Place Construction And Influence Of Contemporary Western Architects’ Practice In China

Under the background of political and economic globalization,the internationalization trend of China’s architectural design market has become more and more prominent.The entry of Western architects into the Chinese market has brought advanced concepts,methods,and technologies and had a certain degree of impact on China’s local architectural industry.At the same time,the development of China’s economy in recent years has promoted the continuous growth of construction demand.The process of urban expansion has gradually exposed a series of problems,including Urban homogenization,the lack of regional characteristics,the disappearance of humanistic atmosphere,etc.As China’s architectural development enters the stock period,attention has shifted from the number of buildings to the quality of space and the spiritual power of place.The article firstly composes the concept and development of theories related to the spirit of place and deduces the basic logic of shaping the spirit of place in architectural activities.Accordingly,there are three basic ways of creating a place in architectural activities outlined: extracting the characteristics of the environment to form the goal of place,creating various forms to respond to the site environment,and shaping the spatial experience to awaken the sense of experience.Secondly,based on place theory,three Western architects-Siza,Chipperfield,and Holl-and their projects in China are selected as the objects of study.Their design ideas and characteristics of their works are analyzed,respectively.After that,the article summarizes their place-making strategies horizontally and summarizes three general strategies: clarifying the starting point of practice with the essence of the place,responding to the characteristics of the site with architectural forms,and conveying the essence of place with embodied experience,and explores in detail the points that can be learned from their design thinking and specific methods.Finally,based on the summary of the above place-making strategies,the article examines the superiority and limitations of Western architects in the process of placemaking in China and analyzes the objective reasons behind them.It then discusses Western architects’ place construction strategies on contemporary Chinese architects in terms of macro design thinking and specific practice methods.It also draws inspiration from them for the development of local architecture at present.