As part of the 'Hello China' campaign, the RIBA launched the 88 Places and Spaces architecture photography competition in China, attracting more than 250 submissions. The winners were announced live at Design Shanghai on 29 November 2020.
01 September 2020
88 Places & Spaces is part of our 12-month engagement project, Hello China to mark the launch of the opening of the RIBA Shanghai office. The aim of the competition was to show how architects and designers see the world differently, to reveal the unique details of buildings, structures and spaces, and to celebrate the outstanding contemporary architecture produced in China.
88 Places & Spaces was open to architects, designers and built environment professionals and students whose main address is in mainland China. The competition followed the same themes of the Hello China programme, Identity, Sustainability, Craftmanship and Architecture Excellence, as important considerations for the profession in China today.
Over 250 entries were submitted, of which 88 photographs were shortlisted and published in an online gallery. We opened a people’s vote, which attracted approximately 1,000 votes in less than two weeks. The most voted photograph of each theme was announced as the winner of the people’s vote. These four photographs, together with the eight shortlisted by the grand jury, made up the top 12 photographs.
Four winning photographs (one winning photograph per category) were then selected from top 12. This jury panel consists of high-profile individuals in architecture and the built environment, including:
Chair: Azlina Bulmer, Director of International, RIBA
Charles Lee, President, Phoenix Creative TV
Ken Wai, Global Design Principal, AEDAS; RIBA China Chapter Chair
Matthew Hu, China representative, The Prince's Foundation
Mei Ping, Chief Representative China, Capella Hotel Group
Valeria Carullo, Curator of The Robert Elwall Photographs Collection at the RIBA British Architectural Library
Zhang Chunling, Chief Design Officer, Partner Yuyuan Inc.; Senior Vice President of Shanghai Forte Enterprise Development Co
Zhang Li, Professor, Dean of Architecture, Vice Principal in THADI, Tsinghua University; Lead Architect at Atelier TeamMinus
The winners were announced live at Design Shanghai on 29 November 2020.
Winners
1. Identity
the expression of an appropriate language for contemporary architecture in China
how is modern China expressed in architecture and places?
Photo title: Book house in Zheshui Village/ 浙水村书屋
Photographer: Weiqi JIN/ 金伟琦
Caption: The photo of the rural book house designed by LUO studio was taken in Zheshui Village, Lingchuan County, Shanxi Province. With the camera angle, the stone and wood-framing wall strongly contrast with each other in texture. Stone is rough and heavy, while processed wood and structure together highlight the beauty of manual work. The wood-framing wall and enclosure function as bookshelves and open the internal space to the environment outside. Light and shadow increase the transparency of the space and structure. Reading children as active elements in the picture vividly show how the building, as a still piece of art, is used at times. The rural book house of Zheshui Village provides a public space, opening a window for children to understand the world, and creating a platform for them to interact with each other. Chinese villages where the traditional social economy was relatively closed have undergone tremendous changes, and they have also accordingly generated many new demands for space and architecture. Exploration of new buildings changed the style and features of the countryside, point by point, and tried to promote the development of rural society with the renewal of rural space. This photo is one of the image records of this process.
2. Sustainability
environmental concerns are a key challenge for the global society
how is this challenge being addressed through architecture?
Photo title: UCCA Dune Art Museum/ UCCA 沙丘美术馆
Photographer: Zaiye Studio/ 在野照物
Caption: Hidden underneath a beachside dune, the design of the Dune Art Museum is simple, pure, and touching - a return to primal and timeless forms of space. Enveloped by sand, the museum’s interconnected, organically shaped galleries and café take inspiration from natural caves. The museum’s design concept was born out of the architects’ respect for nature and their desire to protect the vulnerable dune ecosystem, formed by the wind and waves over thousands of years. Because of the museum, the dune will be preserved instead of levelled to make space for ocean-view real estate developments, as has happened to many other dunes along the shore.
3. Craftmanship
the celebration of the unique and extraordinary tradition of craftmanship in China e.g. timber temple construction, garden design and ceramics
how does contemporary architecture and place making celebrate this knowledge and incorporate techniques of making?
Photo title: Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum/ 景德镇御窑博物馆
Photographer: Weiqi JIN/ 金伟琦
Caption: The Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum in Jiangxi, designed by Studio Zhu-Pei, is pictured here. The photo was taken at sunset when everything was shadowy. The Imperial Kiln Museum stands in the twilight and blends with the environment, making the colour harmonious and unified. With an arched shape, the building in medium distance reproduces the past scene of Jingdezhen, and as a distinctive cultural symbol, is the subject of the picture. The window openings of the building, as bright colour blocks, activate the overall tone of the picture and, from the perspective of expression, they are also the embodiment of the internal space. The external shape is highly unified, while the internal space is full of change, and the picture uses the brightness of colour to distinguish the internal and external of the building. Porcelain is what makes Jingdezhen prosperous, and porcelain kilns are the heart and soul of Jingdezhen. The architecture follows the space type of traditional kilns in Jingdezhen, restores the memory of Jingdezhen, and prolongs the history of the land. There are many explorations and practices in the field of architecture in the urban development and cultural renaissance of China, and the significance of images lies in the expression of countless fragments of the grand process.
4. Architecture excellence
celebrate the outstanding architecture delivered in China over the last 20 years
reveal the buildings and places that counter the perception of mass production derived from the ‘Made in China’ concept
Photo title: Weaving with Light/ 光织
Photographer: Tianzhou YANG/ 杨天周
Caption: For many years, the most intuitive impression of Chinese architecture was "large-scale demolition and construction". In this trend, even excellent historical buildings cannot escape the fate of being demolished and replaced by large-scale productised new buildings, and people's memories and feelings about historical buildings are diluted or even destroyed. In contrast, the designer and owner of the Long Museum in Shanghai did not follow this "wave", but used the architecture to critically respond to the issue of the relationship between "the new" and "the old" in urban development. The coal hopper site is completely preserved, and together with the newly built part forms a corridor that blends the old with the new, so that people walking in it can feel the impact of the timespan. In the photo, the light links the new buildings and the old site like a silk thread, which perfectly reflects the critical core of architectural design — "the new" and "the old" are not opposites, and co-prosperity of both is better than replacing the old with the new.
The top 12
In addition to the final four winners, eight other photos were selected from the people’s vote and jury’s vote.
