| Architecture is the carrier that most directly reflects the culture of one country. China, as one of the four ancient civilizations in the world, has a unique set of architectural culture system which not only reflects the superb craftsmanship of ancient Chinese, but also reflects the unique concept of ethics, values and aesthetics. However, in the contemporary, China is confronted with a huge architecture crisis. The arrival of the crisis not only caused the devastating destruction of ancient buildings, but substituted with some mediocre dull buildings. The future of Chinese architecture is worrisome. The scholars from every aspect of society tried to find the reasons for this crisis, but these perspectives did not realize the contemporary Chinese buildings have been completely reduced to technical artifacts. And the ethics, values and aesthetics which they should have are dying out gradually.The paper consists of three parts. The first part raises questions. I take Beijing as an example to introduce the form of the contemporary Chinese architecture crisis, i.e., the destruction of ancient buildings, the mediocrity of new buildings and the disorder of programming. Then sum up the current main points of view from political, economic, demographic, social psychological aspects, and research the significance and inadequate of these views. However, I think it is necessary to analyze contemporary Chinese architecture crisis from the view of technical philosophy.The second part explains why we need to take technical artifacts as the essence of architecture from the technical point of view. Then I define the respective concept of technology and artifacts make clear the relationship between human, artifacts, technology and life world. Technology is the human factor in creating the artifacts, and the essence of technology reflects human nature. Mumford and Heidegger both researched technology from the perspective of human nature, and divided technology into the ancient technology and modern technology. Accordingly, the architecture technology also can be divided into the ancient architecture technology and modern architecture technology. Different technologies reflect different human nature. Humanity is not the essence which distinguishes human from matter, but is inborn, the nature of human behaviors. We can know the different aspects of human nature by human behaviors. From technical actions, we can find human adaptability and opposability. Adaptability is the nature that conforms to the natural development, no-suppress and protective. Opposability is the nature that fights with nature, mandatory, even destructive. Ancient architecture technology mostly reflects adaptability, and modern architecture technology mostly reflects opposability. This nature is not good or bad, but we need to find a balance between them.Beauty is also an important issue in the technology-related architecture research. Architectural beauty includes technical beauty and artistic beauty. We can distinguish the difference of these two kinds of beauty from the differences of the products of technology and arts. Technology products are functional and mass-produced. Works of art have no practical function, and artistic creation is not repetitive. Therefore, the beauty of technology show the function and unified technical standards, but the beauty of arts displays the non-utilitarian beauty. Architectural beauty is the result of combining these two kinds of beauty. The structural beauty and the decorated beauty are the combination of the technical and artistic beauty. Besides the beauty, architecture also has other values, so the final section of the second part focuses on the function and significance of architecture.After analyzing of the essence of architecture, we need to propose a solution to the problem. First, we have to search for a balance between adaptability and opposability of human nature. Second, we have to re-think the status of the beauty in architecture. Specifically, we must achieve these goals through protective and creative actions. Protection means to protect the ancient architecture, ancient architecture technology and the craftsmen. Then the new creation needs to emphasis on the unity of diversity and individuality, and the combination of aesthetic principles and design principles. |
