Yung Ho Chang: Wants to Level the City

China’s most internationally revered architect continues his landmark retrospective at the UCCA this month. Here, he tells us all about ...

... his childhood home
“I grew up very near Wangfujing, on a little street called Naizifu (which means “the Empress nanny’s palace”). But sadly, it’s gone now.”

... modern life in the old city
“The old fabric of Beijing is perfectly capable of providing space for a contemporary, cosmopolitan lifestyle. I mean, look at Wudaoying Hutong, where you can enjoy seafood paella at Saffron. Food is a great illustration of this very cosmopolitan life that can happen in the old hutongs and courtyards.”

... the mysteriously halted “new Beijing”
“We could have been like Rome and Paris. They kept their old cities and built new cities outside. Actually there was a new Beijing being built outside of the old city for years, from Sanlihe to Erligou [in Xicheng District]. But unfortunately the project was halted.”

... his ideal vision of Beijing in 20 years
“I’d want to take out all the skyscrapers. That would be a good contribution to humanity, I think. We really need to narrow the streets, develop the public transportation a lot more and densify certain parts of the city so that we can enjoy some real urbanity. Now you can’t walk, it’s not that easy to shop. One must overcome too many difficulties in order to live in Beijing …. Right now, people treat buildings like trophies. Liu Xiang runs and when he wins, he gets a trophy, right? If we run and run and run and make a lot of money, what do we do? We get a trophy – a giant building.”

... why homogeneity can work for cities
“Modern cities are like that crazy tourist who brought back his souvenirs from everywhere and put them all on the same shelf. You’ve got the Eiffel Tower here and this over there. It’s a mess. Cities should be homogenous within themselves. It’s the only way they’ll be distinguishable from each other. When I was young, I’d go to the top of Jingshan Park and look out over the city and see only grey rooftops, like waves of the ocean as far as the eye could see, dotted with green trees. That sensation was greater than anything you’d feel looking at the CCTV Tower. Beijing was planned beautifully then, everything unified. You couldn’t find another city like it in the world.”

Yung Ho Chang’s “Material-ism” exhibit runs until Dec 2 at the UCCA.

Click here to see the November issue of the Beijinger in full.