Architectural Experimentation in China’s Early Reform Era (1978 – 1989)

Over the course of the 1980s, and in parallel with the country’s broader shift toward market-oriented economic policy, China’s state-managed design institutes began to engage in new, innovative forms of quasi-privatized architectural design production. This seminar explores the history of such experimentation and its impact upon Chinese architectural form and practice over the past thirty years. Despite being pioneered by a handful of trusted individuals within China’s architectural establishment, many of these initiatives were considered failures, and few exist in their original form today. Nevertheless, and as this seminar will argue, they constitute important examples of the procedural changes taking shape within the Chinese state in relation to economic liberalization and the role played therein by architecture. These offices may also be seen as notable if overlooked antecedents to the more celebrated, “experimental” forms of architectural practice that subsequently took shape in China over the course of the 1990s through the efforts of figures like Yung Ho Chang, Wang Shu, and Ma Qingyun, among others. In providing a prehistory to these contemporary practices, Dr. Roskam hopes to challenge our understanding of China’s recent architectural history and the ways in which the country’s architectural reforms are believed to have developed over time.