Rural Revitalization Online Lecture · 14

“Place” + Community — The Spatial Structure of Nostalgia

Haobo Wei’s presentation considers the relationship between place, community and the spatial structure of nostalgia. The archived slides identify hierarchical nesting at Bailong Miao Village, the symbolic structure of mnemonics at Chetian Village, and the visitor centre as a connection with the outside world.

Haobo Wei is Chief Architect of West-Line Studio, a professor-level senior architect and a recipient of the State Council’s special government allowance. He serves on the Council of the Architects Branch of the Architectural Society of China and has received the Society’s Young Architect Award. His international roles include serving on the WAN Awards jury and delivering the inaugural Peter Blundell Jones Memorial Lecture at the University of Sheffield.

His research and practice seek an organic architectural system within subcultural communities. This work brings together the spatial structure of “ritual” and “mnemonics”, the production and operation of contemporary cultural knowledge, and hierarchical mechanisms of construction. It has gradually developed a working platform of “a community rooted in place — geographical procedures + community models + the tools of a scientific bricoleur”.

This approach attempts to address the practical difficulties arising from the interaction of two social structures in the rural West: a broader, universal society and distinct subcultural communities. It also seeks to protect diverse human ways of living within these communities and to support their growth together.

2019 WAN Awards — Architect / Practice of the Year, Gold; 2019 and 2018 LEAF Awards — Overall Winner; 2018 LEAF Awards — Best Public Building; selection among fifteen international architects in the 2019 Dezeen Awards Architect of the Year longlist; 2018 German Design Award — Gold in Architecture.

2019 and 2018 A+Awards — top honours for architecture in stone; 2018 A+Awards — awards for architecture in concrete and stone; 2019 Architecture MasterPrize — top honour in restoration and renovation; 2020 International Architecture Awards — parks and gardens; 2017 ArchDaily China Building of the Year — winner; and the Architectural Society of China’s 2013 China Architectural Design Award — Gold for Rural Architecture, among other awards.

The fourteenth Rural Revitalization Online Lecture was announced for Sunday, 11 October 2020, beginning at 14:00. The announcement was published by the THU Rural Revitalization Workstation on 9 October 2020.

The lecture invited Tian Qi, Associate Professor at Chongqing University’s School of Architecture and Urban Planning and principal of Yueji Architects; Haobo Wei, Chief Architect of West-Line Studio, professor-level senior architect and State Council special-allowance expert; and Jiansong Lu, Professor, doctoral supervisor and Vice Dean of Hunan University’s School of Architecture.

The discussion also brought together Wei He, Professor at the School of Architecture of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and founder of Sanwen Architecture; Lu Fan, Associate Professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Architecture and member of the Architectural Media Academic Committee of the Architectural Society of China; and Zhengxu Zhou, Associate Professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Architecture and member of the Society’s Village and Town Development Branch.