Zhongguancun is a wondrous place: Peking University is here, Wan Sheng is here, and so are Yecao, Boyatang, the Third Wave, and Fengrushong.
The universities around here are simply too numerous to count. Sweep from north to south on a map: Peking University, Tsinghua University, Beijing Forestry University, China Agricultural University (East Campus), Beijing Language and Culture University, China University of Mining and Technology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (several institutes), China University of Petroleum, China University of Geosciences, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beihang University, Peking University Health Science Center, Capital University of Physical Education and Sports, Beijing Film Academy, Renmin University of China, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing Foreign Studies University, the National Academy of Governance, Central University of Finance and Economics, PLA Academy of Arts, Minzu University of China, Beijing Dance Academy, Beijing Jiaotong University—and if we add the relatively distant China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and Beijing Normal University—all of this lies within ten li of where I am, that is to say, within a little over twenty minutes by bicycle, and counting the time to go downstairs and fetch the bike, it comes to about half an hour.
It can thus be seen that Zhongguancun is a treasure land. One need not look at those electronics malls and business centers; such things may some day decline and wither away, but so many universities will not easily fall into decline, and as a cultural center, this place will not change easily.
Yet Zhongguancun is also becoming Beijing’s financial center—if it is not already. Once one after another of the office towers now under construction are completed, once those several subway lines are connected through, this place is bound to become something like Lujiazui in Pudong.
In fact, it has already become Lujiazui now. The glittering glass towers standing one beside another gave me a certain sense of intimacy with my hometown—unfortunately, my dwelling in Shanghai happens to be right next to Lujiazui. If not for the presence of those campuses and bookstores, this place would simply be hell. I don’t understand why, when building a perfectly good house, one must wrap it in so much glass, insisting on making it look so “painfully unsightly.”
I once read on Yali’s blog that the “despairing” thing about these “modern buildings” is that they are full of “design consciousness”; they everywhere brim with a desire for “beauty,” trying to express aesthetic feeling, but in fact there is no beauty at all. Here my wording differs slightly from Yali’s. What I want to say is that this perhaps still fascinating “design consciousness” is nevertheless a kind of beauty; beauty is there, only it is a pale and hollow beauty, with no inner substance.
Still, I remain moved by this desire for beauty—after all, that intense impulse is still preserved. Even though they have already sunk into emptiness, they still stubbornly pursue “individuality.” It is just like those “fashionable” young people, unable to find individuality and uniqueness within themselves, yet always relying on outlandish clothes, brightly colored hair, eccentric and shocking behavior, and other such superficial, ostentatious labels to display so-called “individuality.” They do not know that the “individuality” they flaunt in this way is never something truly belonging within their “selves.” It is only dye attached to the outside of their skin, not “individuality” in their blood or bones.
Look at one glass-filled tower after another: each one seems so novel and distinctive, so ingeniously conceived. But their interiors are always empty; they have no individuality, no style—from Zhongguancun to Lujiazui to Manhattan, how monotonous, how tiresome those “ingeniously conceived” glass towers are! For they are all appearance and no substance, only skin and no soul. A person without a soul, no matter how good-looking, is nothing but a walking corpse; a building without a soul, no matter how outstandingly or distinctively designed, cannot be said to have “style,” just as a corpse cannot be said to have “character.”
All the inner substance of modern architecture has been stripped away: the religious, the ethical, the philosophical—all that architecture once carried has been extracted, leaving only two things: utility and appearance. Aside from utility, the only thing left to consider is appearance—thus the pursuit of beauty is built upon a completely hollow starting point: there is nothing there, only a craving for beauty. Such a craving is inevitably pathological. The “beauty” obtained through such a pursuit, when it fails, may become even more painfully unsightly; when it succeeds, it is nothing more than, say, being more able to stimulate others’ sexual desire.
The decoration of my room is not undertaken through any “design”; the standard of choice is naked utility. Of course, when choosing things like wall paint, curtains, and tables, I do in the end consider them from some angle of “beauty,” but more accurately speaking, it is nothing more than a matter of momentary “mood,” without considering whether they match as a whole or anything of that sort. Because I know that no matter how I design it, no matter how much care I take, I do not have the ability to decorate the room into a work of art. Anyway, I know that “I” live here.
November 24, 2007
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2007-11-24 19:54:56 Anonymous 222.82.69.160
A few days ago I went to Xinhua and saw a copy of <The Philosophy of Architecture>.
I wonder what relation these glass buildings and Bauhaus have.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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