PUBLIC LECTURE
MR ERIC CHEN XUAN CHENG
"BODY & LANDSCAPE AS THE WAY OF SEEING"
ERIC CHEN XUAN CHENG
*Taiwanese architect, born in 1978
*graduated from the Graduate Institute of Architecture at Tainan National University of the Arts , followed by the Graduate Institute of Architecture at Tainan National University of the Arts in 2006 and its Doctoral Program in Art Creation and Theory in 2015
*lecturer in the Department of Architecture at Chung Yuan Christian University
*founder and principal architect of Archiblur Lab
Urban . Archipelago . projects
During the beginning of the lecture, the first word comes into my mind was “ARCHIPELAGO”. So what is archipelago? According to the dictionary, it means a large group or chain islands or any large body of water with many islands.
While in Eric’s word, he describe this term “archipelago” as the urban floating islands or drifting platforms and art creations which produce by he and his team in order to fill the urban space, by trying out different scale of architecture and materials, main purpose is to reveals the relationship between human senses, landscape and city and further investigate capacity of people to engage the evolving of urban morphologies.
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I remembered that the archipelagos projects had once chosen by the Architizer as one of the 10 contemporary Taiwan architectural projects which currently reframing and transforming vernacular. It is built upon Taiwan’s past to reveal a tumultuous history and then becoming the new forces which actively shaping contemporary life and reimagine the future architecture in Taiwan. Eric then introduce his archipelago projects one by one, by their location, history background of the place, main purpose of it and how did it engage the local society. What they actually did was, keep on trying out and explore the possibilities which carry by the place and landscape itself, redefined its boundary, and produce the creation which meets the local community needs and at the same time revive local about their glorious old time memories and stimulated their sensibility and perception of memory in the architectural way.
In my understanding, they are all little huts, some of which can be disassembled and others that can be moved on wheels, which host activities designed to activate underused public spaces and that vary on a case by case basis. The constructions are inspired by the infinite number of spontaneous solutions that can be seen in Taiwan’s streets, squares and parks, especially at night selling food: makeshift restaurants where a hob, a corrugated metal roof, a table and some stools bring otherwise deserted sidewalks and spaces to life. A system of lightweight metal struts and plastic panels are assembled to create small, lightweight kiosks, which are used as exhibition galleries, graphic production centres, and temporary radio stations. In the tropical night, the diaphanous apparition of these little buildings stands out against the backdrop of the city thanks to the artificial light that filters through their translucent shell and their white colour. New routes and social relationships are therefore triggered by this network of objects, which accepts and reinterprets the transitory nature of Taiwan’s urban space.
REWORKING . ARCHIVES
The next phase of the archipelago project is REWORKING ARCHIVES . They reorganise the history archives, oral interviews, old photos, landscape survey and community context in every of their previous project and retranslate them for exhibition purpose in order to show people the relationship of visible and invisible linkage within Taiwan. The consideration Eric and his team make along this phase, for me it is totally out of the box, from the way they creates connection of the art installation with local community: By using mosquitoes net and wastage from sugar processing, while at the mean time the outcome was out of expectation, somehow lead people into their ways of thinking, By using the destroyed bridge to speak their architecture in “broken ways”.
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LANDSCAPE . RECONSTRUCTION
The third Phase is landscape reconstruction and redefine the modern “village” by aggregated ,renamed and relocated those archipelago little huts , and forming a new connection among them with cooperation with various experts and artists to form a multi-level landscape of construction , towards a temporary settlement generation. For me, the ARCHIPELAGO idea is most completely at this phase. Ten little huts tend to link together just like ten small pieces of puzzles finally put together and shown to the audience in a big picture , the picture with combination of Taiwan’s history, cultural tradition and contemporary lifestyle.
By the ending of lecture, Eric also took this opportunity to explain the idea behind “Floating Mountain” installation to students who works with them during the Publikart workshop.
These speech did recall my memory during the workshop in Johor.
From my observation along the Johor Publikart workshop, “fascinating and charismatic” are words I can said to describe Eric and his teammate’s attitude towards architecture.
I was amazed by the way they did architecture with their hands, as Eric said before
“Why we do all our installations on-site? Because this is the only way we can feel the temperature and weight of each line we’ve drawn on the drafting tables.”
Their persistence in solving each problems, their spirit, passion and belief in what they are doing.
Eric once told us that
“If you don’t succeed at the first, try and try again, maybe it just need a slight change to make it works. Trying lots of different approaches can win through.”
To my mind, Eric and his team teach us not only those practical skills but also the way we treat architecture and life.
The inspiration and motivation they brought to me somehow reveals the answer of last question he thrown to us by the end of his lecture
“What is architecture meant to you?”
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Perhaps we shouldn’t ask why we need architecture but we ask what else we can contribute to architecture and what architectural way we do to lead society towards better future.
