Ο "Καθρέφτης" της Κίνας... Πίσω από τα Ανθρώπινα δικαιώματα...

The space-age face of new Shanghai.

Wings, by Foster

Foster + Partners - Beijing Airport

It is quite unique, at least on Eikongraphia, to have

an architecture rendering that feature both the building

and its iconography. This is the case with two renderings

of the Beijing Airport that Foster + Partners designed,

already in 2003. The iconography itself – the wings of an

airplane – is not that remarkable, as most airports nowadays

seem to echo the high-tech aerodynamic forms of airplanes.

To feature the building and its iconography in a single image

just illustrates how contextually motivated this iconography is.

Architecture this way becomes almost an act of camouflaging,

the architect a chameleon.

We have seen numerous contextual projects pass by here on

Eikongraphia, such as a bridge next to a bridge in Queens, waves

at the waterfront of Yokohama, and sails in the background of boats

entering the harbor of Sydney.

Foster + Partners - Beijing Airport

Foster + Partners - Beijing Airport

According to the architects themselves the design of Beijing Airport

refers also to a dragon, a traditional Chinese symbol. In their minimalist

language: “A symbol of place, its soaring aerodynamic roof and

dragon-like form will celebrate the thrill of flight and evoke traditional

Chinese colours and symbols.”

The dragon-iconography has to do with the paint of the interior that

changes from yellow to red as you move to your plane. Without

more recognizable dragon-forms, one cannot really experience

this iconography.

But maybe we have to think in the direction of the east-facing

roof lights “which maximise heat gain from the early morning sun,”

just as the small ‘sails’ of the Law courts in Antwerp, designed

by Richard Rogers, reminded even architecture critics more of the

dragons-teeth or dragon-knobs.

Foster + Partners - Beijing Airport

Foster + Partners - Beijing Airport

Foster + Partners - Beijing Airport

Foster + Partners - Beijing Airport

Interesting are also the other designs that were made back in

2003 and that are documented on a China government website.

Browsing through the other projects it struck me that the design by

Foster is by far the most ‘minimal’ in its form. Where others proposed

modules, Foster designed – what appears to be – a single form.

And where others designed different forms after one another,

the design by Foster is symmetrical.

The American blob-architect Gregg Lynn argued with his entry

for the Cardiff Opera House competition that in biology symmetry

is an effect of a lack of parameters. Symmetry is in that way more

‘primitive’ or ‘minimal’ than asymmetry, because you need

parameters to describe an asymmetrical form.

Beijing Airport is, remarkably, symmetrical along two axes.

An airplane, to name just one other object, is only symmetrical

along one axis. This double symmetry says ‘order’,

the real virtue an airport strives for. It’s a super-smart

representation. Mind-blowing.

Foster + Partners - Beijing Airport

The project will be finished next year, in 2008, just in time for the

Olympics.

Foster + Partners - Beijing Airport

Nearly a quarter of the world’s population live in China, yet the country has less than ten percent of the world’s land, and less than ten percent of that is arable or crop farming land. The rest is mountainous or desert. China’s solution to freeing land for farming is to build as dense as possible; Chinese cities average a remarkable 27,300 people per square