discussion on China

I was recently interviewed by TCA thinktank about architecture in China.  I'm by no means an expert, so I tried to relate it to what I know about.  Short extract below, full interview here 

TCA: Do you think Chinese architects have more or less the same responsibilities as the western ones?If we want to describe the Chinese architecture, which are the main characteristics of you and your colleagues architectural production of the last generation?

RK: In a postmodern world, responsibility is a difficult professional concept.  We can no longer connect cause and effect with the same certainty as before and yet the global superstar Architects that I complain about are using this condition as an excuse to avoid their responsibilities.  When the Shard – London’s new tallest building – was completed by Renzo Piano, a well-known London Architect, Jeremy Dixon said that Piano should be locked in the Tower of London to contemplate his mistake (the Tower is opposite the Shard and is where traitors were imprisoned in the past).  It was quite shocking for us (in a good way) because nobody really complains about these kind of buildings in public.  I think the problem is a lack of general knowledge of how to critique contemporary Architecture: it is only if we can hold Architects to account in some way that a form of responsibility develops.  I think this relates to the last question: if people are more engaged with the shaping of their own environment it is obvious that it will respond better to their needs.  Although China does not have the same freedoms of expression that we have in the UK, strangely this situation can create stronger debates because it matters more to people.  It is a deep irony that our freedoms in the west have disempowered us in many ways.  Chinese people have to struggle a lot more to be heard, but I think there are more possibilities open to them in the future to shape their own environment.  Architects should be facilitators in this process, rather than pure artists producing rhetorical forms.