Gong Yidan
With the rapid growth of urbanization rate over the past 20 years, the binary boundary between cities and villages is being broken, and rural construction has also become a topic that scholars, cultural workers and people from different fields want to understand and pay attention to. The Paper learned that "Rural Construction: Architecture, Literature and Local Construction Experiment ( Pengzhou Station )" was recently launched at the Longmenshan Qi Village Art Design Center in Jincheng Community, Guihua Town, Pengzhou City, Sichuan Province.
"Why is Xiaoshi Village in Pengzhou? Who are they? Why do they do it? How do it? How do it? How do it?" The author of this article walked into the newly completed Longmenshan Qi Village Art Design Center with various questions, followed the nine exhibitors and reviewed vivid rural construction practice cases.
"Rural Construction: Architecture, Literature and Local Construction Experiment (Pengzhou Station)" exhibition poster
From the Yan Yangchu , Liang Shuming and others before the founding of New China, to the "New Rural Construction" and "Beautiful Villages" promoted by the state since the new century, to the "rural revitalization" that rural construction has shown different appearances and characteristics in different periods. Perhaps in the past, "homesickness" was the sorrow of time and space, but now, it refers more to the attachment to the beautiful qualities and beautiful memories carried by the countryside under the tide of modernization, and is the homesickness of the times.
At the moment when the trend of globalization and materialization is surging, the efficiency of urban industries is paramount, and the destruction and loss of rural cultural context often bring people a sense of psychological loss. At the same time, affected by the epidemic, the social environment has shifted from globalization to internal circulation, which has also given life individuals time and opportunities to seek development from outside to inward emotional exploration. The various problems in rural areas have never been isolated, and China's urban and rural issues are a whole. For contemporary rural builders, the two ideas of spiritual and material should be parallel and not contradictory. On the one hand, we should pay attention to the residential environment and production livelihoods of the village, and on the other hand, we should pay attention to public culture and educational customs.
With the rapid growth of urbanization rate over the past 20 years, the binary boundary between cities and villages is being broken, and rural construction has also become a topic that scholars, cultural workers and people from different fields want to understand and pay attention to. From the exhibition discussion of "Rural Construction: Architecture, Literature and Local Construction Experiment ( Pengzhou Station)", I was delighted to learn that in just over ten years, the pioneers of rural construction with different backgrounds and experiences have gone from "What is the problem of Chinese rural areas? Why?" to respond to the topic of "What to do with the problem of Chinese rural areas?" and entered the stage of diversified path exploration. Whether it is an artist, architect, scholar, writer or rural worker, he maintains amazing humility and tolerance under the issue of rural construction, and enters rural work with rationality, restraint and pragmatism.
brings these questions, "Why is Pengzhou Xiaoshi Village? Who are they? Why do they do it? How do it? How do it? How do it?" These questions start from Chengdu city and drive for 1.5 hours. When we arrive at Pengzhou Xiaoshi Village located in the transition zone of Chengdu Plain and Longmen Mountain, breathe the first breath of air between the mountains, look at the green mountains and waters, and feel refreshed.
"Rural Construction" Pengzhou Station, Longmenshan·Qi Village Art Design Center, Xiaoshi Village, Guihua Town, Pengzhou, Sichuan, In September 2021, Zuojing Studio provides the exhibition location of
. It is located at the newly completed Longmenshan Qi Village Art Design Center, located at the entrance of Xiaoshi Village. It is a ring-shaped individual building with brick red walls and large curved eaves. It is a typical element in traditional Sichuan rural dwellings. The huge poster on the facade of the building can accurately remind the public, and this is the destination of the trip. The exhibition hall has a construction area of about 1,000 square meters, but the amount of information it contains is extremely huge. Artist Liu Qingyuan has repeatedly described watching Zuo Jing's exhibition as "reading a book". After watching the exhibition on the spot, the author has a deeper understanding: in addition to the essence of the curator's choice, it takes a lot of time to review, annotate, analyze, think, absorb, and reminisce... and the exhibition volume is only one-third of the size of that in the Jiangxi Academy of Painting Art Museum (Jingdezhen) in May this year.After the exhibition was confirmed to tour Xiaoshi Village, local rural construction examples were introduced in Sichuan, which is also the unique feature of Pengzhou Station of "rural construction".
"Rural Construction" Pengzhou Station Exhibition Site, Longmenshan Qi Village Art Design Center, Guihua Town, Pengzhou, Sichuan, In September 2021, Zuojing Studio provided the
exhibition line starts from the left side after entering the door, and surrounds the circular building space for a week and returns to the origin. The space and operational practice of Xiaoshi Village originated from a fruitful rural construction project carried out by architect Li Ye and his team in Xiaoshi Village, Pengzhou, and has been in four years. As the first case of online exhibition exhibition, it responded to the author's first question in a timely manner, "Why is Xiaoshi Village in Pengzhou?" Behind the achievements of Xiaoshi Village, it is closely related to the benign interaction between Li Ye's team, village party secretary Yue Fufei, village collective and many rural construction workers.
As the exhibition narrative advances, our journey starts from Xiaoshi Village in Pengzhou, and then goes to Bishan (Bishan Village, Yi County, Anhui Province), Dananpo (Xicun Township, Xiuwu County, Henan Province), Baima Huatian (Baima Town, Xuanhan County, Sichuan Province), Songyang Sanmiao ( Songyang County, Lishui City, Zhejiang Province), Xiasi Xinya Primary School (Jiange Village, Guangyuan City, Sichuan Province), Anshang Village (Xiuwu County, Henan Province), Dong'an Shang Village (Shuangmiao Township, Qingfeng County, Henan Province).... Follow the nine exhibitors: Li Ye, Liang Jingyu, Zuo Jing, Xiang Yong, Jiakun Architecture, Zhu Jingxiang, Wang Qiuan, Luo Yujie and Liu Qingyuan, and review the vivid rural construction practice cases. The nine exhibitors extracted their respective "keywords" in rural construction practice, supplemented by interpretation methods such as text, images, and physical objects, refreshed and expanded the audience's gains from each node.
Xiaoshi Village Whole Village Model, Li Ye Exhibition Area, "Rural Construction" Pengzhou Station Exhibition Site, Xiaoshi Village, Guihua Town, Pengzhou, Sichuan, Zuojing Studio provides
Jiakun Architecture/Luo Yujie Exhibition Area, "Rural Construction" Pengzhou Station Exhibition Site, Guihua Town, Pengzhou, Sichuan, September 2021, Zuojing Studio provides
Rural Construction Methodology
During the exhibition, I was amazed at the update and iteration of the methodology of China's rural construction knowledge system. Unlike simply grafting literary or architectural activities into the countryside, rural builders from multiple disciplines and fields have an open attitude, inclusive and cooperative manner, absorbing the forces of all sectors of society and solving specific problems that arise in specific villages. This process will usually last for several years. By constantly visiting and improving the local public cultural ecology, they can often establish deeper connections with the local area.
As a rural construction case that occurred in Sichuan, helping to solve the legacy of of the Wenchuan earthquake in .12 has become a concern for designers. In the case of Xiaoshi Village, the earthquake caused the original Yuejin coal mine to collapse, the industry deteriorated, and the economic pillars. Young and middle-aged people chose to go out to work, and the village was getting depressed. Most of the villagers' resettlement houses built after the earthquake were buildings, which ignored the needs of villagers to stack farm tools, dry and store grain. Therefore, architect Li Ye reconsidered the planning of the building space during design, improving and enhancing the multifunctional attributes of the community's public space. But he and his team were not satisfied with this, but treated the countryside as enterprises to conduct overall design and operation, and creatively introduced the economic model of "shared homestays" and "shared factories", organically unifying the villagers, village collectives and enterprises, becoming a community of shared future "under the same roof", and "creating blood" for Xiaoshi Village. Such a "sustainable" rural construction model has also been recognized by all parties.
In the case of Xiasi Xinya Primary School, because the school building became a dangerous building in the earthquake, the architect team led by Zhu Jingxiang fully considered the limitations of rural resources and the workers' demand for space, and designed a building that has high seismic resistance, comfortable and environmentally friendly and affordable construction, and was quickly put into construction and use. This is also inseparable from his belief that creating a design concept that requires more sympathy for workers.
Xiaoshi Village Five Unified Public Spaces, Pengzhou, Sichuan, In 2020, Li Ye/Shidi Architecture provides
bird's eye view of the cultural courtyard and the new residential buildings in Xiaoshi Village, tile roofs that accommodate all activities, connecting traditions and future communities, in 2020, Li Ye/Shidi Architecture provides
Sichuan Guangyuan Xiasi Xinya Primary School, In 2009, Zhu Jingxiang provided
earthquake also made Liang Jingyu begin to think about the significance of architects' practice to society. This sense of powerlessness in the face of disaster recurred when the COVID-19 outbreak broke out in early 2020. Even if I am in a different place, I can still feel it. As a witness of earthquake and post-disaster reconstruction, for a long time, the "movable board house" that is light, low-cost and easy to install and disassemble was also the space for me to study, live and live. The classroom reconstruction and building reinforcement projects on campus have almost run through my entire middle school years. The rural construction exhibition content related to the .12 earthquake made me particularly concerned and moved. Through the exhibition, Liang Jingyu also visited Sichuan after the earthquake, and after returning to Beijing, he participated in the translation of a manual on earthquake prevention and disaster relief, which was soon promoted. The openness, inclusiveness and pragmatism shown by these rural builders are also the power of humanistic care displayed by contemporary Chinese intellectuals in the context of the great era.
Liang Jingyu Exhibition Area, "Rural Construction" Pengzhou Station Exhibition Site, Xiaoshi Village, Guihua Town, Pengzhou, Sichuan, Zuojing Studio provides
Dananpo Aesthetic Center Model under construction, Dananpo Village, Xiuwu County, Henan Province, in 2021, Liang Jingyu/field construction provides
Liu Qingyuan has brought "pragmatism" to the extreme in rural construction work. Woodcut art was not shelved by him, and he humbly called himself "the production and writer of images." He made statues for the villagers, using crops, farm tools, working scenes, daily life, etc. as visual elements to express the countryside. These images can be exhibited as works in art galleries, or they can appear in urban streets, bus stops, construction site walls, rural fields, and integrated into public spaces, or serve the countryside as posters, trademarks, calendars, covers, product packaging, etc.
Liu Qingyuan, "Song of the Rod" series, woodcut, 2020
"Rural Construction" Pengzhou Station Exhibition Site, Liu Qingyuan Exhibition Area, Xiaoshi Village, Guihua Town, Pengzhou, Sichuan, Zuojing Studio provides
Under the guidance of the rural revitalization strategy, airborne rural art festivals are emerging one after another. Such organizers often do not conduct in-depth research and understanding of local culture, and lack substantive intervention and boosting effects. It is not easy to do cultural activities in the countryside, but re-transferring the value of the countryside to the city requires more patience and level. It is precisely because of this strong sense of introspection that the curators reminded the artists to remain rational and restrained, carefully identify, and maintain awe of rural work. In an interview, Zuo Jing looked back on his ten years of work in Bishan. He admitted that the initial plan did contain the ideals and innocence of intellectuals and cultural workers. In the process of communicating with villagers, there were indeed twists and turns caused by not understanding the reality of rural areas and the characteristics of farmers. In recent years, his work philosophy has gradually tilted towards "relationship creation", focusing on the reconstruction of relationships between people in rural society. Compared with the early idealism and romanticism , he gradually understood his "can do" and "can do" in rural construction, and developed a more appropriate theoretical system and working method. The framework logic of this system and working method is also fully described in this exhibition. Through the exploration of local characteristics, we will produce four types of relationships, space, culture and products, explore the value of social design, take root in the local area, achieve sustainability, and create value recognition. In fact, every rural construction project, from Bishan to Dananpo, is accompanied by the summary, reflection and transmission of previous rural construction work experience. The public will definitely feel his almost harsh attitude towards rural construction work through the details of this exhibition.
Zuojing Exhibition Area, "Rural Construction" Pengzhou Station Exhibition Site, Guihua Town, Pengzhou, Sichuan, September 2021, Zuojing Studio provided
"Resonance Village Voice" stage, Bishan Industrial and Marketing Cooperative, Bishan Village, Yi County, Anhui, 2021
"Rural Examination Current Study: Xiuwu Mountains, Crops, Crafts and Demeanor" Exhibition Site, Dananpo Art Center, Xiuwu County, Henan Province, In 2020, Zuojing Studio provided
Local consciousness of intellectuals
Follow the exhibition line and return to the starting point again. I know who these rural builders are. In addition to the inducement of the times and policies, I need to explore the question "Why are they?" Zuo Jing's choice of Bishan as the starting point for his rural construction work is not unrelated to his hometown in southern Anhui. The precious scenery and humanities of Bishan can quickly connect with him; Wang Qiuan lived in the countryside since childhood and had an inseparable relationship with the people and things in the countryside; the "Baima New Hometown Construction Action" initiated by Xiang Yong is located in his hometown, Xuanhan, Sichuan. In Luo Yujie's exhibition area "a sustainable rural practice", the word "sweet things" is particularly eye-catching. The "sweet things" he advocates is not only a attitude towards material treatment, but also a way of life away from falsehood and a "real" attitude towards life. While studying at Tsinghua , Li Ye followed his teacher Li Xiaodong to do a rural school project, sowing the seeds for him to engage in rural construction practice later. These commonalities point my thoughts on the answer to this question to the rural experience of this group of rural builders, or the rural consciousness of this generation of Chinese intellectuals aroused by rural experience.
Luotuowan Village corridor frame, Longquanguan Town, Fuping County, Hebei Province, 2016-2018, Luo Yujie/LUO studio provides
Xiangyong Exhibition Area, Luo Yujie Exhibition Area, "Rural Construction" Pengzhou Station Exhibition Site, September 2021, Xiaoshi Village, Guihua Town, Pengzhou, Sichuan, Zuojing Studio provides
In the view of exhibitor Wang Qiuan, advocating "village self-construction", a rural construction practice that is completely based on villagers, rather than relying entirely on the government's "blood transfusion", is a way to change the appearance of the countryside. The government will provide assistance to local infrastructure construction, and the villagers will be responsible for the construction and renovation of their own houses, forming a benign interaction between the government and the villagers in the joint construction and governance. He himself also brought the sociality of architects to the extreme in his work. He described his most common working state as a village party secretary, either holding meetings in the village or talking to villagers' homes. "One household, one communication, one household, one design", fully respect the villagers' personalized needs, so that they can do what they are good at or like in the living space; fully consider the different economic conditions of the villagers and provide them with renovation plans of different cost ranges. Wang Qiuan attributed the reason why this model achieved results to the people's yearning for a better life, and his job was to fully stimulate this "endogenicity".
An Shang Village Renovation and Upgrade Design, Xiuwu County, Henan Province, 2019 to the present, Wang Qiu'an/Anzhe Architecture provides
Wang Qiu'an Exhibition Area, "Rural Construction" Pengzhou Station Exhibition Site, Guihua Town, Pengzhou, Sichuan Province, September 2021, Zuojing Studio provides
A better life that people yearn for
On the day of visit, I also visited the "shared factory" Shuzhong Sugar Gate in Xiaoshi Village. Because it coincided with the Mid-Autumn Festival, after several consecutive months of peak production, the factory finally ushered in a short rest. Due to the holding of the village cultural and creative market and the convening of the industrial conference, Xiao Min, an employee in charge of pastry baking in the factory, was appointed to watch the product display hall. She warmly welcomed my visit, took me to visit the production space, and introduced the products to me one by one. Xiao Min's hometown is in Leshan, Sichuan, and she had previously worked outside. After marriage, he settled in Xiaoshi Village, Pengzhou with his husband's family, and in the past two years he has also witnessed earth-shaking changes in the village. Since this year, she has started working in the village factory. With economic income, she has also facilitated her children to take care of her nearby. Although the "shared factory" currently has only four long-term employees, it can absorb more than 20 villagers like Xiao Min to work at the same time during the peak production season. The factory pays a daily salary of about 100 yuan, but it is better because it is close to home and working from 9 to 5 hours.Because she was about the same age, when she left, she happily told me that she was likely to be the fifth long-term employee of the factory, which meant more stable job opportunities and higher daily wages. We left each other's contact information and often saw the grass and trees scenery of Xiaoshi Village posted on our circle of friends, and life was peaceful and beautiful.
Tianyu is responsible for the operation of several B&B and brands in Xiaoshi Village. In the two newly built B&Bs in Xiaoshi Village, Tianyu is busy working to prepare for the National Day Golden Week. In the village committee compound, staff received wave after wave of visiting participants and introduced them to the development and construction experience of Xiaoshi Village. The concept of "shared homestay" has become popular throughout Pengzhou and has almost become synonymous with Xiaoshi Village. During the conference, the blue flag was filled with the main roads of the village. In a short period of time, visitors from outside increased. The villagers seemed to have become accustomed to such "scenes" and did not have too much impact on their lives. Under the big roof of the cultural courtyard (public cultural buildings in Xiaoshi Village), grandparents are "not surprised when things change" and are still drinking tea and playing mahjong in a comfortable and leisurely manner; villagers selling fresh fruits and vegetables in the corridor (public trading market in Xiaoshi Village). On the way back, I met several villagers from the neighboring village. They learned that Xiaoshi Village had information about the activities, so they specially hiked a few kilometers to the event site to see "Seeing the Scarlet". It was also the first time they saw the changes in the appearance of Xiaoshi Village in recent years.
The definition of a better life is diverse, but everyone yearns for a better life. And the beauty I felt during this trip was probably like Xiaoshi Village, full of vitality and everyone was full of hope.
The eaves of the cultural corridor, reshaping the time of Ganji, Xiaoshi Village, Guihua Town, Pengzhou, Sichuan, Li Ye/Shidi Architecture provides
The large eaves of the shared factory, reshaping the collective memory of the production space, Xiaoshi Village, Guihua Town, Pengzhou, Sichuan, Li Ye/Shidi Architecture provides
Future Countryside
In the exhibition part of Liang Jingyu, there is a sentence that is impressive, "The new countryside in the future is a city closer to nature." The urbanization process is in full swing, and modern villages are being transformed according to towns. So will the countryside disappear in the future? Writer Ge Fei believes that in ancient China, the value system of cities was established according to the rural model. Before modern times, cities and rural areas never formed an opposition until cities in the Western sense appeared in China. In fact, Chinese cities exist with dependent on rural areas, and without rural areas there will be no cities. The viewing angles of the two views may be different, but both inspire us that in the future, the boundaries between cities and villages will no longer be clear. What we most want to see is that this blurred boundaries are the result of generations of rural builders' efforts to create equal spatial quality for rural and urban areas, rather than the devouring, exploitation and victory of one side on the other.
Finally, once again pay tribute to all the rural builders who are working tirelessly for this.
"Rural Construction" Pengzhou Station will continue to be exhibited at Longmenshan·Qicun Art Design Center until next year. In September 2021, Zuo Jing Studio provides
Rural construction: architecture, art and local construction experiments Pengzhou Station
Exhibition period: September 23, 2021
Location: Longmenshan·Qicun Art Design Center
Editor-in-chief: Li Mei
Proofreading: Luan Meng
