Magazine-《Urban·Environment·Design》Issue 128 Zhu Xiaodi: The Architectural Experiment of Oriental Humanism

Guide to New Issues

This issue of the album presents the inheritance of traditional culture and thinking about the new era in the two parts of "The Vanishing Big" and "The Revealing Small". The album is based on the analysis of Zhu Xiaodi’s major projects and theories, ink paintings, exhibitions, and other works in recent years. It also includes dialogues with Zhu Xiaodi. The album also contains comments by Taiwanese architect Yao Renxi and well-known director Wang Chaoge on Zhu Xiaodi's works and concepts from different perspectives and is dedicated to presenting the architect's thoughts and practices from multiple angles. The 14 representative works included in the album convey the architect's exploration of the relationship between man and nature, and between man and tradition. This is a new kind of humanistic spirit, or it can be called Eastern humanism.

Album Digest

From Zhu Xiaodi 《Why Architecture》

What is the meaning of architecture? How to create a building belonging to the site? These questions have been lingering in my mind ever since I received architecture education. As I grow older, the answers are constantly being subverted and reconstructed. Fortunately, to this day, architecture still embodies all my enthusiasm. Explaining a series of architectural issues has become the content and result of my work. The information storm brought about by the Internet age is transforming our lives, work and thinking. The angle of public appreciation and the way of widespread dissemination have brought huge changes to the architectural context. Architecture is no longer an academic discussion based on a professional field, and it has lost its unilateral right of interpretation. The role of role models (typical, paradigm) is disappearing. We must think about what to use to fill the huge space released in the Internet era. We need to gather greater energy, give the building new meaning, and constantly cover the new meaning with updated meaning. I believe that architecture reveals the meaning of human existence in the natural environment and the inherited positioning in the historical dimension. Therefore, architecture cannot exist outside the site and exist in isolation, including viewers at different distances. Zhuang Zi said: "The heaven and the earth have great beauty but never talk, there are clear laws but no discussion at four o'clock, and everything is reasonable but not said." Only by relying on the site can architectural activities enlighten the architect's inspiration, trigger emotional resonance, and then discover the beauty. exist. Since human beings are small between heaven and earth, let us use architectural activities to reveal the greatness of time and space. This is a new kind of humanistic spirit, or a kind of humanistic spirit belonging to the East. I believe that in the era of globalization, architecture should be able to reconstruct the relationship between people and the world and between people.

From Yao Renxi《Impression of Zhu Xiaodi》

Occasionally, when reading some architects explaining their own works, they can always narrate every detail of the building and the ideas and intentions that it represents. Everywhere is closely connected, as if everything has been precisely measured and controlled everywhere. It’s not easy for me to understand this state. On the contrary, in the dialogue with Mr. Zhu, I deeply feel that we all believe that architectural design is an unpredictable flow. If the creator can adapt to this kind of flow and don't fight with it, then the architectural design will be full of endless joy of exploration. Accepting the unknown and humbly knowing that the results of architectural design are not entirely the work of oneself, but are created by countless causes, just as life cannot be planned, and self cannot be known. In my experience, architecture seems to be a mirror image that goes together with life. Through engaging in architectural creation, it reflects the current self. However, the self is unknowable, and the boundary between the self and the other is also chaotic. With the way the viewer reads, it produces different postures and tells different stories. From Mr. Zhu’s works, in addition to seeing contemporary architects’ thinking about society, there are also attempts to design various possibilities, more of the courage to collide with the known world, and the eagerness to try the unknown; the same is the same. Architect, I am looking forward to more works of Mr. Zhu in the future.