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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Culture -> 
Biennale injects fresh vigor into urbanism, architecture
    2015-12-15  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

 

   Cao Zhen

    caozhen0806@126.com

    THE 2015 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture (UABB) features hundreds of exhibitors from around the world as they explore topics of city development and life. Held every other year in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, the UABB is Asia’s most prestigious architecture, design and urban planning event.

    Housed in the former Dacheng Flour Mill built in 1980 in Shekou, the biennale’s Shenzhen part explores the reimagining, repurposing and remaking of the existing urban spaces and architecture, showing ways in which designers can work with people to make the city more useful and sustainable.

    With the theme of “Re-living the City,” the Shenzhen event emphasizes the life of the people in a city while attributing a kind of sentience to the city itself. “‘Living’ suggests that it is an ongoing project that belongs to everyone, every day,” said Aaron Betsky, one of the curators of the UABB (Shenzhen).

    Echoing its neighbor, Hong Kong encourages locals to look ahead to the next 35 years. Themed “Visions 2050 — Lifestyle and the City,” the Hong Kong part takes place in Kowloon Park and Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Centre inside the park to examine the enrichment of Hong Kong’s lifestyle. Chiefly curated by Christine Hawley, the Hong Kong exhibition addresses balanced relationships with nature, Hong Kong’s vibrant community and its critical housing problems.

    Although many international exhibitors have come to Shenzhen for the first time, they have shown their keen observations of the city by touching upon issues like migrant workers and the manufacturing industry.

    In the “Collage City 3D” sector, “Shenzhen Entropy,” an installation created by Dutch artist Rob Voerman, is a cardboard pavilion with colored windows and filtered lights. The outside space is a remake of a migrant workers’ apartment, with men’s T-shirts hanging on bamboo poles and simple furniture, like wooden desks and chairs. On the wall, Voerman attached some poems written by migrant workers.

    “Migrant workers are something I would like to shine a light on. The almost melancholic atmosphere of the installation recalls the memories of the millions of migrant workers in Shenzhen of the small villages where they came from. I did research online and contacted migrant worker/poet Li Zuofu before I came here. I also visited some workers’ apartments in Shenzhen later,” Voerman told the Shenzhen Daily.

    “These millions of workers, how can we help them feel at home? Can city planners learn something from the intimacy and the slowly evolving countryside and their villages? These workers and their talents and dreams play a prominent role in my installation, which pleads for a new view of urban planning.”

    German artist Martin Rein-Cano’s “Cacophony Collage” is another stunning installation that reflects Shenzhen’s large migrant population, urban cultural collage nature and development at an unparalleled speed. The installation consists of 2,464 identical small music boxes assembled on a huge plate. Mass-produced in Dongguan, the music boxes are visually indistinguishable, yet the turning of the individual music box keys reveals an array of inner auditory diversity.

    Visitors can play Western classical music as well as Chinese folk songs, provoking a collective and continually evolving melody.

    “The vast numbers of identical music boxes resemble modern, repetitive and common structures in urban landscapes, as well as the large-scale manufacturing industry that the PRD has developed to generate homogeneous products. The music boxes are massive but each is delicate. The city’s soundscape expands beyond the more generic urban infrastructural scaffolding. Where architecture can give the illusion of sameness and finality, soundscapes tend to be less tamed, more fluidly dynamic,” said Rein-Cano.

    The UABB (Shenzhen) also features the “Pearl River Delta 2.0” sector curated by Doreen Heng Liu, “Radical Urbanism” curated by Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, “Maker Maker” curated by Benjamin Ward and “Social City” curated by Renny Ramakers. Each of the curators has charted a different approach to the theme “Re-Living the City.”

    “Maker Maker” explains how new tools of production are spurring a democratic renewal of craft, turning everyone into a potential maker.

    Thematic pavilions include institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Shenzhen Institute of Interior Design at the Dacheng Flour Mill. The Xipu New Residence, a traditional Hakka round house in Longgang District built in 1928, is an affiliated venue for the Shenzhen UABB. Curators and exhibitors explore the possibilities of combining the city’s past and future to inspire the reuse of urban spaces with uncertain purposes.

    Launched in Shenzhen in 2005, and later held in Hong Kong in 2007, the biennale bills itself as an influential, professional and interactive exhibition of architecture and art.

    UABB (Shenzhen)

    Dates: Until Feb. 28

    Hours: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (Tuesday-Thursday), 10 a.m.-10 p.m. (Friday-Sunday)

    Venue: Dacheng Flour Mill, Shekou, Nanshan District (南山区蛇口大成面粉厂)

    Metro: Shekou Line, Shekou Port Station, Exit D1

    UABB (Hong Kong)

    Dates: Until Feb. 28

    Hours: 5 a.m.-midnight

    Venue: Kowloon Park, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong (香港九龙尖沙咀九龙公园)

    MTR: Tsim Sha Tsui Station, Exit A1

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