Proposed Periodical: Urbanland

Demolition VS. Reinvention

“Culture is experienced in the present time as the fluid gamut of structures that define our experience of living  …  We may use language to communicate and knowledge to exchange, but it is only when we look at the story of language, the body and origins of knowledge, that we can contextualize them, and understand their role as elements of culture.”  (Shah, 2012)

Architecture is a reflection of culture. Not only for the heritage of styles from old times, but also because of people’s real lives and stories that happened in the buildings.

However, development is always the theme. In the past two decades in China, 20 percent of the citizen had encountered inhabitant demolition due to the change of the urbanization. The confliction between government and general public has been sharpened to a point where government are forced to apply suppression. Though there is nothing wrong with the government devoting on the development of the city, humanity is still an essential factor that cannot be ignored. Therefore, this such intensive atmosphere makes us rethink about how to achieve the balance between urbanization and humanism.

In order to achieve the interaction between humanism and urbanization, urban designer and architects should devote more on reinventing the old buildings rather than demolition and reconstruction.

According to the latest estimates of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), the world urban population is expected to increase by 72% by 2050 (AHTH, April 2012). Thus, urbanization is an on-going trend. However, because of the lack of far- sighted urban-planning, a lot of old district and culture heritage has been destructed. Part of the destruction influenced citizens’ right of residence. (Fu, 2012)

Moreover, the analysis of great examples of successful reinvention would be incorporated. For example, Shanghai, as an international modern city, still determined to maintain lots of old cultural district. At the same time, they demanded to integrate such districts into the city pace by adding the commercial elements. Tian-Zi-Fang, a famous old neighborhood formed by “Nongtang” (a kind of traditional alley in Shanghai), was reinvented successfully. The whole construction and native residences was all kept, thus the first floor was redesigned in to stylistic café and creative groceries. Thousands of visitors are attracted to here every day, funding wise helping the maintenance of the district. Such example shows us one possible way to solve the confliction. For different sites, we can adjust the method, making it adapt to the real-life that could eventually lead humanitarian approach toward the growth of the city.

Due to the unconsciousness of the importance of humanitarian architecture, and the lack of the conservation policy, designers tend to ignore the cultural meaning of the existing buildings and demolish them when a new program is launched. If we can reinvent the old buildings, furthermore figure out the way to fit them into modern urban- planning, the heritage of the culture will be kept, people can feel the respect from the government and the development process of the city can be tracked by the later generations.

Source:

Helena L. Jubany. “The Social Responsibility of Architects”, Social Responsibility in Practice. June 29, 2011.

Stewart Brand. Emergence, desire lines and predicting behavior, “All buildings are predictions. All predictions are wrong”. How Buildings Learn, 1994, p. 160-178.

Vikas Shah. Thought Economics, The Role of Architecture in Humanity’s Story, June 2012.

Xusheng Zhang.  Four Modes to Change the old neighbor, June 2010.

Chi-Wei Yang, GuiYangLouShi web, Reinvention of old new building:  great examples, April 2014.

Siliang Fu, STLBEACON, Major Chinese cities face urbanization and demolition, June, 2012.

Photo credit to Lucy Wang, 09/15/15

Designed by: ARCHSTUDIO’s

http://inhabitat.com/archstudio-inserts-a-modern-teahouse-into-an-ancient-chinese-structure/