30 September, Johannesburg
I emptied the swimming pool to clean up the two-year-old muck at the bottom. The pool had been colonized by 18 frogs and their endless sons and daughters. I threw the frogs into the river 150 meters away from the pool.
The next day, all 18 frogs came back. The pool is the only place they know. The power of their simple-mindedness made them oblivious to the hardship of the return. The exhausted frogs all dried to death in the afternoon.
6 October
One buys things, money goes, and soon the things sit around, losing importance. One stops noticing them.
And suddenly, one needs to GET RID OF ALL THE STUFF; the memories attached to materials become less important than the simple urge to make them disappear.
13 October
The Bed’s Life
People came with a truckload of family and friends to fetch their new bed. They cheered and raved, loading a new life with a bed. By the end of the 300-kilometer trip back to the township, the bed had been rejuvenated.
22 October
It’s a cleansing process.
In order to move on, one has to let go. And in order to let go without too much loss, I end up selling. The Jumbo Sale! I’m selling it all to my neighbors’ servants!
I open the gate and let them in to my family’s nine-year accumulation of furniture, pots and pans, clothes and memories.
12 November
I’ve just spent three days examining the work of third-year architecture students at my former school, the University of Witwatersrand. I hadn’t met these students before, but from their presentations, I could describe the neighborhoods they come from, the houses they live in, and what their parents talk about at the dinner table. There is a shocking degree of complacency, a total absence of confusion and struggle; as a result, the works are limited to resolving what is trivial to architecture, society, and life. Was I also timid and apathetic as a third-year student? Was I also too comfortable? Or was I too angry?
18 November
I try to practice my Berlage thesis — “THE OMNIPRESENCE OF THE WALL AND ITS UNSPEAKABLE OTHER SIDE” — on daily basis. South Africa is a compression of all possible cultures and all possible hang-ups; wherever there is an interface, there is a wall. The walls here become street furniture. After awhile, they are not even brutal; they are simply the frontline of the battle between middle-class and poor.
I opened my gate to let people in — to buy or to chat. But the open gate didn’t invite; they still rang the bell for permission.
19 November
At dinner, chairmen were sitting all around me, each conspiring to be more important than the others.
Important in a minor culture of South Africa, in a minor club, in a minor tribe. Importance and status get blown out of proportion, and finally this villagey world becomes the WHOLE WORLD of existence.
20 November
Because of the Jumbo Sale, I’ve gotten to know all the invisible inhabitants of my neighborhood. I memorize people’s names and talk to them on the street. I don’t feel scared and foreign anymore.
Non-blacks have warned me that it’s dangerous, but I think it’s more dangerous not to know the people that pass one’s door everyday.
21 November
The Chinese are going to build a cultural center on a prime site in Midrand, a booming city between Johannesburg and Pretoria. In the coming five years, the land value will increase ten-fold, I was told.
At the meeting, I sat again with all the chairmen. They want CHINESE-STYLE ARCHITECTURE. After five minutes, I was asked to estimate how big the activity hall for 1,500 people should be and how much it will cost. The architect’s job is to estimate COSTS and make DRAWINGS, I realized.
22 November
I’m making some new friends who are all domestic workers here. There’s Anna, who works and lives just up the road. She comes to shop at the Jumbo Sale with her sister-in-law. Sometimes they stop by during their lunch hour to have tea and complain about their bosses.
Then there’s Margritte. It wasn’t until her fourth visit to the sale that she bought something. Then we started to chat. She told me that I will have five children — three daughters and two sons.
One has to be sensitive. The majority of South Africans, the have-nots, do not expect sympathy or even understanding from the haves. The walls are more than 100 years old in Johannesburg.
24 November
Just returned from an exhibition at my former university. Bumped into quite a few people I used to know. They’ve gone somewhere and I’ve gone somewhere else. Their lives, collectively, are like a big truck; once I was on it with them, but by choice, I got off. NOW I SEE THE TRUCK DRIVING PAST ME, and somehow I feel lonely, very lonely.
25 November
Today I really wouldn’t mind working for any of the big-name architects in Holland.
26 November
I’m probably going to get the Chinese cultural center project, but I’m not sure whether I want it. I'm scared to build. I’m also scared not to build. But I can’t just talk about Jon Jerde, I want to be like him, or go beyond him; and to do that I have to do all these things I don’t feel ready for.
28 November
The other day, while I was writing, someone was in our garage stealing things from the Jumbo Sale. Six hours later we got the guy.
1 December
For the past three days I’ve been homeless in the middle-class sense. The phone line at home in Johannesburg has already been cut off and now the house belongs to someone else.
8 December
I know the burglar.
His name is Mike.
I also know his brother, Charles.
Mike worked in the garden for three months and also did the paint job. Charles worked before him. I know their whole family, their friends. They are from Malawe.
The morning of the burglary, Mike came by with a friend to look at the stuff for sale; they left without buying anything. That evening, when I came home at 7:00 p.m., no one else was there. The house was so quiet; I felt anxious; so I wrote until 10:00 and then decided to go to a movie by myself.
While walking to my car (which was parked right outside the garage since the garage was packed with the Jumbo Sale stuff) I noticed light coming from the side door of the garage. So instead of going to the car I went to the side door, which was WIDE OPEN. There was Mike, in the brightly–lit garage, four meters away from me. We were face to face.
For a moment I was confused — I was so accustomed to seeing him that I thought I might have let him in myself. But he immediately shouted at me, and then sideways, which made me think there was someone else there.
Then he ran towards me with the stuff he has chosen in his hands; I turned; he threw it at me; I wasn’t hurt.
Then I ran like mad and hid myself in a dark corner of the garden, under a tree, where I could see the property gate and the garage. I opened the gate with the remote control in hope that he — or they — would just leave. Someone ran towards the gate but didn't go out.
Squatting under the tree, I started to dial the emergency number with my mobile phone. But when the phone light went on, I changed my mind — afraid that it would help Mike to locate me.
For a couple of minutes, there was no sound. Nobody attacked me from behind, nobody left the property from the gate, and nobody came back.
Then, before I realized what I was doing, I was running back to the car, jumping in, locking the doors, and driving out towards the police station.
Four hours later, the cops came without a torch, without weapons, and their van broke down in my garden. They looked around anyway. Obviously no one was still on the property.
Then I took them across the street to where Mike stays. It was 3:00 a.m. and Mike was sleeping tightly with no pants on.
I was at the police station until 4:00 a.m., writing my own report.
12 December
The story of Mike and Jumbo Sale didn’t go any further.
I feared that Mike or his family and friends would come back for revenge so I packed all our stuff in two days and left the house. The things I hadn’t sold, I gave to our domestic workers or donated to charity. I didn’t see Mike again, I didn’t hear from the cops or the court, and I never went back to the police station to inquire about the case.
It was a sad end for our nine-year home.I left with a
Tuesday, December 12, 2000
Friday, December 1, 2000
Saturday, September 9, 2000
Tuesday, July 4, 2000
Friday, May 12, 2000
Diary: Bad Architecture Stories (Hunch 2)
5 March 2000
I am going to Shanghai in 26 days.
Fifty years ago, my parents left China and went to Taiwan to escape communist rule. In 4 weeks’ time, I’ll be back to where my father came from.
Nowadays it is fashionable for architects to go East or to Africa. Because of their urbanism.
For me, it’s GOING HOME. For the first time.
I’ve heard stories of Shanghai.
It’s where my grandfather owned paper factories and where my father went to school until he was 11. There was a noodle stand on the corner of his block; winters there so cold that people’s piss froze into sticks; gangsters fought for territories along Huangpu River.
But that’s not the Shanghai I’m going to visit. This Shanghai doesn’t remember my grandfather’s factories.
7 March 2000
Acknowledgement: For our generation working and studying in the Netherlands, it is very hard to escape the KOOLHAAS MAGNETIC FIELD. Some would always deny their hang-ups, some forever acritically criticize him, some suffer from the eternal paranoia of his omnipresence and affectivity.
And I think I’ve spoken enough about him.
8 March 2000
I knew I was already in love with him when Elia told me about his villa. He has visions, intelligence and rigor.
He understands the art of compiling, editing, and presenting his highest inspirations in perfect fusion. He is passionate about architecture.
But Michel thinks my love for Hadrian is like puppy love
He doesn’t quite agree that Hadrian respects, and therefore truly loves architecture. For him Hadrian is more like a rapist, displaying what he’s conquered, ripping off pieces he likes, and then putting them together again.
As an enthusiastic traveller, he called various parts of the Villa after the places and monuments that had made the greatest impression on him- the Pecile, the Academy, the Pritaneo, and the Lyceum of Athens, the Valley of Temple in Thessaly, the Canopus in Egypt. The Villa was a kind of open-air museum of antiquities, in which Hadrian the connoisseur assembled his collection of Egyptian, neo-Egyptian, classical and modern works of art. It is reality plus fantasy, a collection of inspirations from the empire.
In Hadrian’s Villa, nothing is accidental; everything has been deliberately orchestrated, edited and controlled to achieve specific aims. Whatever appears casual is the result of the careful study of landscaping effects; the site, buildings, and gardens are all bent to precise spatial and structural requirements.
For me, Hadrian’s Villa is the unconscious pioneer of the theme park. Indispensable to its functioning is its SECRET SUBTERRANEAN NETWORK like that of Disneyland. The undesirables- noise, dust, traffic jams- are shoved out of sight, and different speeds, atmospheres, purposes, classes can be spatially separated into layers of movements in order to achieve efficiency, hygiene, and pleasantness.
Hadrian himself has the job description that enables him to be HYPERARCHITECT. His identity is one which all architects openly or secretly desire (or are at least frustrated for not having). It goes beyond the trinity of DEVELOPER + ARCHITECT + THEORIST; Hadrian’s ultimate role as POLITICIAN and CLIENT equipped him with unlimited power and affordability.
I’ve been thinking about powerful people like Hadrian. If we take the Berlin Wall, Auschwitz and the South African apartheid landscape as architectural projects, it amazes me how architecture is the direct and immediate medium through which the most brutal human nature is materialized. In these cases, architecture’s power to organize makes it the instrument to SEGREGATE, SUPPRESS and EXTERMINATE. And the majority of these projects are planned and executed by those in positions like Hadrian.
It gives me a chill to think of what architecture can do. I’m ashamed of my admiration for Hadrian.
10 March 2000
My thesis has become a quest to understand the nature of physical, immaterial, or metaphorical walls- their horror, brutality, ugliness, and tragedy, but also how they organize life, the PRODUCTIVE TENSIONS they create- their necessity, indispensability, and inevitability.
14 March 2000
Do I really have to phone Shanghai from Amsterdam to reserve a table for our study group at the restaurant on top of the Jin Mao building with seats right next to the windows? Do I really have to ask them to FAX US THE MENU in advance?
15 March 2000
Before we went to Tokyo last year, I didn’t quite understand what it would mean to me.
Tokyo was already familiar to me- not the sight and sounds of real Tokyo, but the IMAGINARY TOKYO that existed in Manga books, the cartoons I grew up with, Murakami’s novels, wrapping papers from imported Japanese candies, Kitty Cat gadgets, and the Japanese immigrants’ school just two blocks away from my house in Taipei. It was a child girl’s dream city, where cherry blossoms were more pink, gardens more poetic, and love stories more romantic; but also where Chinese people are respected and discriminated against at the same time.
My childhood was filled with jealousy towards Japanese kids, who were surrounded by new media and fantasy, and an INHERITED HATRED inevitable from a former colony and a war barely two generations ago.
It was in this intertwined mental state that I went to Japan. On the one hand, I was paying tribute to a country that shaped the fantasies and fairytales of my childhood. On the other hand, I was CHECKING OUT THE COUNTRY THAT INVADED MINE.
My father and many people from his generation never had second thoughts about their feelings towards Japan; it was their real memory and experience. They had no choice between keeping the memory and reconciling it. It was a part of their lives.
19 April 2000
When we arrived in Shanghai, I woke up in my 200-year-old dream.
1 April 2000
In my childhood, Shanghai dialect was always spoken by people from my parents’ generation. So for me it is a LANGUAGE FOR GROWN-UPS- an old, ancient language.
I was surprised to hear children speaking it today.
3 April 2000
Thoughts after meeting with university professors and developers in Shanghai in one day: as architects, MONEY is bound to be our biggest enemy. That’s why we’ve got to have it.
6 April 2000
April in Shanghai is a beautiful time of year;
everything is awakening, I was told.
There is a powerful positivism in the air.
Slogans of reform and modernization have replaced Mao’s portraits.
12 April 2000
Our Shanghai Hangout
We had some noodles in an eating-place near our hotel one evening. Small but well decorated, clean, delicious and fast. The owner was very interested in our crowd. And she was delighted to find out where we came from: Croatia, Germany, Japan and Taiwan.
After she checked my political position, she asked me how people do business in Taiwan. Yuko and I ended up giving her ideas for her noodle business. Yuko took photos of the façade, the presentation of noodles, and the owner in front of the counter, and is going to send the photos and a recommendation letter to companies writing travel guide books in Tokyo.
The owner was so happy with our visit, she wouldn’t let us pay. We insisted, so she gave us cigarettes as presents.
A week later I went back again with Frank.
Again she was interested in his nationality- Belgian.
And again she wouldn’t let us pay.
We insisted, so she gave us cigarettes as presents. The cigarettes were worth much more than our noodles.
5 May 2000
In the neighborhood, old man fishes on the bank of the little stream, old woman shaves beards and cuts hair for neighbors, cops chit-chat on the lawn, many others HANG AROUND THE ENTRANCE GATE to gossip.
6 May 2000
The local courthouse of Minhang District in Shanghai was built as a copy of the White House in Washington D. C. An official from Nanking was also there to visit. He said he wished that they also had such a nice building for their courthouse.
I asked him if he found it strange to have an American symbol for Chinese juridical buildings. He said no, it’s GOOD ARCHITECTURE.
13 April 2000
Thesis is a constant wrestling with one’s own habits, fears, dreams, desires, and conformity to the norm. How to resolve my fear for the horror, and my admiration for the sublime beauty created by the wall?
14 April 2000
I AM NEITHER BLACK OR WHITE.
But in South Africa, Blacks take me as Black, Whites take me as White. As a member of this sensitive society, I find myself holding a passport to both sides.
I can’t identify myself as either, but feel close to both.
I AM BOTH CHINESE AND TAIWANESE.
But in China, Chinese take me as Taiwanese; in Taiwan, Taiwanese take me as Chinese. As a member of this big unhappy family, I have license to enter neither of these societies.
I identify myself as both, but am recognized as neither.
My quest to understand opposition and prejudice does not come out of a sense of justice; it is simply a splinter in my life. It drives me mad. The wall as a condition follows me on all Chinese territory, on all South African territory, everywhere. If everyone has and needs an imaginary enemy, this wall is my enemy.
21 April
Relieve. I wish I could describe this feeling with sophisticated language and some theoretical back up, but I simply can’t. THE LECTURE THAT NIGHT WAS ACTUALLY A RELIEF. Koolhaas didn’t disturb us like Jeff Kipnis did. And he wasn’t as entertaining, inspiring, or informative as Massimiliano Fuksas was.
For the first time, disappointment is relieving.
22 April
The wall is in Berlin, in Johannesburg, in Auschwitz, between China and Taiwan, but also in your house, in your ATM card, in your computer, on street corners.
It is crucial to maintain the oppositions and the dynamic that walls create, but the world is full is walls; the enclave is ending and the world of shared surveillance is coming. The abstract measure of inclusion and exclusion will be the new invisible yet omnipresent wall surrounding us and following us.
23 April
On a nice warm day, accompanied by two students from Tongji University, we sat on a rented bus to the suburbs of Shanghai. On the way to our planned destination, the satellite town of Jiading, we saw some Roman architecture, several pyramids, and other familiar shapes in the distant landscape.
After visiting Jiading’s suburban developments- some very successful and others deteriorating even before being found by buyers- we decided to check out the buildings we had seen from the highway. It turned out to be a theme park- the Around-the-Globe Park- and had been closed for more than half of its five-year lifetime. Wires blocked off the entrance inefficiently, so we entered easily.
In the park we saw an abandoned amphitheatre, a copy of a Roman gateway, and colonnade (all very fascist-looking); several hollow pyramids; an artificial lake (very big); Hundertwasser building; Japanese village; Thai village; Mexican village; concrete cactus; a copy of Disney castle; Mount Rushmore, with the carved-out faces of American presidents; Holland village (again!); and many other familiar images.
The complex is partially surrounded by a residential area. A few people from the neighborhood came for an evening stroll; somebody was fishing by the lake.
I was not unhappy to see that this theme park, like others we had visited, was so unpopular. It proved that Chinese consumers, although just starting to be exposed to fancy stimuli, are not blindly accepting whatever comes their way. But maybe if this ruin is informally open to the neighborhood, it could take on a second life. Who knows?
I will never forget the image of the artificial lake in the foreground, a fisherman by the shore, weeds and bushes behind him, Roman colonnade in the background, the dusk light, and myself looking at it all from the Dutch village.
It was all so peaceful, yellow, quiet and weird.
28 February
I’ve discovered Rene Magritte. Thesis work has been a process of bringing forward what is hidden in the shadow of my consciousness, of trying to articulate what I think it (my question) is during the day and what I dream about it at night, and of being surprised by what it turns out to be. Magritte’s paintings are visual textbooks on the acknowledgement and registration of the mind. Many of his images are explorations of the strange affinities between objects, of how to induce the strangeness and bring crisis to objects, and of how to respond to the instability and ambivalence of reality. They are very didactic and direct in relation to architecture, but how to do it with architecture?
4 May
Until recently, many of South Africa’s huge rural slums were not shown on official maps. Soweto is one of the few townships that made it to the map for the purpose of PROTECTING WHITES FROM ACCIDENTALLY ENTERING this zone.
The maps we bought in the Shanghai bookstores are the most thorough ones I’ve ever seen. They don’t give much attention to tourist attractions, but they mark all the important and unimportant public buildings, community centers, schools, public bathhouses, along with companies, factories, stores, restaurants, and shopping areas. No one of these names is given more importance than the other. The maps are dry, informative, serious, and dignified.
They manifest a serious attitude and ambition towards industrialization and modernization, at the same time they never forget that most people need to know where they can find medicine, paper, light bulbs and baskets.
8 May
One afternoon we went to the local teenager shopping heaven: Huating Road. It is a narrow street, from beginning to end, occupied on both sides by shops built of makeshift structures. I FOUND A PRADA BAG FOR ¥30 ($4). It is not the ‘real’ Prada; the spacing between the letters is slightly wider. Other people bought Nike shoes; only the font is different from the real Nike.
I’ve always wondered who on earth would go to the trouble, in the ever-changing consumer market, to copy products. For every item, the pirate factory has to copy the mold, the production process, get the same material, textile, rubber, whatever, and assemble them exactly the same way as the ‘real’.
A local artist I talked to thinks that these pirate products actually come from the same factory as the ‘real’ products. The manufacturers keep some, or vary minor details and material quality, then sell them for their own profits. He thinks that more and more one doesn’t feel better wearing ‘real’ brand products. Friends tease him for wearing the fake even if it’s REALLY REAL.
This makes me happy. Somewhere, where branded products are manufactured, the myth of the brand is collapsing.
12 May
Thus Spoke Chinese People 1: Since things are less bound by rules, people anticipate much more according to everything that happens around them, other people’s movements, the moods of the society, and rumors.
15 May
Thus Spoke Chinese People 2: We met Prof. Luo, a 76-year-old teacher of architecture from Tongji University. She told me: you don’t always need to justify yourself. THINGS PROVE THEMSELVES through time. Those who understand it will understand it; those who don’t, won’t. There are so many people in China, we don’t have to do all and say all. And we don’t all have to be the ones that shift paradigms.
16 May
Thus Spoke Chinese People 3: The Chinese are not very good at explaining and showing themselves. We are taught to not show our tempers; not to admit our own goodness; to be modest, modest, and modest.
Usually, if foreigners want to see what they want to believe, THEY GET WHAT THEY WANT TO BELIEVE.
19 May
I miss the sense of purpose and common goal people have in Shanghai. I also miss its energy, positivism, and commitment towards the future. When I walk on the streets in Rotterdam, I need to CLOSE MY EYES and think of Shanghai.
20 May
The wall must be the most banal element in architecture: a line on a plan. Architects draw them all the time. Making every wall demands deliberation and intelligence. If you have to make a wall, make it perfect. IT’S THE WALL BUILDER’S RESPONSIBILITY.
After thesis, I know I will never draw a line on a plan the way I did before.
24 May
Story by Anand
There were many fruit trees in the field: peach trees, apricot trees, and pear trees…
Someone came along and put red marks on these trees
After a while, people no longer saw the fruit trees: peach trees, apricot trees, and pear trees. They only saw the red marks
And I seem to remember a story about the Emperor and his new clothes.
I am going to Shanghai in 26 days.
Fifty years ago, my parents left China and went to Taiwan to escape communist rule. In 4 weeks’ time, I’ll be back to where my father came from.
Nowadays it is fashionable for architects to go East or to Africa. Because of their urbanism.
For me, it’s GOING HOME. For the first time.
I’ve heard stories of Shanghai.
It’s where my grandfather owned paper factories and where my father went to school until he was 11. There was a noodle stand on the corner of his block; winters there so cold that people’s piss froze into sticks; gangsters fought for territories along Huangpu River.
But that’s not the Shanghai I’m going to visit. This Shanghai doesn’t remember my grandfather’s factories.
7 March 2000
Acknowledgement: For our generation working and studying in the Netherlands, it is very hard to escape the KOOLHAAS MAGNETIC FIELD. Some would always deny their hang-ups, some forever acritically criticize him, some suffer from the eternal paranoia of his omnipresence and affectivity.
And I think I’ve spoken enough about him.
8 March 2000
I knew I was already in love with him when Elia told me about his villa. He has visions, intelligence and rigor.
He understands the art of compiling, editing, and presenting his highest inspirations in perfect fusion. He is passionate about architecture.
But Michel thinks my love for Hadrian is like puppy love
He doesn’t quite agree that Hadrian respects, and therefore truly loves architecture. For him Hadrian is more like a rapist, displaying what he’s conquered, ripping off pieces he likes, and then putting them together again.
As an enthusiastic traveller, he called various parts of the Villa after the places and monuments that had made the greatest impression on him- the Pecile, the Academy, the Pritaneo, and the Lyceum of Athens, the Valley of Temple in Thessaly, the Canopus in Egypt. The Villa was a kind of open-air museum of antiquities, in which Hadrian the connoisseur assembled his collection of Egyptian, neo-Egyptian, classical and modern works of art. It is reality plus fantasy, a collection of inspirations from the empire.
In Hadrian’s Villa, nothing is accidental; everything has been deliberately orchestrated, edited and controlled to achieve specific aims. Whatever appears casual is the result of the careful study of landscaping effects; the site, buildings, and gardens are all bent to precise spatial and structural requirements.
For me, Hadrian’s Villa is the unconscious pioneer of the theme park. Indispensable to its functioning is its SECRET SUBTERRANEAN NETWORK like that of Disneyland. The undesirables- noise, dust, traffic jams- are shoved out of sight, and different speeds, atmospheres, purposes, classes can be spatially separated into layers of movements in order to achieve efficiency, hygiene, and pleasantness.
Hadrian himself has the job description that enables him to be HYPERARCHITECT. His identity is one which all architects openly or secretly desire (or are at least frustrated for not having). It goes beyond the trinity of DEVELOPER + ARCHITECT + THEORIST; Hadrian’s ultimate role as POLITICIAN and CLIENT equipped him with unlimited power and affordability.
I’ve been thinking about powerful people like Hadrian. If we take the Berlin Wall, Auschwitz and the South African apartheid landscape as architectural projects, it amazes me how architecture is the direct and immediate medium through which the most brutal human nature is materialized. In these cases, architecture’s power to organize makes it the instrument to SEGREGATE, SUPPRESS and EXTERMINATE. And the majority of these projects are planned and executed by those in positions like Hadrian.
It gives me a chill to think of what architecture can do. I’m ashamed of my admiration for Hadrian.
10 March 2000
My thesis has become a quest to understand the nature of physical, immaterial, or metaphorical walls- their horror, brutality, ugliness, and tragedy, but also how they organize life, the PRODUCTIVE TENSIONS they create- their necessity, indispensability, and inevitability.
14 March 2000
Do I really have to phone Shanghai from Amsterdam to reserve a table for our study group at the restaurant on top of the Jin Mao building with seats right next to the windows? Do I really have to ask them to FAX US THE MENU in advance?
15 March 2000
Before we went to Tokyo last year, I didn’t quite understand what it would mean to me.
Tokyo was already familiar to me- not the sight and sounds of real Tokyo, but the IMAGINARY TOKYO that existed in Manga books, the cartoons I grew up with, Murakami’s novels, wrapping papers from imported Japanese candies, Kitty Cat gadgets, and the Japanese immigrants’ school just two blocks away from my house in Taipei. It was a child girl’s dream city, where cherry blossoms were more pink, gardens more poetic, and love stories more romantic; but also where Chinese people are respected and discriminated against at the same time.
My childhood was filled with jealousy towards Japanese kids, who were surrounded by new media and fantasy, and an INHERITED HATRED inevitable from a former colony and a war barely two generations ago.
It was in this intertwined mental state that I went to Japan. On the one hand, I was paying tribute to a country that shaped the fantasies and fairytales of my childhood. On the other hand, I was CHECKING OUT THE COUNTRY THAT INVADED MINE.
My father and many people from his generation never had second thoughts about their feelings towards Japan; it was their real memory and experience. They had no choice between keeping the memory and reconciling it. It was a part of their lives.
19 April 2000
When we arrived in Shanghai, I woke up in my 200-year-old dream.
1 April 2000
In my childhood, Shanghai dialect was always spoken by people from my parents’ generation. So for me it is a LANGUAGE FOR GROWN-UPS- an old, ancient language.
I was surprised to hear children speaking it today.
3 April 2000
Thoughts after meeting with university professors and developers in Shanghai in one day: as architects, MONEY is bound to be our biggest enemy. That’s why we’ve got to have it.
6 April 2000
April in Shanghai is a beautiful time of year;
everything is awakening, I was told.
There is a powerful positivism in the air.
Slogans of reform and modernization have replaced Mao’s portraits.
12 April 2000
Our Shanghai Hangout
We had some noodles in an eating-place near our hotel one evening. Small but well decorated, clean, delicious and fast. The owner was very interested in our crowd. And she was delighted to find out where we came from: Croatia, Germany, Japan and Taiwan.
After she checked my political position, she asked me how people do business in Taiwan. Yuko and I ended up giving her ideas for her noodle business. Yuko took photos of the façade, the presentation of noodles, and the owner in front of the counter, and is going to send the photos and a recommendation letter to companies writing travel guide books in Tokyo.
The owner was so happy with our visit, she wouldn’t let us pay. We insisted, so she gave us cigarettes as presents.
A week later I went back again with Frank.
Again she was interested in his nationality- Belgian.
And again she wouldn’t let us pay.
We insisted, so she gave us cigarettes as presents. The cigarettes were worth much more than our noodles.
5 May 2000
In the neighborhood, old man fishes on the bank of the little stream, old woman shaves beards and cuts hair for neighbors, cops chit-chat on the lawn, many others HANG AROUND THE ENTRANCE GATE to gossip.
6 May 2000
The local courthouse of Minhang District in Shanghai was built as a copy of the White House in Washington D. C. An official from Nanking was also there to visit. He said he wished that they also had such a nice building for their courthouse.
I asked him if he found it strange to have an American symbol for Chinese juridical buildings. He said no, it’s GOOD ARCHITECTURE.
13 April 2000
Thesis is a constant wrestling with one’s own habits, fears, dreams, desires, and conformity to the norm. How to resolve my fear for the horror, and my admiration for the sublime beauty created by the wall?
14 April 2000
I AM NEITHER BLACK OR WHITE.
But in South Africa, Blacks take me as Black, Whites take me as White. As a member of this sensitive society, I find myself holding a passport to both sides.
I can’t identify myself as either, but feel close to both.
I AM BOTH CHINESE AND TAIWANESE.
But in China, Chinese take me as Taiwanese; in Taiwan, Taiwanese take me as Chinese. As a member of this big unhappy family, I have license to enter neither of these societies.
I identify myself as both, but am recognized as neither.
My quest to understand opposition and prejudice does not come out of a sense of justice; it is simply a splinter in my life. It drives me mad. The wall as a condition follows me on all Chinese territory, on all South African territory, everywhere. If everyone has and needs an imaginary enemy, this wall is my enemy.
21 April
Relieve. I wish I could describe this feeling with sophisticated language and some theoretical back up, but I simply can’t. THE LECTURE THAT NIGHT WAS ACTUALLY A RELIEF. Koolhaas didn’t disturb us like Jeff Kipnis did. And he wasn’t as entertaining, inspiring, or informative as Massimiliano Fuksas was.
For the first time, disappointment is relieving.
22 April
The wall is in Berlin, in Johannesburg, in Auschwitz, between China and Taiwan, but also in your house, in your ATM card, in your computer, on street corners.
It is crucial to maintain the oppositions and the dynamic that walls create, but the world is full is walls; the enclave is ending and the world of shared surveillance is coming. The abstract measure of inclusion and exclusion will be the new invisible yet omnipresent wall surrounding us and following us.
23 April
On a nice warm day, accompanied by two students from Tongji University, we sat on a rented bus to the suburbs of Shanghai. On the way to our planned destination, the satellite town of Jiading, we saw some Roman architecture, several pyramids, and other familiar shapes in the distant landscape.
After visiting Jiading’s suburban developments- some very successful and others deteriorating even before being found by buyers- we decided to check out the buildings we had seen from the highway. It turned out to be a theme park- the Around-the-Globe Park- and had been closed for more than half of its five-year lifetime. Wires blocked off the entrance inefficiently, so we entered easily.
In the park we saw an abandoned amphitheatre, a copy of a Roman gateway, and colonnade (all very fascist-looking); several hollow pyramids; an artificial lake (very big); Hundertwasser building; Japanese village; Thai village; Mexican village; concrete cactus; a copy of Disney castle; Mount Rushmore, with the carved-out faces of American presidents; Holland village (again!); and many other familiar images.
The complex is partially surrounded by a residential area. A few people from the neighborhood came for an evening stroll; somebody was fishing by the lake.
I was not unhappy to see that this theme park, like others we had visited, was so unpopular. It proved that Chinese consumers, although just starting to be exposed to fancy stimuli, are not blindly accepting whatever comes their way. But maybe if this ruin is informally open to the neighborhood, it could take on a second life. Who knows?
I will never forget the image of the artificial lake in the foreground, a fisherman by the shore, weeds and bushes behind him, Roman colonnade in the background, the dusk light, and myself looking at it all from the Dutch village.
It was all so peaceful, yellow, quiet and weird.
28 February
I’ve discovered Rene Magritte. Thesis work has been a process of bringing forward what is hidden in the shadow of my consciousness, of trying to articulate what I think it (my question) is during the day and what I dream about it at night, and of being surprised by what it turns out to be. Magritte’s paintings are visual textbooks on the acknowledgement and registration of the mind. Many of his images are explorations of the strange affinities between objects, of how to induce the strangeness and bring crisis to objects, and of how to respond to the instability and ambivalence of reality. They are very didactic and direct in relation to architecture, but how to do it with architecture?
4 May
Until recently, many of South Africa’s huge rural slums were not shown on official maps. Soweto is one of the few townships that made it to the map for the purpose of PROTECTING WHITES FROM ACCIDENTALLY ENTERING this zone.
The maps we bought in the Shanghai bookstores are the most thorough ones I’ve ever seen. They don’t give much attention to tourist attractions, but they mark all the important and unimportant public buildings, community centers, schools, public bathhouses, along with companies, factories, stores, restaurants, and shopping areas. No one of these names is given more importance than the other. The maps are dry, informative, serious, and dignified.
They manifest a serious attitude and ambition towards industrialization and modernization, at the same time they never forget that most people need to know where they can find medicine, paper, light bulbs and baskets.
8 May
One afternoon we went to the local teenager shopping heaven: Huating Road. It is a narrow street, from beginning to end, occupied on both sides by shops built of makeshift structures. I FOUND A PRADA BAG FOR ¥30 ($4). It is not the ‘real’ Prada; the spacing between the letters is slightly wider. Other people bought Nike shoes; only the font is different from the real Nike.
I’ve always wondered who on earth would go to the trouble, in the ever-changing consumer market, to copy products. For every item, the pirate factory has to copy the mold, the production process, get the same material, textile, rubber, whatever, and assemble them exactly the same way as the ‘real’.
A local artist I talked to thinks that these pirate products actually come from the same factory as the ‘real’ products. The manufacturers keep some, or vary minor details and material quality, then sell them for their own profits. He thinks that more and more one doesn’t feel better wearing ‘real’ brand products. Friends tease him for wearing the fake even if it’s REALLY REAL.
This makes me happy. Somewhere, where branded products are manufactured, the myth of the brand is collapsing.
12 May
Thus Spoke Chinese People 1: Since things are less bound by rules, people anticipate much more according to everything that happens around them, other people’s movements, the moods of the society, and rumors.
15 May
Thus Spoke Chinese People 2: We met Prof. Luo, a 76-year-old teacher of architecture from Tongji University. She told me: you don’t always need to justify yourself. THINGS PROVE THEMSELVES through time. Those who understand it will understand it; those who don’t, won’t. There are so many people in China, we don’t have to do all and say all. And we don’t all have to be the ones that shift paradigms.
16 May
Thus Spoke Chinese People 3: The Chinese are not very good at explaining and showing themselves. We are taught to not show our tempers; not to admit our own goodness; to be modest, modest, and modest.
Usually, if foreigners want to see what they want to believe, THEY GET WHAT THEY WANT TO BELIEVE.
19 May
I miss the sense of purpose and common goal people have in Shanghai. I also miss its energy, positivism, and commitment towards the future. When I walk on the streets in Rotterdam, I need to CLOSE MY EYES and think of Shanghai.
20 May
The wall must be the most banal element in architecture: a line on a plan. Architects draw them all the time. Making every wall demands deliberation and intelligence. If you have to make a wall, make it perfect. IT’S THE WALL BUILDER’S RESPONSIBILITY.
After thesis, I know I will never draw a line on a plan the way I did before.
24 May
Story by Anand
There were many fruit trees in the field: peach trees, apricot trees, and pear trees…
Someone came along and put red marks on these trees
After a while, people no longer saw the fruit trees: peach trees, apricot trees, and pear trees. They only saw the red marks
And I seem to remember a story about the Emperor and his new clothes.
Sunday, February 27, 2000
Sunday, February 20, 2000
Wednesday, February 2, 2000
Welcome to Shanghai! / 歡迎光臨上海!
12 home-made postcards express the impressions of Shanghai. These postcards are alley views of the glamorous modern metropolis. / 本文經由12張自製明信片，呈現對上海的觀感，並揭露大都會的後巷景色。
1 都會游擊隊 / Urban Guerrilla
Foreign tourists and local tourists shoot the moments of Shanghai. Our photographs will record the very brief of Shanghai’s rapid transformation. In the name of urban research, urban guerrillas are in action. Do we see only what we want to see? Looking at people looking awakens consciousness of observation.
外籍及國內遊客
用照相機
捕捉歷史上短暫的片段
成為上海迅速轉變史的見證
以都市研究為名
都會游擊隊擺出攻擊的姿勢
人們是否只見其想見之事物?
觀察都會游擊隊的勇敢姿態
喚醒觀察者的自我意識
2 口號文化 / Slogan Culture
This postcard demonstrates a typical format for slogans in Shanghai: red characters on a white background. Desires and aspirations are elevated beyond the individual. A non-human scale. Sign and posters along streets, pavements and highways propagate a national direction and ambition. The new market development confronts the generic communist aesthetics of propaganda. Shanghai’s 1920s eclectic European architecture confronts traditional culture. Samsung’s advertising and the communist propaganda are not so far apart. They both impose a way of living and thinking.
這張明信片呈現上海街頭典型的口號看板
紅字白底
超越個人之上的
龐大願望和期許
非人尺度
沿著路旁的看板和海報
宣揚國家未來的方向
激起百姓奮鬥的壯志
當今正紅的市場經濟廣告
挑釁妥協的共產主義政治宣傳
外攤20年代歐風建築
挑戰中國傳統的世界視覺文化
三星牌逼近五星牌
兩者都強行向百姓施加生活方式和意識形態
3 公共空間的使用 / Public Space Culture
This is one of the most touching scene in modern Shanghai, an old man gets a haircut from an old lady in a park of 1950s neighbourhood. The way public space is used reflects best how Chinese see the relation between public and private.
是上海現代現實都會中 還保有的許多溫馨的景象之一
老婆婆在公園樹下
為鄰家老公公理髮
讓人想到陶淵明的桃花源
城市開放空間的使用
直接反射一個文化裡公共和私有的概念
This is a typical scene of the city: vendors in the foreground, then street, fly-over, low to mid-rise buildings from 50s to 70s, then high-rise from 90s piercing through the background. It is always a crude and straight forward juxtaposition of images. 這是現代中國大城市的典型景象
前景：稀落的攤販
中景：街道、高架路、50至70年代的共產建築
背景：90年代高聳、挺拔的摩天大樓
永遠是一幅毫無修飾、片段重疊的奇異景觀
7 水平移動文化及垂直建設文化 / Horizontal Mobility Culture and Vertical Development Culture
Multiple level fly-over infrastructure links new downtown business districts with the new high-rise dwelling towers and gated suburbs outside the centre. Some highway columns can support 6 layers of fly-over. In an effort to put as much green as possible in the city, small potted plants are hang along the highway edges. It is smooth horizontal line with a fussy edge. High-rise office towers replace traditional Li-Long housing. The erasure accompanies any new ambition. In the 1980s, Shanghai was building at a rate of 1,000,000 sq.m per year. Today, the annual rate ten folds. Over-supply and over-confidence of the market of office space result in ghostly skeleton buildings everywhere. Construction started to become stagnant since 1998- as if a mother realises, in the middle of labour, that she already has too many children.
層疊的上海高架路網
連接中心商業區及無盡延伸的廣大城區
為加強都市中的綠意
連高架路邊緣都以用毛毛的草本植物加以裝飾
成為帶毛邊的水平動線
高層建築快速地替換弄堂建築
兩者都是上海建築發展史上最重要的建築類型
80年代，上海每年增加一百萬平方公尺
今日，增加速度成長十倍
開發商對市場的過度信心和過度供給
造成詭異的空殼建築到處聳立
自1998年起 建築業開停滯
彷彿已開始陣痛
母親才發現 已經有太多孩子了
8 服務文化 / Manikins
This is the Shanghai Grand Theatre. Four tall and beautiful girls stand by the main entrance and receive the visitors. When the visitors enter, they are greet by a warm ‘welcome’. On rainy days, these selected girls serve plastic bags for wet umbrellas. Certain institutions, like the Shanghai Grand Theatre, have extremely high standards for image. From the moment one enters, everything is taken care of. There is a whole assembly line of such red-dressed girls, each recites one or two sentences about the building in English and bring you to the next girl. These workers from service sector are everywhere: department store, restaurant, security guard, cleaners… Often the servers outnumber the served. In the New World department store, some floors were completely empty except for the army of servers, each waiting to serve the shoppers. These workers earn 100 yuan per month and work every two days.
這是上海大劇院
四位高挑、美麗的年輕女孩
在主入口迎接參觀訪客
遊客一進門便齊聲「歡迎光臨」
下雨天時 為遊客準備好塑膠袋
別把大劇院的地給弄濕了
像大劇院般愛面子的機構很多
對形象的要求特別高
遊客一進門 就給照顧地服服貼貼的
一系列的劇院紅衣美女們
每位熟悉一兩段英文的介紹台詞
說完了 將遊客帶給下一位美女
廣大勞動人民的服務員到處都是
商店、百貨公司、餐廳、保全警衛、清潔工……
通常服務人的比被服務的還多
有時「新世界」整層全空
只有像軍隊般的售貨員
整齊地排著隊伍
散漫的等待顧客的到來
9 保險套建築包裝法 / Condom Architecture
The naked erected structures cannot be complete without the thin elevation. Chinese buildings are made in basic, heavy concrete construction method. The facade variation comes in all styles.
聳立的、裸露的建築結構
由一層薄薄的立面完成包裝
現代中國新建築的基礎結構
是笨重粗糙的水泥
由各色奇異拼湊的外牆
包裝起來
10 上海未來海洋門戶 / Future Sea Gate of Shanghai
The future port of Shanghai, Luchaogang and Yangshan Port, is pumped with maximal Chinese ambition: ‘sea gate of Shanghai’, ‘main port of East Asia and Pacific Rim’, ‘a global material-flow function zone of high efficiency and elevate the functional development and image of Pudong to a new level’. The existing rural area will be developed into a port-town with 100,000 inhabitants in 2005, and 300,000 inhabitants by 2020. The port has to be able to handle 2.2 million, 15 million and 21 million containers by 2005, 2020 and 2100 respectively and on completion have a handling capacity of more than 30 million containers per year.
「蘆潮港」是「上海未來海洋門戶」
「國際性的現代化貨物集散流動中心」
「東北亞國際海洋航運中心」
「與浦東機場和洋山國際集裝箱深水港相連， 形成高效的國際性貨物集散流動功能區， 不斷完善其功能， 將浦東帶進一個新的標準」
政府驕傲地宣傳
調到最大音量
現在還是無辜農村的「蘆潮港」
將在 2005年擁有十萬居民、
每年吞吐兩百萬貨櫃
2020年擁有三十萬居民、
每年吞吐一千五百萬貨櫃
最終完成階段有每年集散三千萬貨櫃的能力
11 進口建築 / Imported Architecture
Since most Chinese people cannot afford to travel the world, Chinese investors brought the world to them in the form of theme parks. Eclectic compilation of elements scattered across huge terrain. Everything is a replica- empty and fake. This Around-The-World theme park was built in 1995 and closed 2 years later. Presidents of the United States look into the Chinese landscape with no spectators. It is like Hadrian’s Villa, a collage of highest inspirations of the world. If the rapid emergence of the new is not related to tradition and history, how can identity be built up? If memory is marketed as commodity, then who consumes these products?
大多數中國人民無法享受環遊世界的奢侈
於是投資業主將世界珍奇帶給中國人民
像羅馬皇帝「Hadrian」的皇宮
將世界上最美的景觀收羅一起
廣大的主題公園土地上
散落著各式片段的仿造
空洞而虛假 「環球樂園」
在1995年落成 兩年後倒閉
美國總統們癡癡地等著來瞻仰的遊客
可是中國老百姓不稀旱
毫無歷史和文化根據的舶來建築
終究無法戰勝市場
12 市郊樂園與墳墓 / suburbs- paradise and graveyard
Suburban culture is copy culture. Some suburbs have Roman entrance, Japanese garden, and Colonial style / European-continental style houses. Chinese architects are proud of this mix.
In 1980, the average density in Shanghai is 6 sq.m per person. Now it has doubled. These houses in the postcard provide average 70 sq.m per person.
Suburban developments are surrounded by walls- from fence to actual brick constructions several meters high. Each enclave hosts a certain class of people. To enter, you need to pass a guard. Some suburbs are already deteriorating rapidly while still waiting for customers.
市郊文化是複製文化
有些社區有羅馬式大門、日式花園、歐陸風格住宅
中國籍的建築師對此組合非常驕傲
1980年代上海
每人平均6平方公尺居住面積
明信片中的別墅住宅
平均每人70平方公尺居住面積
社區由各式圍牆和警衛保護著
捍衛小資的幸福
有些市郊別墅
在等待巴巴地屋主的過程中
已經風化損壞
1 都會游擊隊 / Urban Guerrilla Foreign tourists and local tourists shoot the moments of Shanghai. Our photographs will record the very brief of Shanghai’s rapid transformation. In the name of urban research, urban guerrillas are in action. Do we see only what we want to see? Looking at people looking awakens consciousness of observation.
外籍及國內遊客
用照相機
捕捉歷史上短暫的片段
成為上海迅速轉變史的見證
以都市研究為名
都會游擊隊擺出攻擊的姿勢
人們是否只見其想見之事物?
觀察都會游擊隊的勇敢姿態
喚醒觀察者的自我意識
2 口號文化 / Slogan Culture This postcard demonstrates a typical format for slogans in Shanghai: red characters on a white background. Desires and aspirations are elevated beyond the individual. A non-human scale. Sign and posters along streets, pavements and highways propagate a national direction and ambition. The new market development confronts the generic communist aesthetics of propaganda. Shanghai’s 1920s eclectic European architecture confronts traditional culture. Samsung’s advertising and the communist propaganda are not so far apart. They both impose a way of living and thinking.
這張明信片呈現上海街頭典型的口號看板
紅字白底
超越個人之上的
龐大願望和期許
非人尺度
沿著路旁的看板和海報
宣揚國家未來的方向
激起百姓奮鬥的壯志
當今正紅的市場經濟廣告
挑釁妥協的共產主義政治宣傳
外攤20年代歐風建築
挑戰中國傳統的世界視覺文化
三星牌逼近五星牌
兩者都強行向百姓施加生活方式和意識形態
3 公共空間的使用 / Public Space Culture This is one of the most touching scene in modern Shanghai, an old man gets a haircut from an old lady in a park of 1950s neighbourhood. The way public space is used reflects best how Chinese see the relation between public and private.
是上海現代現實都會中 還保有的許多溫馨的景象之一
老婆婆在公園樹下
為鄰家老公公理髮
讓人想到陶淵明的桃花源
城市開放空間的使用
直接反射一個文化裡公共和私有的概念
4 半公共空間的晾衣文化 / Laundry Culture
Within seem-collective spaces of the streets between traditional Li-Long houses, what is intimate becomes public. Often inhabitants congregate in these spaces to sit, talk, sell groceries, and play. Drainpipe is often the laundry structure. Anything, anywhere is put to use. The private is exposed. If pink clothing becomes very trendy next month in Shanghai, these spaces will change dramatically.
上海弄堂住宅間的半公共空間裡
街面是鄰居們閑坐、聊天、買賣雜貨、玩耍的所在
上方是集合式的晾衣場
該是隱密的
成為開放的
整條街 是一個巨大的晒衣架
建築外牆上任何可能派上用場的零件
都成為晒衣結構的一部分
如果下一季流行粉紅色
上海的半公共空間
將呈現另一種風情
5 中式透視風格建築 / Chinese Perspective Architecture
A Chinese perspective wizard can produce any perspective drawings within one day by means of Photoshop. This presentation technique demonstrates the real modern Shanghai architectural style and culture: copy and paste.
中國專業透視圖製圖員
無意識地
利用Photoshop
大量套用錯亂而保守的建築語言
這種圖像語言
正好代表了現代上海的建築文化和風格：
複製和貼上
This is a typical scene of the city: vendors in the foreground, then street, fly-over, low to mid-rise buildings from 50s to 70s, then high-rise from 90s piercing through the background. It is always a crude and straight forward juxtaposition of images. 這是現代中國大城市的典型景象
前景：稀落的攤販
中景：街道、高架路、50至70年代的共產建築
背景：90年代高聳、挺拔的摩天大樓
永遠是一幅毫無修飾、片段重疊的奇異景觀
7 水平移動文化及垂直建設文化 / Horizontal Mobility Culture and Vertical Development Culture Multiple level fly-over infrastructure links new downtown business districts with the new high-rise dwelling towers and gated suburbs outside the centre. Some highway columns can support 6 layers of fly-over. In an effort to put as much green as possible in the city, small potted plants are hang along the highway edges. It is smooth horizontal line with a fussy edge. High-rise office towers replace traditional Li-Long housing. The erasure accompanies any new ambition. In the 1980s, Shanghai was building at a rate of 1,000,000 sq.m per year. Today, the annual rate ten folds. Over-supply and over-confidence of the market of office space result in ghostly skeleton buildings everywhere. Construction started to become stagnant since 1998- as if a mother realises, in the middle of labour, that she already has too many children.
層疊的上海高架路網
連接中心商業區及無盡延伸的廣大城區
為加強都市中的綠意
連高架路邊緣都以用毛毛的草本植物加以裝飾
成為帶毛邊的水平動線
高層建築快速地替換弄堂建築
兩者都是上海建築發展史上最重要的建築類型
80年代，上海每年增加一百萬平方公尺
今日，增加速度成長十倍
開發商對市場的過度信心和過度供給
造成詭異的空殼建築到處聳立
自1998年起 建築業開停滯
彷彿已開始陣痛
母親才發現 已經有太多孩子了
8 服務文化 / Manikins This is the Shanghai Grand Theatre. Four tall and beautiful girls stand by the main entrance and receive the visitors. When the visitors enter, they are greet by a warm ‘welcome’. On rainy days, these selected girls serve plastic bags for wet umbrellas. Certain institutions, like the Shanghai Grand Theatre, have extremely high standards for image. From the moment one enters, everything is taken care of. There is a whole assembly line of such red-dressed girls, each recites one or two sentences about the building in English and bring you to the next girl. These workers from service sector are everywhere: department store, restaurant, security guard, cleaners… Often the servers outnumber the served. In the New World department store, some floors were completely empty except for the army of servers, each waiting to serve the shoppers. These workers earn 100 yuan per month and work every two days.
這是上海大劇院
四位高挑、美麗的年輕女孩
在主入口迎接參觀訪客
遊客一進門便齊聲「歡迎光臨」
下雨天時 為遊客準備好塑膠袋
別把大劇院的地給弄濕了
像大劇院般愛面子的機構很多
對形象的要求特別高
遊客一進門 就給照顧地服服貼貼的
一系列的劇院紅衣美女們
每位熟悉一兩段英文的介紹台詞
說完了 將遊客帶給下一位美女
廣大勞動人民的服務員到處都是
商店、百貨公司、餐廳、保全警衛、清潔工……
通常服務人的比被服務的還多
有時「新世界」整層全空
只有像軍隊般的售貨員
整齊地排著隊伍
散漫的等待顧客的到來
9 保險套建築包裝法 / Condom Architecture The naked erected structures cannot be complete without the thin elevation. Chinese buildings are made in basic, heavy concrete construction method. The facade variation comes in all styles.
聳立的、裸露的建築結構
由一層薄薄的立面完成包裝
現代中國新建築的基礎結構
是笨重粗糙的水泥
由各色奇異拼湊的外牆
包裝起來
10 上海未來海洋門戶 / Future Sea Gate of Shanghai The future port of Shanghai, Luchaogang and Yangshan Port, is pumped with maximal Chinese ambition: ‘sea gate of Shanghai’, ‘main port of East Asia and Pacific Rim’, ‘a global material-flow function zone of high efficiency and elevate the functional development and image of Pudong to a new level’. The existing rural area will be developed into a port-town with 100,000 inhabitants in 2005, and 300,000 inhabitants by 2020. The port has to be able to handle 2.2 million, 15 million and 21 million containers by 2005, 2020 and 2100 respectively and on completion have a handling capacity of more than 30 million containers per year.
「蘆潮港」是「上海未來海洋門戶」
「國際性的現代化貨物集散流動中心」
「東北亞國際海洋航運中心」
「與浦東機場和洋山國際集裝箱深水港相連， 形成高效的國際性貨物集散流動功能區， 不斷完善其功能， 將浦東帶進一個新的標準」
政府驕傲地宣傳
調到最大音量
現在還是無辜農村的「蘆潮港」
將在 2005年擁有十萬居民、
每年吞吐兩百萬貨櫃
2020年擁有三十萬居民、
每年吞吐一千五百萬貨櫃
最終完成階段有每年集散三千萬貨櫃的能力
11 進口建築 / Imported Architecture Since most Chinese people cannot afford to travel the world, Chinese investors brought the world to them in the form of theme parks. Eclectic compilation of elements scattered across huge terrain. Everything is a replica- empty and fake. This Around-The-World theme park was built in 1995 and closed 2 years later. Presidents of the United States look into the Chinese landscape with no spectators. It is like Hadrian’s Villa, a collage of highest inspirations of the world. If the rapid emergence of the new is not related to tradition and history, how can identity be built up? If memory is marketed as commodity, then who consumes these products?
大多數中國人民無法享受環遊世界的奢侈
於是投資業主將世界珍奇帶給中國人民
像羅馬皇帝「Hadrian」的皇宮
將世界上最美的景觀收羅一起
廣大的主題公園土地上
散落著各式片段的仿造
空洞而虛假 「環球樂園」
在1995年落成 兩年後倒閉
美國總統們癡癡地等著來瞻仰的遊客
可是中國老百姓不稀旱
毫無歷史和文化根據的舶來建築
終究無法戰勝市場
12 市郊樂園與墳墓 / suburbs- paradise and graveyardSuburban culture is copy culture. Some suburbs have Roman entrance, Japanese garden, and Colonial style / European-continental style houses. Chinese architects are proud of this mix.
In 1980, the average density in Shanghai is 6 sq.m per person. Now it has doubled. These houses in the postcard provide average 70 sq.m per person.
Suburban developments are surrounded by walls- from fence to actual brick constructions several meters high. Each enclave hosts a certain class of people. To enter, you need to pass a guard. Some suburbs are already deteriorating rapidly while still waiting for customers.
市郊文化是複製文化
有些社區有羅馬式大門、日式花園、歐陸風格住宅
中國籍的建築師對此組合非常驕傲
1980年代上海
每人平均6平方公尺居住面積
明信片中的別墅住宅
平均每人70平方公尺居住面積
社區由各式圍牆和警衛保護著
捍衛小資的幸福
有些市郊別墅
在等待巴巴地屋主的過程中
已經風化損壞
Diary: Citizenship
I’m neither black or white. But in South Africa, Blacks took me as Black, Whites took me as White. As a member of this sensitive society, I actually found myself having the passport to both sides. I can’t identify myself as neither, yet feel close to both.
I am both Chinese and Taiwanese. But in China, Chinese take me as Taiwanese; in Taiwan, Taiwanese take me as Chinese. As a member of this big unhappy family, I never was given the license to enter neither of the societies. I identify myself as both, yet being recognized as neither.
My quest for opposition and prejudice did not come out of a sense of justice; it is simply a splinter in my life. The wall is a condition following me on all Chinese territory. If everyone has and needs an imaginary enemy, this wall is my enemy.
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