Criticism and Re-evaluation of Mies van der Rohe in China (No.1): based on the estimation of Mies in Chinese architecture journal

摘要

Almost 50 years later than in Japan, within less than 5 years (end 1970s – begin 1980s), Mies was introduced in China together with other masters of Modernism. In contrast to Japan, the information about Mies was not introduced to Chinese Architects chronologically. The articles showed delayed and rough opinions of Chinese architects about Mies compare to Japanese architects. In the articles, Mies′ works and design philosophy were compared with Le Corbusier, Gropius and Wright mostly. Chinese architects had not the opportunity to follow Mies′ design process as well as the development of Modernism. In 1980s and 1990s, during the popularity of Postmodernism, they criticized Mies and tried to find ways to make unique designs in Postmodernism. After the decay of Postmodernism, the Chinese architecture society calmed down with the finalisms of Postmodernism and made a re-evaluation of Mies. This rethinking and revaluation was summarized in the special issue for the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Mies death in Aug. 2009. Together with the re-evaluation of Mies van der Rohe, Chinese architects began to re-study Mies and other pioneers of Modernism. The following articles concentrated in the analysis of details and tried to follow the design process. This demonstrated the maturing of Chinese architects in the usage of different architecture languages and a moving forward to an independent modern architecture. The development of contemporary Chinese architecture is still inconsistent. The study about its history is difficult and still in a confused state. Furthermore, there are not enough theory books about this topic. Thus this work only concentrates in the journals the author collected in China, further investigations are planned to extend this research.