can you imagine wearing the same clothes
every day without having the option to
ever truth no that would be a nightmare
and unfortunately for me I live in that
nightmare every day but that’s my
opinion not the Army’s and but the point
is people love new clothing and for the
building’s our houses its civilizations
that is the very same cloth for the
civilization and for people who design
those buildings the architects are
fashion designers in the very same sense
architecture ends modern conception is a
relatively new invention in the old days
people didn’t design buildings they just
simply live in them generation after
generation and when the need arise to
construct a new building that just
copied the ones that came before them
and the only changes on them were forced
through natural environments and just
large themes throughout society that’s
why you see a larger vision in the 21st
century in the traditional conceptions
of what’s a western-style building and
an Eastern style oriental buildings in
architecture and urban planning in China
is especially a new concept
kind of ironic given a country with more
than four millennia of history because
in old days only the Emperor’s or the
well-off could afford to build to build
buildings constructed by architects and
even then architects were a very amateur
profession in the professional sense
because there were mostly bureaucrats
and scholars with deep studies in
Confucian and tau as traditions so their
constructions were really constrained
and rigid in form so what I want to show
you today is how that train of thought
and their perspective on form has
changed throughout China’s serpentine
history of conquest absorption and
domination by various dynasties and
later on by two different ethnic
minorities first by the UN Dynasty from
the Mongolians and the Qing Dynasty from
the Manchurians and how they were
brought into the Chinese folk and rather
than the other way around so the Chinese
civilization started with the legendary
shap shap Dynasty and I say legendary
because it’s very existence is still
being debated and like all great
civilizations
started around a river the Yellow River
Basin and the only idea of what their
buildings looked like were drawings from
subsequent dynasties this building comes
this construction out of straw and wood
was very light and weight and using a
post and beam system allowed of very
large interior space that was
appropriate for both political purposes
as well as religious worship you can see
its walls are made of a woman organic
fabric later plaster with mud so the
weight of the building did not have to
be carried so much by the posts and this
resembles more of a straw hut than the
Forbidden City you see later built by
the Ming Dynasty in the 16th century the
Schad dynasty rather primitive was
followed by the qing dynasty which was
really the first instance of a united
China and the famed terracotta warriors
of Qin Shihuang who was the first
emperor who United China often over we
often overlooked the fact that the Qing
Dynasty it was the first time the
Chinese state started to play a very the
most important role in constructing
infrastructures today very much like the
communist government still does in China
today this is an example of the
traditional levies of the Fujian which
was constructed by the Qing Emperor in
this construction only lasted 15 years
with construct conscripted labor and you
can see the sophistication in the level
of water engineering even to a concert
in those three hundred years before BCE
so after making buildings out of wood
for a long time to realize several
problems with building out of wood
timber was a very scarce resource in
northern China it was prone to be burnt
by the enemy and it was prone to erosion
because they did not have sprays I can
prevent insects from getting on it so
they started to build out of mud in
particular this is the very first
section of the Great Wall built by the
same Emperor who United China using a
construction method called rammed earth
where the earth will be put into the
models left to dry and then you’ll form
these walls the problems ran earth is
that it didn’t look very good nor could
they build very high and it too was
these walls were actually subsequently
maintained by the minorities the Chinese
sign is placed along its border to
maintain these walls otherwise they
wouldn’t be there today so people start
building out of Beit clay following the
Ching dynasty the two large dynasties
that follow was the Han Dynasty and the
Tang Dynasty and what replaced the white
deeply enclosed compounds were a
multi-storied buildings like these this
was this is the lap oldest surviving
clay and wooden temple complex built in
the Tang Dynasty which was in fact
sponsored by the China’s only and last
legitimately ruling empress wu zetian
who seized power by killing her own
daughter and blame it on another Empress
yeah so this is the UN Dynasty it’s the
first of the two ethnic minorities that
took over China who is by the Mongolians
and here during this brief period they
only last about a hundred years they are
the remnants of kingís khan’s empire the
chinese feminine divided into four you
can see this is the gene nine Great
Mosque it was built as a fusion building
out of necessity not because they
thought that a blend of three religious
religions would look good it was built
in the center of the city where the
three ethnic groups live so I had to
appease the Muslims the Han Chinese
which made up 90% of the Chinese
population even back then and the
Mongolians who were the ruling elites at
this time you can see in the right
picture the pictures clearly written in
Chinese in Chinese traditional painting
style but the official is clad in
Mongolian garb and here I just want to
mention briefly in the Chinese state and
how it differs from our Western
conceptions very much in the West we
often view the state as an outsider as
someone that we have to win our freedom
from but in China that concept is
completely different the Chinese view
the state as the embodiment the Guardian
in the creator of many parts of its
civilization but especially as the
Guardian of its civilization
in the state we view the state’s power
needs to be checked delineated and
constantly revised in China they view
the state as the intimate but not just
says intimate an intimate member of the
family not just any regular member of
the family of the head of the family who
who’s the patriarchy that sits at the
head of the table so you can see this
role the special role of the state
reflected both in its literature and
certainly in its buildings so this was
finished the Forbidden City is finished
in the Ching dynasty but it’s really a
continuation of what them being emperor
started here you can see this building
is almost completely China Chinese
styles it reflects no ethnic origins of
the Manchurians who are nomads who lived
on horseback
until they conquered mainland rest of
China but if you look closer every
banner inscription describing what the
building’s name is is written in always
four or five languages this reflected
the Chinese emperors status of the ruler
of a multi-ethnic Empire who routinely
spoke more than five languages very
well-educated Emperor’s and the emphasis
here is on the width and the form
everything is constructed according to
Taoist and functionary traditions but
everything is also to make the building
look wider unlike in the west where
buildings progressively got taller in
China they never did run out of room to
build so the moat in front and
everything in the flanks there are
actually two wings extending out of this
front gate is to make the building wider
and the most amazing thing about the
Forbidden City was that Dorian’s
construction not one single piece of
nail was used everything is built by
interlocking pieces of wood okay so
after the opium war at the end of the
Qing Dynasty you see again the power of
fusion in architecture but this time in
a much more prominent form this is the
ruin of the old Summer Palace destroyed
by the Japanese army during the a army
conquest of China and this was the
summer retreat of the Emperor and these
were designed by the Jesuits helped with
Chinese Chinese traditional architects
and this in the front was particularly
inspired by
tribe you Fountain but with the Chinese
zodiacs in the front and this is where
the emperor would sit and enjoy his
Western imports like steak and bread and
Records has it that the Chinese emperor
ordered his steaks to be well cooked and
if you like well cooked steak and next
time somebody says something to you you
can just say I’m a connoisseur of fusion
cuisine so after after the Qin Dynasty
fell forty years after the Communists
took power in 1946 1946 they started to
copy the Soviet style a building and
it’s out in its outset reflected the
Equality of everybody the the colors
every no matter how wealthy you are you
lived in one of these but the problem
with these is that they’re very cheap
made our concrete and they didn’t look
very good at all so the Chinese and the
Chinese were losing their sense of their
ethnicity so the Chinese government
undertook the ten great buildings
project there were ten monuments
designed across the country and I will
show you a few examples too to show
China’s new communist influence but as
well as to reflect its 4,000 years of
heritage on your left you see the
beijing railway station and on the left
is their version of congress the
People’s Hall the great help the people
and here’s another government building
constructed in the set of ten but these
were essentially Soviet buildings just
with the Chinese roof top on top because
that’s the most recognizable part of any
Chinese building so they started a
period early 2000 they started imitating
everything Western and this is actually
the Congress of one of the provinces the
provinces province of Hunan I think this
is actually it looks more magnificent
than Parliament or Congress and since
China is so great at imitating
everything why not imitate the best of
both worlds so this was when Chinese
President Xi Jingping three years ago
said enough no more weird buildings you
can literally in his decree he said no
more weird buildings and the architects
said this is not very specific guidance
like how much
to fall out no more weird buildings so
they started a Bureau to centralize all
great constructions that must be all
major construction that every province
must be approved at almost a central
level so they tamed the architects
craziness a little bit but this building
is designed in the traditional that
Palast virtue of fertility built by the
CEO of hainan airlines one of the
richest man in China two houses new
headquarters and this building was in
the midst of construction and then
President Xi Jingping declared his
degree decree and was later modified to
something else
this next building was the Chinese
pavilion modeled after during the World
Expo in Shanghai modeled after the crown
of a Han Dynasty Emperor
you can see the clear resemblance there
and here’s the capital of CCTV which is
the chinese version of CNN
except it’s stay owned so they’re pretty
biased in their opinions but it was
modeled after a traditional pair of
pants and it’s nicknamed the big
underwear in Chinese I don’t think that
was the desired effect but here is
exactly what the Chinese government is
looking for a sleek looking modern
building that you would imagine you
would find anywhere else in Dubai or
Singapore but modeled after the
traditional landscape painting of shun
tree you can see the slick steel frame
resembles water running down a waterfall
in my opinion this is one of the most
beautiful but beautiful buildings I’ve
ever seen and this is called the Charlie
on plaza Park in Beijing and this is one
of the latest buildings that was hailed
by the Chinese government as what
buildings should look like and another
example of architects taking more
inspirations for more mundane mundane
inspirations it’s a building the Citroen
museum designed deliberately apparently
to look like a box of falling chopsticks
but with that in mind I hope as
humanists we welcome the deep-rooted
differences
of Chinese architecture even despite
what that means and despite what we
can’t see because through our Western
education and through our untrained eyes
and we welcome what the next stage in
its evolution brains thank you [Applause]
every day without having the option to
ever truth no that would be a nightmare
and unfortunately for me I live in that
nightmare every day but that’s my
opinion not the Army’s and but the point
is people love new clothing and for the
building’s our houses its civilizations
that is the very same cloth for the
civilization and for people who design
those buildings the architects are
fashion designers in the very same sense
architecture ends modern conception is a
relatively new invention in the old days
people didn’t design buildings they just
simply live in them generation after
generation and when the need arise to
construct a new building that just
copied the ones that came before them
and the only changes on them were forced
through natural environments and just
large themes throughout society that’s
why you see a larger vision in the 21st
century in the traditional conceptions
of what’s a western-style building and
an Eastern style oriental buildings in
architecture and urban planning in China
is especially a new concept
kind of ironic given a country with more
than four millennia of history because
in old days only the Emperor’s or the
well-off could afford to build to build
buildings constructed by architects and
even then architects were a very amateur
profession in the professional sense
because there were mostly bureaucrats
and scholars with deep studies in
Confucian and tau as traditions so their
constructions were really constrained
and rigid in form so what I want to show
you today is how that train of thought
and their perspective on form has
changed throughout China’s serpentine
history of conquest absorption and
domination by various dynasties and
later on by two different ethnic
minorities first by the UN Dynasty from
the Mongolians and the Qing Dynasty from
the Manchurians and how they were
brought into the Chinese folk and rather
than the other way around so the Chinese
civilization started with the legendary
shap shap Dynasty and I say legendary
because it’s very existence is still
being debated and like all great
civilizations
started around a river the Yellow River
Basin and the only idea of what their
buildings looked like were drawings from
subsequent dynasties this building comes
this construction out of straw and wood
was very light and weight and using a
post and beam system allowed of very
large interior space that was
appropriate for both political purposes
as well as religious worship you can see
its walls are made of a woman organic
fabric later plaster with mud so the
weight of the building did not have to
be carried so much by the posts and this
resembles more of a straw hut than the
Forbidden City you see later built by
the Ming Dynasty in the 16th century the
Schad dynasty rather primitive was
followed by the qing dynasty which was
really the first instance of a united
China and the famed terracotta warriors
of Qin Shihuang who was the first
emperor who United China often over we
often overlooked the fact that the Qing
Dynasty it was the first time the
Chinese state started to play a very the
most important role in constructing
infrastructures today very much like the
communist government still does in China
today this is an example of the
traditional levies of the Fujian which
was constructed by the Qing Emperor in
this construction only lasted 15 years
with construct conscripted labor and you
can see the sophistication in the level
of water engineering even to a concert
in those three hundred years before BCE
so after making buildings out of wood
for a long time to realize several
problems with building out of wood
timber was a very scarce resource in
northern China it was prone to be burnt
by the enemy and it was prone to erosion
because they did not have sprays I can
prevent insects from getting on it so
they started to build out of mud in
particular this is the very first
section of the Great Wall built by the
same Emperor who United China using a
construction method called rammed earth
where the earth will be put into the
models left to dry and then you’ll form
these walls the problems ran earth is
that it didn’t look very good nor could
they build very high and it too was
these walls were actually subsequently
maintained by the minorities the Chinese
sign is placed along its border to
maintain these walls otherwise they
wouldn’t be there today so people start
building out of Beit clay following the
Ching dynasty the two large dynasties
that follow was the Han Dynasty and the
Tang Dynasty and what replaced the white
deeply enclosed compounds were a
multi-storied buildings like these this
was this is the lap oldest surviving
clay and wooden temple complex built in
the Tang Dynasty which was in fact
sponsored by the China’s only and last
legitimately ruling empress wu zetian
who seized power by killing her own
daughter and blame it on another Empress
yeah so this is the UN Dynasty it’s the
first of the two ethnic minorities that
took over China who is by the Mongolians
and here during this brief period they
only last about a hundred years they are
the remnants of kingís khan’s empire the
chinese feminine divided into four you
can see this is the gene nine Great
Mosque it was built as a fusion building
out of necessity not because they
thought that a blend of three religious
religions would look good it was built
in the center of the city where the
three ethnic groups live so I had to
appease the Muslims the Han Chinese
which made up 90% of the Chinese
population even back then and the
Mongolians who were the ruling elites at
this time you can see in the right
picture the pictures clearly written in
Chinese in Chinese traditional painting
style but the official is clad in
Mongolian garb and here I just want to
mention briefly in the Chinese state and
how it differs from our Western
conceptions very much in the West we
often view the state as an outsider as
someone that we have to win our freedom
from but in China that concept is
completely different the Chinese view
the state as the embodiment the Guardian
in the creator of many parts of its
civilization but especially as the
Guardian of its civilization
in the state we view the state’s power
needs to be checked delineated and
constantly revised in China they view
the state as the intimate but not just
says intimate an intimate member of the
family not just any regular member of
the family of the head of the family who
who’s the patriarchy that sits at the
head of the table so you can see this
role the special role of the state
reflected both in its literature and
certainly in its buildings so this was
finished the Forbidden City is finished
in the Ching dynasty but it’s really a
continuation of what them being emperor
started here you can see this building
is almost completely China Chinese
styles it reflects no ethnic origins of
the Manchurians who are nomads who lived
on horseback
until they conquered mainland rest of
China but if you look closer every
banner inscription describing what the
building’s name is is written in always
four or five languages this reflected
the Chinese emperors status of the ruler
of a multi-ethnic Empire who routinely
spoke more than five languages very
well-educated Emperor’s and the emphasis
here is on the width and the form
everything is constructed according to
Taoist and functionary traditions but
everything is also to make the building
look wider unlike in the west where
buildings progressively got taller in
China they never did run out of room to
build so the moat in front and
everything in the flanks there are
actually two wings extending out of this
front gate is to make the building wider
and the most amazing thing about the
Forbidden City was that Dorian’s
construction not one single piece of
nail was used everything is built by
interlocking pieces of wood okay so
after the opium war at the end of the
Qing Dynasty you see again the power of
fusion in architecture but this time in
a much more prominent form this is the
ruin of the old Summer Palace destroyed
by the Japanese army during the a army
conquest of China and this was the
summer retreat of the Emperor and these
were designed by the Jesuits helped with
Chinese Chinese traditional architects
and this in the front was particularly
inspired by
tribe you Fountain but with the Chinese
zodiacs in the front and this is where
the emperor would sit and enjoy his
Western imports like steak and bread and
Records has it that the Chinese emperor
ordered his steaks to be well cooked and
if you like well cooked steak and next
time somebody says something to you you
can just say I’m a connoisseur of fusion
cuisine so after after the Qin Dynasty
fell forty years after the Communists
took power in 1946 1946 they started to
copy the Soviet style a building and
it’s out in its outset reflected the
Equality of everybody the the colors
every no matter how wealthy you are you
lived in one of these but the problem
with these is that they’re very cheap
made our concrete and they didn’t look
very good at all so the Chinese and the
Chinese were losing their sense of their
ethnicity so the Chinese government
undertook the ten great buildings
project there were ten monuments
designed across the country and I will
show you a few examples too to show
China’s new communist influence but as
well as to reflect its 4,000 years of
heritage on your left you see the
beijing railway station and on the left
is their version of congress the
People’s Hall the great help the people
and here’s another government building
constructed in the set of ten but these
were essentially Soviet buildings just
with the Chinese roof top on top because
that’s the most recognizable part of any
Chinese building so they started a
period early 2000 they started imitating
everything Western and this is actually
the Congress of one of the provinces the
provinces province of Hunan I think this
is actually it looks more magnificent
than Parliament or Congress and since
China is so great at imitating
everything why not imitate the best of
both worlds so this was when Chinese
President Xi Jingping three years ago
said enough no more weird buildings you
can literally in his decree he said no
more weird buildings and the architects
said this is not very specific guidance
like how much
to fall out no more weird buildings so
they started a Bureau to centralize all
great constructions that must be all
major construction that every province
must be approved at almost a central
level so they tamed the architects
craziness a little bit but this building
is designed in the traditional that
Palast virtue of fertility built by the
CEO of hainan airlines one of the
richest man in China two houses new
headquarters and this building was in
the midst of construction and then
President Xi Jingping declared his
degree decree and was later modified to
something else
this next building was the Chinese
pavilion modeled after during the World
Expo in Shanghai modeled after the crown
of a Han Dynasty Emperor
you can see the clear resemblance there
and here’s the capital of CCTV which is
the chinese version of CNN
except it’s stay owned so they’re pretty
biased in their opinions but it was
modeled after a traditional pair of
pants and it’s nicknamed the big
underwear in Chinese I don’t think that
was the desired effect but here is
exactly what the Chinese government is
looking for a sleek looking modern
building that you would imagine you
would find anywhere else in Dubai or
Singapore but modeled after the
traditional landscape painting of shun
tree you can see the slick steel frame
resembles water running down a waterfall
in my opinion this is one of the most
beautiful but beautiful buildings I’ve
ever seen and this is called the Charlie
on plaza Park in Beijing and this is one
of the latest buildings that was hailed
by the Chinese government as what
buildings should look like and another
example of architects taking more
inspirations for more mundane mundane
inspirations it’s a building the Citroen
museum designed deliberately apparently
to look like a box of falling chopsticks
but with that in mind I hope as
humanists we welcome the deep-rooted
differences
of Chinese architecture even despite
what that means and despite what we
can’t see because through our Western
education and through our untrained eyes
and we welcome what the next stage in
its evolution brains thank you [Applause]
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