People's Architecture    3X3 A Perspective on China - introduction On the previous lecture During part one of this nine part lecture series, on April 17 2006, we introduced the theme of Future | Fast | Forward with the presentations of Neville Mars of the Dynamic City Foundation and Hui Wang and Yan Meng of Urbanus Architectural and Design. The two presentations developed a critical understanding of the current Chinese urban and architectural through questioning how fast relates to slow and forward to backward. Neville Mars of the Dynamic City Foundation presented the issue of 400 new cities that will be built by 2020, and reacted upon that titillating project with what he explained, I quote, as utopian models, as if they were models that are cut-free from any real difficult political context but present ideal design solutions, sometimes so ideal that we don't want them to be built. This is the dream Neville Mars felt is very necessary in a country that is so fast, that doesn't take time to think forward, and doesn't take time to think about the future. Important for Neville Mars, and also for today's lecture on the issue of Formal | Informal, is the idea that China is being built upon a combination of market-driven organic developments, which all together suggests a very clearly planned vision but in reality is completely organic. At the other hand Urbanus Architectural and Design centered their presentation around the topic of urban infill and urban refill. In their vision the issue of urban infill deals with the public urban space, while the issue of urban re-fill deals with intervening in the existing structures. The projects they presented like the Dafen Art Museum, the Public Art Plaza in Shenzhen and the Diwang Park in Shenzhen which are clear interventions dealing with the issue of how to revitalize the existing structures and to put public events in those spaces in cities that grow at unprecedented speed and for which any blueprint is lacking. An introduction to FORMAL | INFORMAL This suggestion of a very clearly planned vision, which is in reality completely organic can serve as a background for today's theme on Formal | Informal. This evening People's Architecture along with the Center for Architecture aspires, accompanied with the intellectual creativity of Yushi Uehara and Professor Randall Crane, to explore one of the greatest mysteries confronting every individual, namely the basic question how do "others" live? This dialogue between formal and informal interventions in the contemporary Chinese city shapes the everyday life of one fifth of the world population and contributes as such to the global debate of what we consider to be a world economy structured on relationship between the formal and the informal. In his book China's Urban Transition professor John Friedmann, who is our invitee for the October lecture, refers to the writings of the anthropologist Li Zhang, who studied migrant villages as a condition in which power and presence reflects and act upon the restructuring of urban space and the larger society. John Friedmann writes about this work the following, I quote: The migrants' emerging power is both conditioned by and derived from the migrants' spatial mobility and the production of their own space. What we have seen is a highly contested process in which existing socialist spaces (villages, factories, and other space-dominated sites) were transformed into different kinds of spaces more suitable for private economic practices and capital accumulation by migrant entrepreneurs. Because rural migrants in China are defined as outsiders and strangers in the cities and denied formal urban membership and substantive rights, their creation of new social space outside the regime of official planning has profound social and political implications. Such spatial transformations are not just about physical space, but are integral, dynamic aspects of the late-socialist transformations that will reshape the economic and social trajectory of Chinese society. On today's lecturers Our first lecture this evening will be Yushi Uehara. During 2004-2005 Yushi Uehara was guest professor at the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, where he ran the second-year research program 'Unknow urbanity in China' in which he explored the issue of 'the village within the city'. Yushi Uehara graduated in 1990 at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. During his study time he has been working at the offices of Rem Koolhaas, Hans Kolhoff and Alison & Peter Smithson. After his studies he has been working for Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Daniel Libeskind, West 8 and Toyo Ito. He founded Yushi Uehara Architecture, an office based in Amsterdam. Along with Yushi Uehara it is our honor to have Professor Randall Crane who is Professor of Urban Planning and acting director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA. Randall Crane is also affiliated with the Institute of the Environment and the Ziman Center for Real Estate. Most of his work focuses on infrastructure, environmental policy, housing, public finance, and transportation. He has consulted for the World Bank on environmental policy and local government reform in Asia and Africa, and recently served on a National Research Council committee that produced a major study of the water problems of Mexico City. Professor Crane will talk about the dramatic transformations of the Chinese city that naturally pose many challenges for Chinese planners, who in turn are eager to consider alternatives to their traditional top-down, deterministic, physical planning styles -- which doesn't fit market driven growth so well anyway. On upcoming lecture Let me conclude with the announcement of our upcoming lecture, and part three in our lecture series, on Thursday June 22 entitled China[A]rt. Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen will talk about their work that evening, work that features and explores the condition of the Contemporary Chinese City. Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen were invited by ACC Asia Cultural Council to NYC, as well as the Chamber Fine Art Gallery for their solo exhibition "Chopstick" open on June 20, 2006. For you who missed our previous lecture or are interested in delving deeper into the here presented issues, we would like to welcome you on the People's Architecture website where you can find the presentations and transcripts of this and other lectures around China, architecture and urbanity. On the thank-you Finally 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, Mónica Carriço 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. People's Architecture Center for Architecture, New York May 16, 2006 Friedmann, John, China's Urban Transition, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2005, p.72 Friedmann, John, China's Urban Transition, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2005, p.72