Hasta La Ideas

We offered a few glimpses of the YUNG HO CHANG + FCJZ: MATERIAL-ISM, currently on view at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, in our Best of Beijing Design Week photo gallery, but unfortunately it was a bit too dusty during the press preview to properly revel in what is easily one of the most interesting exhibition designs that I’ve seen lately. Of course, this should come as no surprise given the content of the exhibition, a retrospective of the title architect and his studio, Feichang Jianzhu (FCJZ):

Spanning the last 30 years, YUNG HO CHANG + FCJZ: MATERIAL-ISM explores FCJZ’s experiments in architecture, design, planning and art together with a detailed study into the different aspects of Yung Ho Chang’s practice, such as inhabitation, construction methods, urbanism, tradition, perception, and culture. Through these works, the exhibition not only considers the buildings people inhabit and the cities they constitute but also the importance of design in everyday urban life and the specific predicament of people, in the context of the last three decades of unprecedented growth in China.

UCCA Director Philip Tinari praised Chang’s “witty, thoughtful and universal design solutions inspired by distinctly Chinese problems and concepts,” noting that he is “considered the father of contemporary Chinese architecture.” He was among the first to leave the mainland to study in the States (Berkeley ’84), where he lived and worked for over a decade before returning to his hometown Beijing in 1992.

Known as both the first architect to set up an independent atelier in China and the first Chinese national to head a major department of architecture in an international university—having served as dean of architecture at MIT 2003–2009—Chang has inspired a wide range of followers and mentored a new generation of talent.

As he recently related in Time Out Beijing, Chang fondly recalled the traditional courtyard houses hutong of his youth… even as witnessed the radical reinvention of the ancient capital over the course of two decades, as upwards of 88% of the iconic alleyways were bulldozed (according to UNESCO) in favor of the soulless highrises that dominate Beijing’s cityscape today.

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