Dr. Yuan Ye was invited to deliver a presentation at the China Architecture and Culture Forum 2024

From November 9 to 10, China Architecture Culture Forum 2024 - “Transmutation and Mixture” - Inheritance and Innovation of Chinese Architecture Culture was successfully held in the People's Building in Xi'an, the ancient capital of China, which was co-sponsored by Architectural Culture Committee of Architectural Society of China and Northwest China Architecture Design and Research Institute Co. Five academicians, including Zhang Jinqiu, Cheng Tanning, Cui Kai, Zhuang Weimin and Chang Qing, 11 national engineering survey and design masters, and more than 20 domestic famous architects and university scholars and experts gathered together to take the inheritance of Chinese architectural culture as the root, discuss the cultural identity of the current Chinese architectural culture, explore the social value of the Chinese architectural culture, and explore the key issues of the future innovative development paths, so as to contribute a solid theoretical basis for the promotion of sustainable development of the Chinese architectural culture. The conference will contribute a solid theoretical basis and practical guidance for the sustainable development of Chinese architectural culture.

The conference includes the opening ceremony, the release of “Research on the Construction of Academic System of Contemporary Chinese Architectural Culture - Proceedings of Chinese Architectural Culture Forum 2022”, the keynote forum and three sub-forums, as well as the “New with the Ancient - Academician's Masters' Architectural Works Invitational Exhibition”.

Group photo

Forum scene

Book launch site

Dr. Yuan Ye was invited to participate in this conference and delivered a keynote speech on “Reconstructing the World of Meaning: Humanistic Reflections on Architectural Design Practice” in the sub-forum of “Modern Transformation of Chinese Architectural Culture and Design Practice”. In his speech, Dr. Yuan Ye firstly put forward the idea that traditional China is a world composed of “meaning”. From royal palaces to people's residences, from religious shrines to private gardens, meaning is everywhere, and has gradually formed the collective memory of the Chinese nation through generations of deposition and evolution. Under the influence of modernist theories and thoughts in the past century and the influence of commodity society and consumerism in the past forty years, the “meaning” of contemporary Chinese cities and architecture has been dissolved or reduced to superficial consumer symbols, which leads to the lack of humanistic spirit in Chinese cities and architecture as a whole. To address this issue, Dr. Yuan Ye draws on the theory of “locality” of “human geography”, and through the six different scales of Tangshan Earthquake Site Memorial Park, Tangshan Municipal Library, Bozhou Municipal Gymnasium, Henan Puyang Jiangzhuang Village Renovation, Jiangxi Pingxiang Xiongling Mountain Residence, Hunan Xinhua Reading Hall, and so on. Through the elaboration of the design concepts of six representative works with different scales, functions and regions, the design concepts of “temporality” as the principle, “collective memory”, “public imagination” and “home” are constructed. It also constructs a design strategy based on the principle of “temporality”, with “collective memory”, “public imagination” and “home identity” as evaluation criteria, and puts forward the core proposition of “reconstructing the world of meaning”.

Dr. Yuan Ye gave a presentationSub-forum site

Tangshan Earthquake Site Memorial Park

Tangshan Library

Bozhou Stadium

Renovation of Jiang Village in Puyang, Henan Province

Xiongling Mountain Residence, Pingxiang, Jiangxi

Hunan Xinhua Yuanquan Reading Hall

In the exchange session of the forum, experts and scholars expressed their views on the inheritance and innovation of Chinese architectural culture and had a warm discussion. After the meeting, some experts and scholars collectively visited Xi'an contemporary classic architectural works including the National Version Museum (Xi'an Pavilion) and observed and studied the “New with the Ancient - Academician Masters Architectural Works Invitational Exhibition”.

Exhibition siteExhibition site