Designers at Venice Biennale bring society together
- By Rory Howard
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E-mail China.org.cn, June 2, 2016
Chinese designers at this year's Venice Biennale are tackling one of the problems of modernizing ancient cities: how do you revive community and drive away social alienation in Beijing's remaining ancient alleyways? This alienation is the theme that China's View Unlimited Design Studio will be tackling from May 28 at the 2016 Venice Biennale.
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Design for View Unlimited Design Studio's "Home. Communal Garden" installation at the 2016 Venice Biennale. The designers invite exhibition visitors to take part in the planting and harvesting of plants during the exhibit's six-month run. [Picture credit: View Unlimited Design Studio] |
Beijing's landscape and social transformation
The face of Beijing has undergone massive change in the last half century. The skyline is dotted with skyscrapers, the population flows with new people moving to the big city, and Beijing-born people moving to other parts of the country.
Standing below Beijing's towering, modern buildings, are patches of unchanged, ancient housing areas. These houses are built around communal courtyards that were once the hub of familial and social exchanges. These courtyards, which were often shared by a single family, and their communal use are what created a strong sense of belonging to a close-knit social group.
With China's development, and in the age of urbanization, these courtyards are now home to economic disparity and alienation. New people move in, old families move out, the homes lack modernization and invite low-income workers. The ever changing faces in these areas have created a society of strangers and weak social-bonds. This result of modernization and urbanization has changed Beijing's social fabric.
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