Bert de Muynck on SOHO China's New Futurism
2008.06.10
Sanlitun, Beijing, early May. A large crowd gathers in front of the “Sanlitun SOHO” showroom, all eager to get the first glimpse of this hot property development. Inside the developer says a couple of words, the architect expresses his gratitude for the opportunity and a band imitates Robbie Williams. Take that! The crowd is urged to visit the mock-up of an apartment, creating a form of excitement and hysteria normally associated with the presence of stars, not architecture.
I wander around, enter the sales office on the second floor and grab a now-dated publication titled The SOHO NewTown Files from the shelf. Although architecture critics do not generally review sales-catalogues, The SOHO NewTown Files offers a glimpse into the strange universe where real-estate developer psychology meets architectural analysis. On the first page, one can read, “We bring the masters back down to earth. We ask them to design for the stylish middle class. Here they are constrained by budget and functionality. There are no more masters. There are no more idols. Art marries business.” There is no more future, I think, further exploring possible forms of market-led anarchistic architectural developments.
Jianwai SOHO
SOHO China
In the publication architect Kengo Kuma understands the current period in China's architectural history as a “Construction Age,” a sort adolescence. Not yet mature, but no longer infantile, not yet independent, a bit rebellious, but also prone to exploration and even self-discovery. Pan Shiyi, chairman of SOHO China, elaborates on this further with a proposal for a more pyramidal development of China's housing market, in which houses are passed on from the rich to middle to the lower classes. Ai Weiwei and Riken Yamamoto react to this through concepts of change, confusion and progress. Leafing through the publication keywords like imagination, spiritual, flexibility, relationship, information age, interaction and “how many rooms should a house have?” pop up everywhere. It is appealing to read this 2002 publication as a retroactive manifesto for the “SOHO China” developments of the past years. “The present is the future in the making,” the publication says, and six years later we are well into the future with SOHO's sprouting all over Beijing. The latest one right in front of the Yashow Market and designed by Kengo Kuma, and yet somehow totally in tune with the present-future agenda of 2002. “Sanlitun SOHO” is a mixed-use project located and will be one of the largest commercial and residential complexes available for sale in central Beijing. The project is scheduled to open in 2009.
Soho China sells a dream. Well, actually not, it buys large plots of land, puts architecture on it, and let's face it, it is architecture designed by contemporary masters, and than sells it as middle-class lifestyle. During the past decade “it couple” Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin, chief executives of SOHO China, have developed an interesting method to make profit from these transactions, in the process transforming large swaths of Beijing's Central Business District and making SOHO a household name. SOHO stands for Small Office, Home Office, while some claim that the acronym also could stand for Starchitects Ornament Harmonious Operations. In October 2007 Ms. Zhang told the Financial Times that Chinese property developers are suffering an acute lack of capital, stating, “If we choose one project, we are giving up five or six other opportunities.” In March 2008 Pan Shiyi reacted in the same newspaper on the rising land prices in Beijing with the statement that “Some land had even fetched more at auction than developed property prices. The flour had become more expensive than the bread.”
SOHO Shangdu
SOHO China
“SOHO China” has been acclaimed since it notorious 2004 “Jianwai SOHO” project by Japanese architect Riken Yamamoto. For their “SOHO Shangdu,” a shopping and residential complex in the heart of CBD, they attracted the Australian office LAB Architecture Studio. “SOHO Shangdu” cuts a shape “inspired by the forms and patterns which have built the natural world” but in the end becomes a play with weird, but still decent, geometrical forms. It is unique, for sure, but random. In close proximity to “SOHO Shangdu” sits “Chaowai SOHO,” a shopping and office complex designed by the South-Korean firm Iroje Architects and Planners. The base of the building houses a shopping mall and is formally fluid and circular, featuring a void inside from which rises a 25-story glass office tower. Currently the “Guanghualu SOHO” project is under construction, and will be ready before the Olympics. It is a mixed office and shopping building, featuring four twisted towers, internally connected. The towers are put in a row and wrapped with a perforated façade. The design is by Danish architect Søren Korsgaard and Chinese architect Qingyun Ma from MADA S.P.A.M. Guanghualu SOHO was 96% pre-sold by year-end 2007, before construction began.
Chaowai SOHO
SOHO China
In Content (2004) Denise Scott Brown states in a conversation with Rem Koolhaas: “I think there are interesting aspects of developer psychology to be understood. Basically, I believe many developers are building to the glory of God. They have something beyond economics they’re trying to achieve. This makes them not always rational. It’s difficult to work with a client if you don’t know where their logic lies, and doubly difficult if their intense passion and commitment makes them want to be the designer – if they want to do the best building in the world, they may want to be the architect themselves and may not really want you.”
SOHO China has made acclaimed and powerful contributions to the changing urban landscape of Beijing and developed a method of working which seems to be easily reproducible. The mechanisms behind this method, the access to plots of land and financial backing, are not that easily reproducible. If there were not such an acute lack of capital, would one then better understand what SOHO China wants to achieve beyond economics? For the sake of understanding the growing pains of this “Construction Age” one wishes for a sequel to the 2002 publication with the optional title “Reality Is Imagination in the Making.”
