ArchiLectures | Chen Zhen

Quoting from the title of Yu Hua’s short story collection <China in Ten Words>, the lecture tries to offer a panoramic review on the phenomenon of architecture and city in China.
“Nature” shows the primary philosophy in Chinese architecture and its pursuit of harmonizing with environment. “Courtyard” demonstrates the vital way of organizing space in Chinese architecture. “Garden” reflects the particular landscape esthetics and living dream.
“Tradition” is based on the complete system of ancient Chinese architecture that has been a part of Chinese culture. “Colonialism” narrates the strong input by the western culture after the opium war encountering Chinese architecture. “Modernism” is the long term puzzle for Chinese architects to achieve the Chinese way of modernity. These three words bring about the famous debate of “essence and form”.
The “Urbanization” dramatically changes the territory of Chinese cities and countryside as the result of “reform and open up” policy, and breaks the long term balance of “rural urban continuum”.
“Officiality” has been entitled to describe the architectural manifestation and the planning model of authoritarianism. “Radicalization” displays the drastic collision of the images of magic realism of the recent rapid development, on the background of the massive demolition and reconstruction, with caricatural buildings. In addition, the meaning of “Copycat” in China’s architecture might be different from its usage in western society.

Chen Zhen (born 1979 in China) is a Chinese architect and planner. He received Ph.D degree from Politechnico di Milan in architectural composition. From 2001 he started the professional career. He is co-founder of RECS ARCHITECTS (Milan, Parma, Fortaleza). Since 2013 he has been the contract professor in school of Architettura Civile, Politechnico di Milan, teaching optional course “Project of Architectural and City in China”.

University:
Beijing University of Technology, China