Chinese Archimage Phenomena

Frank Wright's Fallingwater , Pennsylvania , USA Fallingwater in Shanghai Fallingwater in Beijing [via abbs ]

CAIP co-founder Fei Wang gave a l ecture , "Three Heterogeneity Studies of China, between the 18th Century and Contemporary" at Chinese Designers' Region (CDR) , London, in June 25th, 2009. Thanks for William Chen's invitation and nice discussions! [This is old news. Due to China's Great Fire Wall, blogspot is blocked as always. Sorry for the late update.]

Someone found out a residential building in Chonging like a face, and very popular Chinese character 囧 (jiǒng). from wikipedia : "Jiong (Chinese: 囧; variant: 冏; Hanyu Pinyin : jiong3; British Cantonese : Gwing) is a Chinese character meaning a "patterned window" or "as bright as the light peering from outside the window". The character is now rarely used in this sense. Internet emoticon usage The character for "Jiong" is nowadays more widely used on the Internet as an ideographic emoticon representing a range of moods, as it resembles a person's face. It is commonly used to express ideas or feelings such as annoyance, shock, embarrassment, awkwardness, scorn or the internet meme "DO NOT WANT". The use of Jiong as an emoticon can be traced to 2005 or earlier; it was referenced on 20 January 2005 in a Chinese-language article on orz . [1] The character is sometimes used in conjunction with orz, OTZ or its other variants to form ...

Ju Chun, a renowned Taiwanese sculptor, created this breathtaking Zipper Lotus Pond for the Juming Museum , located just outside Taipei, Taiwan. [via toxel ]

Bei Da Xue Yuan High school, Dongguan, Guangdong Province This is fake Beijing University gate in Dongguan, Guangdong (Canton) Province, which was is a local high school and called the coolest (niu) school gate by bloggers. This school advertises itself in relation with Beijing University and graduates from this school can go to Beijing University directly with exemption of college entry exams. The title of the school is “Bei Da Xue Yuan”, in which there are 3 same characters from Beijing University famous gate, “Bei Jing Da Xue”. Even the calligraphy is totally copied from the Beijing Univ. Beijing University, Beijing [via 163 and picasa ]

This is the cover from The Economist , titled "How China Sees the World," which has similar connotation and technique of Saul Steinberg's early work "How New Yorker Sees the World."

This is the headquarter of one the most famous Jiu , Chinese alcoholic beverages , Wu Liang Ye , in Yibin , Sichuan Province. All buildings there are very iconic (as bottle, package, company icon, etc), including the gate, factory, administrative buildings, etc. [via abbs ]

This is the new released Macao Pavilion for 2010 Shanghai World EXPO, titled “Moon Rabbit Lantern”, by Carlos Marreiros. The iconic building is to represent the Rabbit year (1999) when Macao was returned to China. [via abbs and expo2010china ]

Another Swiss Interlaken (I have no idea where it is until now) simulacra town in Shenzhen, where there are many theme parks already. Actually, it is the combination of the Western and Eastern. It is very popular for Bourgeois Chinese, who often spend the weekend there. From the official website: “OCT East resort, a 3.5-billion-yuan (US$0.5 billion) investment supported by OCT group, is located at DaMeiSha, Shenzhen. Occupying about 9 square kilometers, OCT East, the national ecological resort featuring tourism culture, aims at providing visitors with an opportunity to escape from the bustle of city life and return to the nature. Elaborately designed along the mountain and the sea, OCT East resort has three major theme parks: Knight Valley , Tea Stream Valley and Wind Valley . It has many culture travel functions like ecological tourism, vacation, outdoor sports etc., indicating the harmony relationship between human and the nature. Phase I of the resort opened on Jul. 28th 2007, o...

On January 7, 2009, CAIP co-founder Fei Wang gave the closing lecture for the Cincinnati Art Museum's current exhibition, " China Design Now ." His presentation was titled "Three Heterogeneity Studies of China, between the 18th Century and Contemporary." " China Design Now ," organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, captures an extraordinary moment as China opens up to global influences and responds to the hopes and dreams of its new urban middle class. This is the first exhibition in the United Kingdom and United States to explore the recent explosion of contemporary design in China and the first to attempt to understand the impact of rapid economic development on architecture and design in the country's major cities. From significant architectural projects, including the 2008 Olympic national stadium, to the latest in fashion and graphics the exhibition investigates this dynamic phase. (Many thanks for Aaron Betsky's generous invitation.)