CULTURE
Courtesy of Zuo Jing Designer: Mr. Zuo Jing Title of Project: One Hundred Workers of Qianxian County Year: 2011-2015 Photographer: Zilong Liu
Courtesy of Song Qun Designer: Mr. Song Qun Title of Project: Objects Related to Foods Year: 2015
Courtesy of Zhu Jingxiang Designer: Mr. Zhu Jingxiang Title of Project: Countryside Kindergarten Year: 2014 Photographer: Han Guori
Courtesy of View Unlimited Designers: Ms. Xie Xiaoying, Mr. Tong Yan, Mr. Huang Haitao, Mr. Qu Zhi from View Unlimited, Landscape Architecture Studio, CUCD Title of Project: Public Garden Year: 2016
The China Pavilion invited nine exhibitors and organizations, including architects, landscape architects, fashion designers and artists. Its floor space is divided into three parts: textiles, food and housing. The works are displayed both in the pavilion and outdoors in the Virgin Garden next to the pavilion. Among them, the conservation and renewal of Yangmeizhu Xiejie (an ancient Beijing street) illuminates innovations in protecting old streets. Nine years ago, Wang Lu designed Maoping Village a low-cost and highly site-adaptive school building. A Chinese University of Hong Kong team led by Zhu Jingxiang developed many prefabricated buildings made of light materials.
Liang believes food and textiles are critical pieces of a value system, so Ma Ke, founder of the fashion brand “Useless” who is known for her criticism of consumerism and regard for traditional handicrafts, is featured. Song Qun, whose works focus on series utensils from field to table, is another standout. Cases demonstrating countryside construction are also on display. Although the exhibition doesn’t have space to cover every practice of China’s architectural field, it does reflect some current trends of historic significance.
“Daily Design and Daily Tao endeavors to promote enduring ancient wisdom that can improve today’s ordinary lives,” concludes Liang. “By doing this, we re-establish cultural traditions, the backbone of sustainable development. Let design serve the ordinary majority. This is the ignored front of architecture that we cannot afford to ignore. Only when we return to serving ordinary people can architecture recapture the forgotten ideals of modernism.”