Eine Plattform für die Wissenschaft: Bauingenieurwesen, Architektur und Urbanistik
Eine Plattform für die Wissenschaft: Bauingenieurwesen, Architektur und Urbanistik
Architecture at a Political Turning Point: Diplomatic Buildings in 1970s Beijing
This paper highlights a group of buildings built in Beijing for diplomatic purposes in the 1970s, at a turning point in China’s state politics and foreign relations. After the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution ended in 1969, Chinese politics shifted from a single emphasis on revolution to a more pragmatic focus on development. A dynamic balance between the two factions, the leftists and the pragmatists, was achieved at the top level of state leadership under Chairman Mao’s mediation. At the same time, there was a significant breakthrough in China’s relations with the Western countries, culminating in Nixon’s visit to China in 1972. For this increase in foreign affairs, two batches of diplomatic buildings were built in Beijing from 1969 to 1976, before and after Nixon’s visit. Three architectural cases are studied, namely, the International Club (1972), the Diplomatic Residence Compounds of Jianguomenwai and Qijiayuan (1970s), and the Beijing Hotel East (1974). These cases reveal a complex interrelation between formal expression, knowledge transfer, and political interference. More specifically, the expression of “Chinese characteristics”, the absorption of Western modernism, the knowledge transfer of large-panel construction, and the interference of political struggles in architectural design were all entangled in these cases. The paper concludes that in the early 1970s, these diplomatic buildings embodied a strong intention to absorb modernism, marking a key moment in the historiography of modernism in China in the twentieth century.
Architecture at a Political Turning Point: Diplomatic Buildings in 1970s Beijing
This paper highlights a group of buildings built in Beijing for diplomatic purposes in the 1970s, at a turning point in China’s state politics and foreign relations. After the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution ended in 1969, Chinese politics shifted from a single emphasis on revolution to a more pragmatic focus on development. A dynamic balance between the two factions, the leftists and the pragmatists, was achieved at the top level of state leadership under Chairman Mao’s mediation. At the same time, there was a significant breakthrough in China’s relations with the Western countries, culminating in Nixon’s visit to China in 1972. For this increase in foreign affairs, two batches of diplomatic buildings were built in Beijing from 1969 to 1976, before and after Nixon’s visit. Three architectural cases are studied, namely, the International Club (1972), the Diplomatic Residence Compounds of Jianguomenwai and Qijiayuan (1970s), and the Beijing Hotel East (1974). These cases reveal a complex interrelation between formal expression, knowledge transfer, and political interference. More specifically, the expression of “Chinese characteristics”, the absorption of Western modernism, the knowledge transfer of large-panel construction, and the interference of political struggles in architectural design were all entangled in these cases. The paper concludes that in the early 1970s, these diplomatic buildings embodied a strong intention to absorb modernism, marking a key moment in the historiography of modernism in China in the twentieth century.
Architecture at a Political Turning Point: Diplomatic Buildings in 1970s Beijing
Ke Song (Autor:in) / Jianfei Zhu (Autor:in)
2018
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Elektronische Ressource
Unbekannt
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