People's Architecture 3X3 A PERSPECTIVE ON CHINA Introduction Today, China is without any doubt in the eye of the storm called globalization. But what we are actually experiencing is a storm in reverse, as China's ambition is not perceived as one that is scattering everything around, exploding our world into a million little pieces, but China should rather be discussed as condition that has the power to connect and reconnect all that modernization has scattered around. This rearrangement of the world is the multifaceted condition this lecture series wants to investigate. To weeks ago the dean of Tsjinhua University Li Xiaodong stated, here at the Center For Architecture, that after the cultural revolution opened the door; leading to a situation that from the outside the country is very colorful, inside the country is black and white. This 3X3 A Perspective on China-lecture series provides a setting to understand China's evolution from both sides by bringing together architects, scholars, and artist both from within China as from other parts of the world. What we are experiencing today, can't be solely measured by what we see, what we build, what goods we transfer from one place of the world to another, or as the cultural tag of made in china | created in china. Today, all of us, willingly or not, voluntarily or not, conscious or not, dedicated or not, experience the growing pains and pleasures that goes along with China growing up in public. The condition we find ourselves in are only to be measured by a condition we call the effects of an uninterrupted revolution. As Victor Nee and James Peck point out in their book China's Uninterrupted Revolution, this uninterrupted revolution is a revolution affection both society's and an individual's life, propelled both by the need to overcome material backwardness and the desire to create a new public spirit. If the transition from feudalism to capitalism took place in an unplanned or haphazard way in the West, in China many came to argue that planning at both an economic and philosophical level was a necessity. In time the Maoists spoke of combining rapid economic advance and conscious, self-remolding in the social group. It is this double, intertwined, speeded advance toward what they regard as a higher stage in the revolution of mankind that underlies the Maoist view of uninterrupted revolution. On 3X3 A Perspective on China In order to build a comprehensive understanding of contemporary architectural , urban and cultural practice in China, and to understand the current transitions - transitions in aesthetics, organization, landscape, cities and culture - People's Architecture centered the 3x3 lectures around a joint combination of insiders and foreigners' look at the nation's past, present, and future landscapes. Drawing on historical research and contemporary experience, lecturers project the effects of architectural and cultural precedent on the formation of China's rapidly emerging future. An exploration of the factors power, speed and image is crucial to understanding China's recent evolution in relation to architecture, culture and ideology. This lecture series creates a platform for that broadened understanding, and today's lecture is centered around the concept of Future Fast Forward. Hereby we also would like to invite you for our upcoming lecture, on May 16 on the issue of FORMAL | INFORMAL with Yushi Uehara and Randall Crane. For more information, please check the People's Architecture for more info on the program and within the next weeks, the transcripts of the lectures and interviews with various Chinese and foreign architects. On The Future Fast Forward "Future fast forward" not only indicates the daunting speed of construction for tomorrow, but also implies the rapid emergence of unpredictable conditions resulting from speed. When the world is excited and encouraged by China's speed, the insiders only become more and more concerned. Whether it will be nicer to turn the button from "fast" into "slow", and change "forward" into "backward", once we are all targeting for a better future? And if so, what kind of architectural strategy is feasible for a realistic practice that everyday needs to work in a condition that can be circumscribed as a dirty reality? The joint presentation between Urbanus, a local firm with native designers, and Dynamic City Foundation, a "local" firm with foreign designers, will provide insiders' views on the issue of "density", which is an inevitable topic for the future of China. On People's Architecture In his book Content Rem Koolhaas states the following about China: It is easy to imagine it going wrong but essential to imagine it going right. Participation in China's modernization clearly does not have a guaranteed outcome. The future China is the moment's most compelling conundrum; its outcome involves all of us - there are no "outsiders." For us, the occasion to participate in the definition of even one pixel of the new tableau seemed like a duty. People's Architecture sees the reflection on the understanding and exchange about China's development as its duty, and this, without any doubt, with the goal to serve the people. Of course, People's Architecture would not exist without people and will not have any future without the people, this because we all know that many people can do more than one people. People's Architecture would like to thank Pamela Pulchalski from the Center for Architecture to give us the support and opportunity for People's Architecture to be able to organize this lecture series, Monica Carrio for the graphical design, the AIA New York Chapter for their support, the Gluckman Foundation for providing us the finances to make this feasible and the Chinese consulate general of New York for learning us how to deal with the Chinese political system and contact with the Chinese from the inside. We would like to thank all of you to join us in this launch and invite your for an after drink and party at WaWa Cantine, 289 Mercer Street. People's Architecture Center for Architecture, New York April 17, 2006 Nee, Victor; Peck, James (ed.), China's Uninterrupted Revolution, Pantheon Books, New York, 1975, p.94 Koolhaas, Rem, Content, Taschen, Cologne, 2004, pp.450-451