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Fri, Jan 25, 2008
China Daily, ANN
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This bubble is not bursting any time soon
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>As a symbol of change in China, from socio-political transformation to increased East-West collaboration and a new energy-saving consciousness, the National Aquatics Centre takes some beating.
It has touched off a debate on the influence of foreign architecture in Beijing, too, sparking something of a domestic backlash with experts questioning whether the "Water Cube" is an example of Chinese architecture with Western characteristics, or a Western-style building with a Chinese flavour.
"The Water Cube looks very Western," says Tsinghua University's professor of architecture Li Xiaodong. "I think architecture in China should reflect ideas about its identity instead of just copying Western architecture all the time, just as the Chinese did in ancient China."
Australian firm PTW Architects' regional director John Pauline disagrees. "When you drive around Beijing, buildings aren't necessarily or obviously Chinese. In fact, it's (becoming) incredibly difficult to define 'Chineseness' in architecture," says Pauline, whose company is part of a consortium that designed the Olympic swimming center.
The Water Cube, famous for its bubble-like outer cladding made of ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE), will stage a pre-Olympic test event at the end of this month, about 50 months after construction work began. During the Aug 8-24 Olympics Games, it will host swimming, diving and synchronised swimming events, with a total of 42 gold medals up for grabs.
The building not only has quintessential Chinese elements, but also serves as a visual metaphor for how China is opening up to the world, Pauline says. "The square shape represents a contained series of spaces, but the aesthetics of the structure, being so transparent, is the very opposite of a caged-in building. It's definitely projecting its interiors outside, and allowing the outside to come inside."
The rectilinear shape and moat harks back to the blueprint of the Forbidden City, or the city wall that rings the former capital of Xi'an, home of the Terracotta Warriors. Another layer of meaning is added if we compare it to the oval-shaped Bird's Nest next door - because they have been shaped and positioned to conform to the classical Chinese concept of yin and yang, with each straddling a key North-South axis of the city.
"This is a perfect hybrid of Chinese and Australian sensibilities and styles," says Pauline. Like many of Beijing's new signature buildings, such as the under-construction China Central Television (CCTV) headquarters, or the egg-shaped National Center for Performing Arts, the Water Cube exhibits increased foreign influence on and internationalisation of the city's architectural design.
This growing foreign influence can also be felt at Wukesong Indoor Stadium, venue for the Olympic basketball competition. The NBA, of the United States, is expected to announce at the end of this month that, along with its marketing partner, it will assume full charge of the stadium after the Games.
While many find the globalisation of the city's skyline a welcome change, others beg to differ. "This debate on the positive and negative impact of Western architecture on China has been raging for more than 50 years," says Huang Jieran, a designer with a real estate company in Beijing.
China relies on the West to compensate for the slower pace of its own development, he says. "Traditional Chinese architecture has some limitations because of the material and the technology used. To keep pace with the times, we cannot say 'no' to every Western element. At the same time, we can add traditional elements to the design, such as applying Chinese colours and paying attention to little details."
For some, there is no perfect East-West architectural blend. "There are no examples of a good combination of the two at the moment," says Li. "Some people say creating a Western building with a Chinese roof in the shape of a temple or palace is a good example. Most architects don't agree."
One sticking point is the number of gray areas in architectural theory, and the difficulty of applying old stereotypes to an era of dynamic change. One school of thought claims that traditional Chinese architecture emphasises space, whereas the West lays stress on the building itself - something Pauline dismisses as nonsense in today's world.
"Western architects, especially architects like myself, are absolutely spatially driven," he says. So China's strong heritage of architecture can sometimes act as a restraint. "PTW is much more interested in the abstractions of these 'Chinese' ideas rather than the literal application of Chinese roof forms or Chinese temple pagoda forms."
China State Construction International (Shenzhen) Design (CSCEC), Ove Arup (Australia) and PTW now talk happily of their collaboration on the Water Cube. "It's our common child," Chinese designer Zhao Xiaojun told state broadcaster CCTV earlier this month.
The results, however, were not achieved without teething problems for the international coalition of designers and engineers after they won the bid in early 2003. When the group began brainstorming for ideas on a swimming complex for the Games, they hit a wall - or a wave. The Australians were pushing for a water-themed silhouette but the Chinese wanted a flat roof to symbolise harmony, humility and calm.
"Differences soon divided the two sides, and it took us a long time to reach an agreement," Zhao said. They settled on a wave-shaped roof to meet the deadline. "But within a week of that we encountered a lot of problems."
There seemed to be an aesthetic imbalance between the two iconic venues of the Games: the Bird's Nest and the aquatics centre. Fearful of upstaging the Bird's Nest, CSCEC asked PTW to go back to the drawing board and use a simpler, rectangular design - and the idea of the water bubbles was born.
Now the Water Cube is destined to live on, both in popular memory and as the epicentre of a new sporting community in northern Beijing.
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