AN INVESTIGATION OF (CRITICAL) REGIONALISM IN CHINESE ARCHITECTURE SINCE 1932

Abstract

In year 2012, Chinese architect Wang Shu was awarded the prestigious Pritzker Prize. His works was seen to be that of a critical regionalist, rejuvenating traditional Chinese architecture with modernity. It was mentioned frequently by critics that his critical regionalist works are unique and the solution to China’s ruthless urbanization. However, Western critics were inaccurate as there are many existing ideas and projects that show such similarities as well. This research aims to investigate these instances from 1932 onwards. The methodology follows after interpretative historical research, in which Lewis Mumford’s 5 points of regionalism was taken as the basis of Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre’s concept of critical regionalism to read Chinese architecture. This paper reviews architecture of China in namely, 4 periods of time. Each period of time had an individual set of social, political and economical context. Representative works were selected to show similarities of ideas to critical regionalism were manifested in local architects works and concepts. This dissertation shows that there are some similarities of architecture practice with critical regionalism in China even before the introduction of regionalism in the 1980s. The differences are attributed to the differences in societal values with the West. It argues for a regionalist approach to look at Chinese architecture rather than borrowing Western frameworks.