He Jingtang
He Jingtang, honorary Dean of School of Architecture of the South China University of Technology, gave a lecture last week on Design for Drastically Changing China, at Albergue SCM.
Urban construction in China is estimated to span an area of over two billion square meters each year. Around half of the overall recent construction projects in the world have taken place in China.
The prominent architect noted that the economy of China is growing rapidly, and then said that, “while the extensive urbanization has greatly changed the appearances of Chinese cities, various problems emerged, in particular traffic congestion, environment degradation, and lost urban features.”
“The transformation from incremental growth to the stock upgrading in the urbanization process also gives rise to deep conflicts,” he added.
According to the speaker, “creating harmonious human settlements” is the fundamental objective of urban development.
He, who directed the design project China Pavilion which was featured in the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, places a lot of emphasis on harmony.
“Chinese civilization has valued harmony since ancient times,” said He.
Faced with opportunities and conflicts brought by the drastic changes in China, He suggested that China needs to explore a path of architectural innovation through the integration of both Chinese and modern characteristics. He elucidated his recommendation by saying that the innovation should include innovative theory, innovative talents, and innovative teams, and explore the vision of a green and harmonious human habitat.
When talking about his architectural theory, He said that “place, culture and time of architecture form a holistic concept. Place represents the basis for the subsistence of architecture, while culture means its connotation and taste, and time its spirit and development.”
According to He, a logical design conception process normally involves exploring the useful genes from the place of the architecture, refining and upgrading concepts from the cultural perspective, incorporating modern technology and thinking and orienting the conception toward spatial integrity and time sustainability.
Besides having designed the China Pavilion in the World Expo, He also designed the new campus of the University of Macau.
