moja vizija arhitekture wang shu my vision of architecture Fotografije: arhiv arhitekta / Photos: architect’s archive Foto: Andraž Kavčič Tipična slika iz dinastije Song. Razdeljena je na dve polovici. Typical Song Dynasty painting, divided in two halves. Leva polovica predstavlja preteklost. The left half represents the past. Wang Shu je skupaj z ženo Lu Wenyu ustanovitelj in glavni protagonist Amateur Architecture Studia, biroja, ki deluje v mestu Hangzhou, in je od ustanovitve leta 1998 zrasel v pomembno in posebno ime Kitajske arhitekture. Ime biroja izhaja iz analize stanja na Kitajskem, kjer se večinoma gradi spontano, ilegalno in začasno, amatersko arhitekturo, ki je zanj postala prava šola in vir navdiha. Dela Amateur Architecture Studia so bila predstavljena na številnih mednarodnih razstavah in objavljena v mednarodnih revijah. Wang Shu je tudi profesor na kitajski umetnostni akademiji v Hangzhouju in ustanovitelj tamkajšnjega oddelka za arhitekturo. Na današnjem predavanju želim govoriti o svoji viziji arhitekture, ki prihaja od znotraj in od zunaj. Na Kitajskem vodim arhitekturni biro po imenu Amateur Architecture Studio (studio za amatersko arhitekturo). Danes se na Kitajskem arhitekti boje, da bi ljudje rekli, da niso profesionalni. Vendar pa so profesionalni urbanisti in arhitekti v zadnjih dvajsetih letih dodobra uničili tradicionalno arhitekturo po vsej Kitajski. Jaz se zato ukvarjam z amatersko arhitekturo. Arhitektura je zame vprašanje tega, kar lahko napraviš z lastnimi rokami. V biroju, ki ga vodim skupaj z ženo in s svojimi pomočniki, vsi znamo graditi, ne pa le projektirati arhitekture. Vsi znamo risati in graditi. Naš način razmišljanja o arhitekturi temelji globoko v kitajski tradiciji. Kitajska tradicija pa je tudi del Evropskega načina razmišljanja. Vzdušje, ki spominja na Evropsko renesanso 15. stoletja, se je na Kitajskem pojavilo že pred 1500 leti. To je bil čas velikih sprememb v kitajskem načinu razmišljanja. Pred tem obdobjem so slike večinoma Wang Shu is the founder and protagonist of Amateur Architecture Studio together with his wife Lu Wenyu. Since its being founded in 1998, their Hangzhou- based architectural office grew to be a significant and exceptional representative of Chinese architecture. The office derives its name from the analysis of the Chinese building conditions, where architecture is for the most part spontanteous, illegal, and temporary and amateurish -conditions that Wang Shu in turn learnt a lot from and saw as an inspiration. Works created by Amateur Architecture Studio were shown in numerous international exhibitions and published in international professional magazines. Wang Shu also serves as lecturer at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, and is the founder of its architecture department. The lecture I’m giving today is about my vision of architecture that comes from the inside and the outside. I the head of an architectural studio called Amateur Architecture Studio. In today’s China, architects are afraid of the peo ple, saying how they are not professionals. But actually, the professional urban planners and architects have been destroying our architectural tradition all over the country for the past twenty years. So I think I should do amateur architecture. Architecture is the question of what you can do with your own hands. So in the studio that I have with my wife and my six assistants, we all know how to build, not only how to design architecture. All of us can draw and construct. Our way of thinking about architecture is deeply rooted in the Chinese tradition. But the Chinese tradition is invested in the European way of thinking as well. A spirit similar to the European Renaissance of the 15th century was present in China more than 1500 years ago. That was a time of big changes in the Chinese way of thinking. Before that, for example, upodabljale ljudi in ponazarjale zgodovino ali neko zgodbo. V času dinastije Song, okrog 10. stoletja, pa je nastopila velika sprememba, saj je glavni slikarski motiv postala pokrajina sama. Ljudje na slikah so postali manj pomembni od narave, le še pomožni motiv oziroma sestavni del pokrajine. Sistem oblikovanja krajine je postajal vse pomembnejši. Tipična slika iz obdobja Song je razdeljena na levo in desno polovico. Levi del slike govori o preteklosti, desni pa o prihodnosti kitajske filozofije. Preteklost je tradicija, prihodnost pa je smer, v katero se misel razvija. Motiv je na pogled nedotaknjena narava v gorah. Vendar pa gore v resnici predstavljajo cel sistem oblikovanja gorske krajine, ki je zelo zapleten, saj v njem prebivajo ljudje. Slika govori o podeželskem načinu življenja. Mesto je potisnjeno ob rob slike. Najboljše življenje tako ni v mestu, ampak na podeželju. Zgradbe so postale del krajine, od katere jih ni več mogoče ločiti. Ta zelo značilna slika je postala kitajski vzorec razmišljanja. Skozi nekatera moja dela bi rad pokazal, kako lahko kitajsko tradicijo znova uporabimo v sodobni kitajski arhitekturi. V manjšem mestu Jinhua v provinci Zhejiang sem sodeloval pri zanimivem projektu. Na projektu je sodelovalo sedemnajst arhitektov: enajst tujcev, štirje kitajski arhitekti in dva kitajska umetnika. Nekateri od sodelujočih arhitektov so zelo slavni, vsakdo od nas pa je napravil načrte za majceno zgradbo. Jaz sem zgradil majhno, 100 m2 veliko kavarno na rečnem obrežju. V kitajski tradiciji umetnosti, arhitekture pa tudi drugih področij je prva in najpomembnejša izbira materiala. Načrtovati ne začenjamo iz konceptualne zasnove oblikovanja zgradbe, temveč skozi izbiro materiala. Materiali so vedno uporabljeni zelo neposredno in resnično. Skozi izbiro materialov skušamo predstaviti resnico, naravo in njun pomen. Za kavarno sem uporabil keramične ploščice, ki jih izdeluje moj prijatelj, umetnik. Ploščice so bile izdelane za preizkušanje barvnih odtenkov, meni pa so se zdele tako lepe, da sem se jih odločil uporabiti v svoji arhitekturi. Računalnika ne znam uporabljati, zato vedno rišem na roke, s svinčnikom. V našem biroju na roke narišem skice, moji asistenti pa jih prenesejo v računalnik. Vsakdo ima svojo vizijo o zgradbi: arhitekt, ki jo načrtuje in ljudje, ki jo bodo uporabljali. Vizija uporabnikov je tista, ki v resnici ustvari vzdušje zgradbe in ji daje pomen. V moji viziji kavarne njena zunanjost sploh ni pomembna. Ko ljudje znotraj kavarne stojijo ali se posedejo, v hipu vzpostavijo odnos z zunanjostjo in z okoliško pokrajino, kar je zelo pomembno. Odnos z zunanjostjo je mogoče doseči na zelo preprost način – jaz mu rečem veliko okno s pogledom na vrt. Zamisel je sicer enostavna, je pa zelo učinkovita. the paintings were mostly depicting people in order to convey a point about the history or to tell a story. But around the 10th century, during the Song Dynasty, there was a big change – painters took the landscape as their primary motive. People were often only auxiliary subjects, only parts of the landscape and not as important as the nature. The painters were drawing the space without any story about the people. The creation of the landscape system was becoming more and more important in China. The typical Song Dynasty painting is divided into two halves, the left one and the right one. The left half of the painting is about the past and the right half is about the future of Chinese thinking of that time. The past is the tradition and the future is the direction of the development. The subject depicted is deep, seemingly untouched nature in the mountains. But in fact, the mountains represent the system of the mountain landscape, which is very complex and inside which people live. The painting talks about the rural life. The city is pushed to the corner of the image. The best life is not found in the city but in the countryside. The buildings are mixed into the landscape and cannot be separated from it. This is a very typical painting that has come to represent the thinking pattern for the Chinese. I would like to demonstrate through some of my work how we can reuse this Chinese tradition in the contemporary architecture of China. There was a project we made in Jinhua, a small city like Piran, in the Zhejiang province. The project was collaboration between seventeen architects – eleven foreign architects, four Chinese architects, and two Chinese artists. Some of the architects were very famous, but everybody only designed a small building. I designed a coffee house of about 100 m2 along the river banks of the city. In the Chinese tradition of art and architecture, as well as in many other fields, the first and most important thing is the choice of materials. The starting point of the design is not the concept but the material. The use of materials is very direct and it stays true to the material. Through the choice of materials, we try to convey the truth and the nature, and their meaning. So for this coffee house, the first step of the design was the choice of the material. I used ceramic tiles which were made by my friend, who is a ceramic artist. They were made as colour tests but when I saw them, I thought the were really beautiful so I decided to use them in my architecture. I don’t know how to use the computer, I always design by pencil. When I work in my studio, I make the sketches in pencil and my assistants transform them into computer drawings. With every building the architect designs, there are people that are going to use it, and everybody has a vision. The user’s vision makes the atmosphere of the building come to life, it creates its meaning. In my vision about the Coffee House, its outside is not Desna polovica predstavlja sedanjost. The right half represents the present. Keramične ploščice, kavarna v mestu Jinhua. The ceramic tiles, Jinhua coffee house.. Moja risba kavarne v mestu Jinhua. My drawing of the Jinhua coffee house Veliko okno in vrt, kavarna v mestu Jinhua The big window and the garden, Jinhua coffee house. Tri pozicije s katerih izkusimo kavarno. The three positions of experiencing the coffee house. predavanje Ribnik, kadar je prazen, kavarna v mestu Jinhua. The water pond when it is empty, Jinhua coffee house. Pogled s strehe kavarne v mestu Jinghua. View from the rooftop, Jinhua coffee house. Feng Shui drevo pri vhodu v tradicionalno kitajsko vas. The Feng Shui tree at the entrance to the traditional Chinese village. Moj arhitekturni koncept zajema tako zgradbo kot tudi vrt, saj se arhitektura prvenstveno ne ukvarja z oblikovanjem zgradb, ampak z oblikovanjem krajine. Pokrajina je pomemben del arhitekture. Tako je celota kavarne arhitektura, čeprav je več kot polovica vrt. Arhitektura v resnici ni zgradba. Pozicija, iz katere doživimo arhitekturo, je izjemno pomembna. Prva je sedeča ali stoječa pozicija znotraj zgradbe, ko opazujemo pokrajino zunaj in drevesa v vrtu, ki v notranjost vstopajo skozi vrata. Druga pozicija je pozicija na strehi s pogledom na pokrajino, ki daje drugačno perspektivo, z manjšimi koti. Tretja pa je običajna pozicija, torej pogled na zgradbo od zunaj. Kavarni sem dodal majhen ribnik, ki se napolni z vodo le kadar dežuje. Kadar je vreme suho, ribnik postane dvorišče, na katerem ljudje lahko spijejo kavo ali čaj. Kadar pa dežuje, se dvorišče spremeni v ribnik. Ena od osnovnih ugotovitev o naravi v kitajski tradiciji je, da se narava stalno spreminja. Za arhitekta je pomembno, da zna zmožnost spreminjanja dobro izkoristiti. Če sediš v kavarni, kadar dežuje, lahko opazuješ kapljice vode in poslušaš njihovo škrebljanje, kar je zelo poetično in lepo. Tudi kadar ne dežuje, zgradba še vedno daje občutek dežja. Kavarna vzpostavlja širok odnos s pokrajino. Pomembno je notranjost primerjati z zunanjostjo, kakor je bilo to vedno prisotno v kitajski tradiciji gradnje. Kadarkoli razmišljam o svoji arhitekturi, vedno mislim zunanjost in notranjost hkrati. Tradicionalne kitajske vasi sledijo vzorcem sistema krajine, ki izvirajo daleč v zgodovini, in so bolj ali manj podobni v vsaki kitajski vasi. Še pred petdeset leti je bila ta tradicija še kako živa, vendar pa se je je do danes izgubilo že več kot 90 odstotkov. Vhod v vas je bil zelo pomemben. Označevalo ga je veliko drevo, Feng Shui drevo. Vasi so imele tudi trge – javne prostore, kjer se je pilo čaj, plesalo, itd. Za razliko od evropskih vasi, kot je na primer Piran, pa je bil osrednji prostor v vasi vedno prazen; srednji prostor je pripadal krajinski ureditvi, ljudje pa so morali svoje dejavnosti organizirati okrog njega. Najpomembnejša je pokrajina, ne pa ljudje. Oblikoval in zgradil sem Kitajski paviljon za beneški bienale leta 2006. V trinajstih dneh smo uspeli zgraditi ogromno stavbo, kakih 800 m3 zelo kvalitetne gradnje. Izračunal sem velikost prostora za gradnjo, tako da smo še pred prihodom v Benetke na Kitajskem zgradili poskusno verzijo – maketo paviljona v naravni velikosti. Ponavadi naredimo tako: preden se lotimo velikih zgradb, zgradimo poskusni model. Najprej sem predvidel, da potrebujem 150.000 recikliranih strešnikov, po gradnji modela pa sem videl, da jih rabim le kakšnih 60.000. Zato pa je zgradbo dobro poznati vnaprej. Delo smo ponovili v Benetkah, v skupini sestavljeni iz treh rokodelcev in šestih arhitektov. V začetku sem se bal, da gradnje ne bomo zmogli dokončati v roku, ampak čez kakšen teden je bilo important at all. What is important is that when people stand or sit inside, they instantly build a relationship with the outside and with the surrounding landscape. There is a very simple way to achieve this – I call it big “window with a garden”. The concept is simple, but very powerful. The building and the landscape are both part of my architectural concept, which is not so much about building or designing architecture but about the landscape. The landscape is a very important part in(side) architecture. So all this is architecture, even if more than half of it is the garden. Architecture is really not the building. The position from which you experience architecture is extremely important. The first position is standing or sitting inside, observing the outside landscape and watching the trees around the garden that pass through the windows to the inside. The second position is standing on the roof and looking at the wide variety of the landscape from a different perspective, with lower angles. There is also the common position – the view of the building from the outside. I designed a small water pond which fills with water only when it rains. When it doesn’t rain, the pond becomes a courtyard and people can have their coffee or tea there. But when it rains, it becomes a pond. One of the basic thoughts about the nature in the Chinese tradition is that the nature changes constantly. For an architect, it is very important to know how to use its capacity to change. If you sit inside when it rains, you see the water drops falling and hear the sound they make, it’s very poetic and beautiful. There’s a big window that allows you to see the garden. Even when there’s no rain, you still get the feeling of rain. The building has a wide relation with the landscape. It’s important to compare the outside with the inside as this has always been important in the Chinese tradition of building. Whenever you think about architecture, you are thinking inside and outside together. In traditional Chinese villages, we build the landscape system that’s more or less similar in every village all over the country, and it has a long history. Just fifty years ago, this tradition still existed, but now almost 90% of it has disappeared. The entrance to the village is very important. It is marked by the large tree called the Feng Shui tree. There is also the town square -a public space used for having tea, dancing, etc. But as opposed to European villages like Piran for example, the central space is left empty; it’s just about the landscape so the people have to organise their activities around the central landscape. This means that the people are not in the centre, the centre is the landscape. I designed and built the Chinese Pavilion for the 2006 Venice Biennale of Architecture. Within thirteen days, we completed a large construction, about 800 m2 of very high quality building. I calculated the size of the site and before coming to Venice, we built the experimental construction – a model. This is the way SLO ENG jasno, da nam bo uspelo. Gradnja je bila zelo kakovostna, izpeljana po načrtih ljudi, ki so na njej delali. Delo pa ni bilo lahko, saj so strešniki precej težki. Junija sem obiskal Benetke in preračunal kote sonca okrog velikega drevesa, ki je stalo blizu prostora, namenjenega našemu paviljonu. Vsak dan popoldan se je na tleh prostora, predvidenega za gradnjo paviljona, pojavila senca drevesa. Naša streha je delovala kot ogledalo kroženja sonca, s podobnim pomenom kot voda v Benetkah: sence odsevajo na strehi, podobno kot se mesto zrcali v vodi. Na Kitajskem pa majhni strešniki tako ali tako simbolizirajo vodo. Moja naslednja skrb je, kako ljudje v moji arhitekturi živijo. Tipična tradicionalna kitajska slika iz 11. stoletja pripoveduje zgodbo o življenju ljudi, ki se vedno bolj približujejo resnici narave. Naslikan je budistični menih z dvema pticama, vsi skupaj pa spijo na istem kraju. Ptice in ljudje so med seboj povezani. V letih med 2001 in 2007 sem delal na zelo velikem projektu v mestu Hangzhou – gradili smo novi kampus Xiangshang za Akademijo umetnosti Hangzhou, ki je ena od dveh kitajskih umetniških akademij, druga je v Pekingu. Akademija se zelo hitro širi, pred letom 2000 je imela skupaj 1000 profesorjev in študentov, zdaj pa je študentov 9000, profesorjev pa 1000. Zaradi naraščanja števila študentov je potrebovala nov kampus. Na Kitajskem se je pojavilo mnogo komentarjev, ki so trdili, da je krajinska ureditev kampusa čudna, saj je nekoliko neobičajna. Vendar pa je ravno krajinska ureditev z gričem najpomembnejši del kampusa, ne pa arhitektura. Vsa moja arhitektura je le reakcija na grič. Podobni grički so značilni za Hangzhou, ki je krajinsko res bogato mesto, v okolici mesta jih je vsaj dvesto podobnih. Gradnja kampusa je potekala v dveh fazah, prva je bila končana leta 2004. Moje projektiranje kampusa sta vodila dva tokova misli. Najprej razmišljanje od zunaj navznoter, potem pa še razmišljanje v smeri od znotraj navzven. Razmislek o možnih pogledih, ki se odpirajo iz zgradbe, uporabnikom omogoča, da vzpostavijo odnos do zunanje pokrajine. Vhodna vrata v kampus so zelo visoka, približno 6 metrov, tako da omogočajo razgled na pokrajino. Ko je bila zgradba dokončana, so ljudje komentirali, da je podobna neki slavni kitajski sliki iz obdobja pred 10. stoletjem. Opazke so mi bile po godu, saj je bila moja ideja v resnici podobna: s pomočjo arhitekture ponovno izgraditi odnos do zgodovine, na primer do deset stoletij kitajske slikarske tradicije. Ko je bila gradnja zaključena, me je prijatelj, ameriški arhitekt, vprašal, kdaj je nastal grič. Ob vprašanju sem se za trenutek obotavljal, potem pa si je nanj odgovoril kar sam: »Grič je nastal, ko je nastala zgradba!« Pokazal je pravo razumevanje moje arhitekture! we usually work in my office – before building large buildings, we make the experimental construction. At first I thought I needed to transport 150,000 recycled tiles to Venice, but after building a model, I found out that I only needed about 60,000 tiles. It is important to know the construction beforehand. And then we worked in Venice. There were three craftsmen and six architects forming a small team. At first, I was afraid we wouldn’t finish the construction in time but after a week, it became obvious that the work could be finished. The construction was of very high quality, designed by the people who were working on it. We used bamboo to make a strong structure in a completely new way. We finished the structure and then put the tiles on the structure. The work was very hard, because the tiles were quite heavy. I visited the site in Venice in June and I calculated the angles of the sunlight around a large tree that was standing there. I found out that every day around 4 p.m., the shade of the tree emerged on our tiled roof. Our roof became the mirror of the movement of the sun, so in one way it has the same meaning as the water in Venice: the shadow is reflected on the tiled roof just as the city is reflected in the water. In China, small tiles mean water. My next concern is how people are to live in my architecture. A typical traditional Chinese painting from the 11th century tells the story about how people live and how they come closer and closer to the truth of nature. There is a Buddhist monk and two birds in the image, and they all sleep in the same place. People and birds are connected in China. Between 2001 and 2007, we worked on a very large project in Hangzhou – we made the new Xiangshang Campus for the Hangzhou Art Academy. It’s one of China’s two art academies – the other one is in Beijing. The academy is expanding very quickly: before the year 2000, there were only 1000 teachers and students, but now there are 10,000 people – 1000 teachers and 9000 students. That was the reason it needed a new campus. In China, many people said that the landscape design of the campus was very strange due to its unusual angles. But for me, the landscape with the hill is the most important part of the campus, not the architecture. All of my architecture was conceived as a reaction to this hill. Such small hills are very common in Hangzhou -there may be 200 small hills like that one. It’s really a landscape city. The building was built in two phases; the first one was finished in 2004. Two different trains of thought shaped the design of the campus. First, there was the thinking from the outside towards the inside; the other one was from the inside towards the outside, allowing people inside to see into the land and to have a relationship to the landscape. The entrance doors are very high – about six metres -to allow the view to the landscape. When the building was finished, people Moja skica paviljona za beneški bienale 2006. My sketch for the 2006 Biennale pavilion. Gradnja v Benetkah. The construction process in Venice. Sence, ki kažejo odsev mesta kot v vodi. The shadows that reflect the city like the water. Tipična kitajska slika iz 11. stoletja: menih in dve ptici. Typical painting from 11th century: a Buddhist monk and two birds. predavanje Načrt novega kampusa Xiangshang. The master plan of the new campus Xiangshang. Prva faza gradnje kampusa Xiangshang, zaključena leta 2001. The first phase of the Xiangshang campus, finished in 2004. Prva faza gradnje kapusa Xiangshang. The first phase of the Xiangshang campus. Prva faza gradnje kapusa Xiangshang. The first phase of the Xiangshang campus. Naslednja slika iz obdobja dinastije Song, 10. stoletje, uporablja dve razmerji velikosti hkrati. Hkrati prikazuje pokrajino z vasjo daleč na obzorju, na drugi strani pa gledalca povabi, da v sliko dobesedno vstopi in opazuje mnoge majhne detajle. Gledalec se nahaja zunaj in znotraj slike hkrati. Kadar razmišljamo o strukturi narave, razmišljamo o resnici naravnih struktur. Kitajsko dojemanje narave temelji na občutku, da ljudje nimajo moči spreminjanja, da je le narava tista, ki ima moč dejanj. Najpomembnejše dejstvo o naravi je, da ni mrtva, temveč da živi. Kako v arhitekturo prenesti živost trave in dreves? Moj način prostoročnega risanja in skiciranja je zelo podoben tradicionalni kitajski kartografiji. Ko se lotim novega projekta, najprej dolgo časa posvetim raziskovanju, potem o zgradbi in o vseh njenih detajlih natančno razmislim, včasih to traja tudi po šest mesecev. Potem pa naenkrat začutim, kakšna mora biti zgradba in jo narišem v enem zamahu. V nekaj urah narišem tloris in perspektivo. Moje risbe so zelo majhne, vseeno pa vanje vključim mnoge pomembne detajle. Narisane so v več merilih hkrati in obenem predstavijo zunanjost in notranjost. Koncepta ponavadi ne spreminjam več, potem ko je bil enkrat narisan. Če hočemo, da arhitektura postane podobna naravi in ji dati občutek živosti, je zelo pomembno, da upoštevamo podnebje, v katerem stoji. V področju Hangzhoua je eden najpomembnejših elementov voda, saj skoraj polovico leta dežuje. Arhitektura je struktura narave, ki jo ljudje preoblikujejo, zato je zelo pomembno, da jo dodobra razumemo. Arhitektura je narava, ki se približa ljudem. Zrak je prav tako zelo pomemben arhitekturni element mojega projekta za kampus. Na tipični sliki iz kitajske slikarske tradicije vidimo razred učencev z učiteljem. Tradicionalni sistem zasebnih akademij, ki se imenuje shuyuan, je bil čisto drugačen od današnjega modela univerzitetnega izobraževanja, bolj je spominjal na grški sistem filozofskih šol. Kadarkoli in v kateri koli starosti si lahko vstopil v univerzo in tudi zapustil si jo lahko po želji. Vsak dan so potekale razprave o resnici narave. Ko sem projektiral Akademijo umetnosti Hangzhou, sem si zamišljal izobraževalni model podoben tradicionalnemu sistemu shuyuan. Oblikovanje kampusa za akademijo ni le arhitekturna odločitev, temveč je tudi odločitev za določen model izobraževanja, ki ga arhitektura spodbuja. Želel sem oblikovati nov sistem izobraževanja, ki bi spremenil kitajske akademije in univerze. Zgradba je pokrajina, pokrajina je zgradba: sistema obeh se prepletata. Eno od zgradb na kampusu sem poimenoval abstraktna gora, saj ima toliko različnih plasti. Prva plast to zunanji hodniki, mostovži na fasadi, na katerih se zadržujejo študentje. Moje sanje bi bile poučevati kjerkoli! Zgradba ima tudi sistem, ki zunanjost povezuje z said it was similar to the famous painting that was made before the 10th century in China. I was very pleased with such comments, because this was really my idea. It is through architecture that people can rebuild their relation with their history, which in China means ten histories of tradition of painting for example. When the building was finished, an American architect, my friend, asked me when did the hill emerge. I thought about the question for a moment. But then he answered it himself: “The hill emerged after your building was finished.” This is a really concise understanding of my architecture! There is another painting from the 10th century, from the Song Dynasty. It uses two different scales at the same time: it shows the landscape with a village that’s quite far away, but in the other part of the painting, you enter into the landscape and see many small details. In this painting, the viewer is standing on the inside and on the outside at the same time. When you think about the structure of the nature, you think about the truth of the structures of the nature. In China, there is a prevalent feeling that the people can’t do very much, that it’s only the nature that can do things. The most important fact about the nature is that it’s alive, that it’s not dead nature. So how to bring this feeling of liveliness of the grass and of the trees to architecture? My way of painting is very similar to the Chinese style of cartography. I think about the building, about every detail, and then I do research for as long as six months or so. At one point, I suddenly feel the design is ready, and I take out the pencil and make the drawing of the building as a whole. I make a master plan perspective drawing in three or maybe four hours. My drawings are very small, but I include and decide on many important details. The drawings are made on various different scales and convey the inside and the outside at the same time. The concept of the building usually doesn’t change after it has been drawn. If you want architecture to be similar to nature and give it a feeling of being alive, one important fact that has to be taken into consideration is the climate. In our area, Hangzhou, water is the most important element as it rains for almost half of the year. Architecture is the structure of nature transformed by people, so to create architecture, it is necessary to understand the structure of nature. Architecture is nature that comes close to people. Air is also a very important element of the architecture of the campus. The air readily enters the architecture’s interior space. On a typical painting from Chinese history, you can see a classroom with a teacher. This traditional system of private academies is called shuyuan. It was different from the today’s education model in our universities, it had more similarities with the Greek system of philosophical teaching. You could enter the university at any time, at any age, and you could come or leave at any time. Every day there was a discussion SLO ENG notranjostjo, vendar pa je zunaj hkrati tudi znotraj, odnos med njima pa se pri toliko plasteh stalno spreminja. Zame je pogled od znotraj navzven pomembnejši od pogleda od zunaj. Želimo, da bi dež in veter vstopala v notranjost arhitekture, vendar pa je njuno hitrost potrebno uravnavati zavoljo udobja. Poleti je zelo vroče, okrog 40 stopinj, vseeno pa sem želel zagotoviti udobje brez uporabe klimatskih naprav. Ustvaril sem sistem prezračevanja, ki v zgradbi ustvarja lahen vetrič, ki je, kakor bi svila božala tvoj obraz, kar je zelo prijetno. Vsaka zgradba v kampusu je povezana z ostalimi, tako da skupaj tvorijo zborovanje ali sestanek zgradb. Tudi kadar na kampusu ni ljudi, zgradbe med seboj komunicirajo. Če se v Piranu postaviš na sredino glavnega trga, se mesto pokaže kot ena velika hiša: trg je avla, potem je tu pisarna in knjižnica in dnevna soba in … zgradbe komunicirajo med seboj preko glavnega trga. V središču kampusa v Hangzhou pa je ribnik, kar je v skladu s kitajsko tradicionalno postavitvijo krajinske ureditve v središče kraja. Preden začnemo s projektom, zadnjih pet let naš način dela vključuje preučevanje tradicionalnih kitajskih slik. Zelo znana kitajska slika iz 10. ali 11. stoletja prikazuje gorsko krajino, torej govori tudi o tem kako ljudje bivajo v gorah. Slikarjeva pozicija je precej oddaljena od naslikanih gora, detajli pa so vseeno zelo natančno naslikani: na primer ceste in mostu s prostim očesom prav gotovo ne bi mogli vdeti iz te oddaljenosti. Vendar pa slika govori o tem, kako o naravi razmišljamo. Želim si najti način, kako bi ta način razmišljanja prenesel v arhitekturo. Moje najnovejše delo, končano decembra 2008, je Zgodovinski muzej Ningbo (Ningbo Historic Museum). Zgrajen je na kraju porušenega mesta Ningbo. Vse kar se tiče tradicije mesta so porušili, ostal je le velik prazen prostor. Želel sem postaviti zgradbo, s pomočjo katere bi ljudje lahko ponovno vzpostavili odnos do narave in zgodovine, zato sem zgradbo oblikoval kot goro, čisto tako kakor na sliki. Muzej je ogromen, ima kakšnih 30.000 m2. V kleti je oblika pravilna, kockasta, ko pa zgradba zraste, eksplodira kot drevo. Porušili so toliko tradicionalnih zgradb, da ostanki tradicionalnega gradbenega materiala ležijo vsepovsod kot smeti. Že pri kampusu Xiangshang, še bolj pa pri Muzeju v Ningboju sem uporabil mnogo recikliranega gradbenega materiala. Na primer barva fasade je nepredvidljiva, ravno zaradi uporabe recikliranih materialov. Reciklirani gradbeni material je vseh možnih oblik in velikosti, za gradnjo z njim pa obstaja posebna tradicionalna tehnika, ki izhaja prav iz te pokrajine. Ker območje pogosto prizadenejo tajfuni, se hiše pogosto zrušijo in jih je treba na hitro ponovno zgraditi, zato so razvili posebno tehniko. Skupaj s študenti smo izpeljali raziskavo in v 4 m2 zidu odkrili kar about the truth of nature. When I was designing the Hangzhou Academy of Arts, I have had this traditional shuyuan system in mind. A design for an academy’s campus is not only about architecture, it’s also about the model of education that the architecture promotes. I wanted to design a new system of education that would change the Chinese academies and universities. The building is landscape, the landscape is building; the system of both is mixed. I call one of the campus buildings the abstract mountain -it has many different layers. For example, the first layer is the outside corridors along this facade, where the students can hang out. My dream as a teacher is to teach students everywhere. There is also the system of connecting the inside and the outside, but the inside is also the outside. With so many layers, this relation changes constantly. For me, the view of the outside as seen from the inside is more important than the view of the inside as seen from the outside. We wanted to the rain and the air to travel through our architecture’s inside space, but for the sake of the comfort, the speed of the rain and the air had to be controlled in the building. In summer, the air is very hot, about 40 degrees. I wanted to build a system that would not require air conditioning but that would still enable the people to feel comfortable inside the building. So in summer, when you walk around the building, you will feel the wind in your face like silk. It feels very good. Every building is linked to the others, so they from almost a meeting, a conference of buildings. Even when there are no people there, the buildings are in dialogue with each other. If you stand in the city square in Piran, you see the city as one big house. The square is the lobby, and then there is the office room, the library room, the living room -buildings in dialogue with each other around the central public space. But in the central area of the Hangzhou campus, there is a water pond. This is a Chinese tradition, landscape in the middle, instead of a public square. For the past five years, my method of working has included studying traditional Chinese paintings before I begin designing. A very famous traditional Chinese painting from 10th or 11th century represents a mountain landscape system, so it is also about how people live in the mountains. For example, on this part, the painter imagines standing very far from the mountain but when you study the detail you find that it’s very precise. There is a road, a bridge, and other small details that are impossible to see with bare eyes from a standpoint 10 km away. But it’s about thinking about nature. I wanted to find a way to translate this way of thinking into the architecture. My newest work, finished in December 2008, is the Ningbo History Museum, located on the site of the former Ningbo city that had been torn down. Everything about the city’s tradition had been demolished, all that was left was a vast empty space. Slika iz obdobja dinastije Song. Gledalec se hkrati nahaja zunaj in znotraj slike. A painting from the Song dynasty. The viewer is standing on the inside and on the outside at the same time. Moja risba druge faze kampusa Xiangshang. Drawing for the second phase of the Xiangshang Campus. To ni pokrajina, je arhitektura. This is not landscape, it’s architecture Pogled oz znotraj navzven, najpomembnejši pogled, kampus Xiangshang. The view from inside out, the most important view, Xiangshang Campus. predavanje Pogled na pokrajino, kampus Xiangshang. View of the landscape, Xiangshang Campus.. Zunanji hodniki, kampus Xiangshang. The outside corridors, Xiangshang Campus. Sistem hlajenja zgradbe poleti, kampus Xiangshang. The system of cooling the building in summer, Xiangshang Campus. Krajinsko oblikovanje kampusa s praznino v sredini. The landscape design of the campus with the void in the middle. Zgradba oddelka za arhitekturo, kampus Xiangshang. The Architecture department building, Xiangshang Cam- pus. 84 različnih vrst uporabljenih opek. Kitajska umetnost gradnje pogosto uporablja reciklažo: če bi na primer porušil starejšo kmetijo, bi v njej verjetno našel opeke iz 7., 8., 10., 11., 14., 16. stoletja in tako naprej. Vsakič, ko so ljudje obnavljali, so uporabili material, ki so ga našli ležati naokoli. To bi morala Kitajska početi tudi zdaj! Pri gradnji muzeja pa smo se morali soočiti tudi s problemom gradnje v višino, saj imajo tradicionalne zgradbe le eno ali dve nadstropji, muzej pa je bil visok kar 24 metrov. Po natančni raziskavi tradicionalne tehnike sem sam razvil takšno, ki je bila primerna tudi za gradnjo v višino. Drugi problem pa je bilo sestavljanje najdenega materiala, ki deluje skoraj kot slika. V kitajski tradiciji so bile podobne slike vedno obešene v osi vhoda v hišo, tako da so bile videti kot fasada, ki pa ni fasada. Muzej zopet raziskuje odnos med zunanjostjo in notranjostjo. Filozofija našega biroja govori o razvoju, ki traja celo stoletje. V zadnjih 100 letih je Kitajska večinoma preučevala in oponašala vzore zahodnega sveta, tako da smo pozabili velike dele svoje lastne tradicije. To se seveda ni zgodilo le na Kitajskem. Kitajska je civilizacijsko prav tako pomembna kot Evropa. Maja Vardjan: Vaš pristop do arhitekture je zelo drugačen od vsega, kar si tukaj predstavljamo kot delo kitajskih arhitektov. Kitajska ima danes skoraj mitološki status dežele, v kateri je mogoče zgraditi karkoli, in zelo hitro, če je le vključeno dovolj denarja. Vi pa delate čisto drugače: biro zaprete za več mesecev, sodelavce pa pošljete na potovanje ali študirat kitajsko slikarstvo, francosko filozofijo, filme ali karkoli pač že se vam zdi pomembno za projekt. Večinoma ne delate zasebnih projektov, ampak sodelujete z mestnimi in državnimi oblastmi. Ali je težko izpeljati svoje ideje, če delaš za zasebne naročnike? Wang Shu: Vladni principi so veliko bolj jasni, podjetniki pa so zelo neurejeni! Vendar pa sem v preteklosti že enkrat delal za zasebne naročnike. Naredil sem projekt za šest sto metrov visokih stanovanjskih stolpnic v mestu Hangzhou. Želel sem, da bi stanovanja imela majhna zunanja dvorišča, čeprav so bila del stanovanjskega bloka. Naročniku se je to zdel velik izziv, saj ga je skrbel finančni izid. Dve leti smo morali razpravljati o projektih, dokler se ni lepega dne odločil. Veliko je bilo govora o profitu. Takrat je v Hangzhouu kvadratni meter stanovanja stal okrog 3000 juanov, stanovanja pa so hoteli prodati za 5000 juanov/m2. Gradnja je v končni fazi stala 500 juanov/m2, vendar pa je poslovnež stanovanja uspel prodati za 10.000 juanov/m2. V šestih letih so se cene tako zelo spremenile! Kitajska je res neverjetna, možno je čisto vse! I wanted to design something through which the people could rebuild their relation to the history and the nature. As a result, I designed the building as a mountain, just like in the paintings. The building is huge, about 30,000 m2. In the basement, it’s shaped regularly, as a cube, but as it grows, it explodes like the branches of a tree. There were so many traditional buildings that were demolished that you could see traditional materials lying around everywhere like rubbish. In my architecture, on the Xiangshan Campus and in Ningbo, I used many pieces of recycled traditional materials. The colour of the facade is changing because of the recycling. Recycled materials come in different sizes and there is a special traditional technique of putting them back together. Typhoons are very common in this region and the buildings used to collapse regularly, so people needed a way to rebuild their buildings very quickly. They devised a special technique, and when I did a research project with my students, we found that in the 4 m2 of the wall, there were 84 different sizes of bricks and tiles. Recycling is a very important lineage of the Chinese building tradition: if you tear down a farmer’s house you could find the materials from the 7th century, 8th century, 10th century, 11th century, 14th century, 16th century, etc. Every time people rebuilt the building, they reused the material that was there on the site. This should be an important issue for China now. But we encountered the problem of height, as traditional buildings were only two storeys high. I was designing a new building that would be 24 metres high. I had to do thorough research and adapt the building technique. The other problem was the assembling of the recycled tiles. For me, it has the effect similar to that of a painting. In the Chinese tradition, the paintings like this are always hung along the axis of the entrance lobby to the house, so they are like a facade, but they are not the façade. The museum building once again considers the relation between the inside and the outside. The philosophy of our studio is about the development, as long as the century. For the past one hundred years, the Chinese have mostly been studying the western world, and many things about our own history and tradition have been forgotten. It is not only about country. China has a very important civilisation, just like the European civilisation. Maja Vardjan: I find your approach to architecture very different from how all of us perceive the work of Chinese architects. Nowadays, China has an almost mythological status where everything can supposedly be built very fast as long as the money is there. But you work in different way: you close your office for a month and you send your co-workers to the countryside to study Chinese painting, French philosophy, films, or any other subject that might be helpful for the project and then come back to SLO ENG do the designs. And you don’t really work with commercial developers but more often with local governments and the government. Do you find working in commercial area too difficult to realise our creations? Wang Shu: In China, the government works on clearer principles -it’s the business people who bring the disorder. I have worked with businessmen once in the past: I designed six 100-metre apartment towers of in Hangzhou. I wanted to design apartments with small courtyards, even if they were part of a residential high-rise. The developer thought this was a big challenge; he was worried about the financial aspect of the building. We had to discuss the projects for two years until one day, he finally decided to go through with it. When I was designing the apartment buildings, the only thing he thought about was on the profit. At the time, a square metre cost about 3000 Yuan in Hangzhou, but he wanted to set the price at 5000 Yuan. In the end, the construction itself cost 500 Yuan per m2, but the businessman managed to sell the apartments for 10,000 Yuan per m2. The big change in prices occurred within six years. China is really incredible because anything can happen. Tradicionalni kitajski vrt. Pogled od zunaj. Kje je arhitektura? Arhitektura je tako vpletena v pokrajino, da izgine. This is the traditional Chinese garden. The view from outside. Where is the architecture? Architecture is totally mixed with the landscape, it disappears. Umetnik mi je za darilo ustvaril svojo verzijo pogleda od znotraj navzven. The artists did this version as a gift to me, an interpretation of his view form the inside of the building. Detajli prejšnje slike. A detail of the previous painting. Muzej zgodovine, Ningbo. The Ningbo History Museum. Fasada Muzeja zgodovine Ningbo. The façade of the Ningbo History Museum. Notranjost muzeja je dolina. The inside of the museum is the valley. Slika iz obdobja dinastije Song. A painting from the Song dynasty.