About rivers and mountains: Chinese drawing poetics in contemporary Chinese architecture

Abstract

This article, analyzes the way in which the visual structures of traditional Chinese painting, devise their peculiar spatial temporal narrative experience. We will see how traditional painting remains a base and reference for the ideating process of several contemporary Chinese architects, departing from its content and its form of expression. We will also consider how, in doing so, they seek to avoid a mere uncritical imitation of international models. A subtle fusion of contemporaneity with old cultural identity and the juxtaposition and contrast afforded by the presence of concepts from traditional painting allows a new architecture to be infused with meaning and dimension. Understanding such processes of ideation can possibly provide us assistance in the intuitive formulation of ways to enrich western architecture. Particularly, establishing poetic connections to our cultural traditions can be a useful strategy to prevent western architecture’s frequent falls into empty excesses of utilitarianism, iconicism or simple banality.