Rethinking China’s Countryside

This design studio looks at the role of rural cultural heritage in an everexpanding urban territory. We propose this in the context of the “Collective City” theme because we believe it raises important issues about the notion of the collective. In a paradoxical way, many of the problems that face the contemporary city can be solved or exacerbated by how we address the rural. We set out to challenge conventional preservation paradigms, instigated by a national rural heritage policy focused on introducing tourism as a rural solution. In short, we aim to make these abandoned villages operational again. An abundant number of villages of this kind exist, all of which are confronted with a dark reality: i.e. face certain extinction or lose their soul by giving way to the practice of “Disneyfication,” a form of architectural conservation that mutates villages into an architectural taxidermy museum. It brings to the table, the condition of the Chinese village, which for more than thirty years has been neglected, abused and depleted of life. Today, Chinese villages are disappearing at alarming rates, 300/ day by some statistics. Without entering into quantitative research, our proposal wishes to demonstrate that rural villages offer unique opportunities for collective readings.