Photo © Xia Zhi;Does MAD Architects' Sheraton Huzhou Hot Springs Resort, completed in 2012, fit Chinese President Xi Jinping's definition of weird architecture?

Kooky buildings or innovative architecture? Playground for extreme forms or testing ground for new ideas? The remarkable results of China’s recent construction boom have been viewed in various—often contradictory—ways. Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed his own judgment on the matter at an arts symposium in Beijing in October, when he called for the end of “weird architecture.” While his definition of weird, alternatively translated as “strange” and “bizarre,” has not been clarified, his comments on art in general were much more straightforward: art should “disseminate contemporary Chinese values, embody traditional Chinese culture, and reflect Chinese people’s aesthetic pursuit.”

No clear policy on architecture, though, has been articulated by officials on either the national or local level, but some architects are anxious about the implications of President Xi’s remarks. Architectural Record asked a number of practitioners working in China to comment on the situation......Continue Reading

> via Architectural Record