how tight the security is, but it was amazing to see all of the police, military, and surveillance systems that keep potential agitators in check. There is nowhere to sit, and I can only imagine how brutal it must be to walk around the square on a hot day. It seems like such a waste, and is a clear left-over from a brutal regime. Perhaps one day the Chinese will host a competition to breathe some life into Tiananmen. Until then it will only serve as a physical reminder of the totalitarian policies of the Chinese Government.

After a tour of Arup_Beijing our group headed over to CCTV to check out the progress.

We’d already been briefed by the folks at Arup who are experts on the buildings progress, since they are not only the structural engineer on the project, but have a nifty view of the site from across the street.

We visited the Beijing Olympic Stadium by Swiss Architects Herzog De Meuron and found it to be one of the most popular photo spots amongst the Chinese. Our students had other plans for the visit- to determine the accessability of the site. What we found was these guys posted (in the rain) every 200 feet or so. Well all I can say is that they really don’t want you in there because our students went back that night, cash in hand and only got as far as the second gate before they got turned in.

(Click on images to enlarge)

Swiss Architecture firm Herzog De Meuron’s 2008 Olympic stadium is almost finished. I haven’t seen it yet, but stay tuned for some follow-up pictures next week. In the meantime, I’ve been fascinated by what has to be the most co-opted architectural imagery next to F.O.G.’s Disney Concert Hall. The first image is a post in the front window of the Adidas Store, the second an bus stop ad for a soft drink, and then third an ad on the back of a bus seat for a “Andrological” hospital in Nanjing.

I think the term “familiarity breeds contempt” defines this image, taken on the front steps of a Confucian temple in downtown Nanjing.  Poor Mao, he was being sold off as book ends, ash trays, or in this case, a well rendered “lawn jockey”.  As I mentioned before, we travel to Beijing later on next week and I have to wonder at how the older Party members recall 1960’s era China.  Is it with fondness or regret?  Are the new developments in the country’s capital merely a new mutation of the Cultural Revolution wrought by Mao & Co in the 60’s and 70’s, this time with the China’s architectural heritage as the victim, or do they truly represent a monumental change for a country that has denied it’s cultural connection to the rest of the globe for so long?