China occupies a pivotal position in the global economy and a fragile space in the sphere of culture. While it seems that most consumer commodities today are Made in China, and as a corollary, that China is ‘the factory of the world', China may alternately be understood in terms of its long history of innovation. Not merely as a site of production but as a valuable knowledge bank for the future of planet Earth. Networks of indigenous ways and means originating centuries ago in China have new applications within the context of design for environmental sustainment and hold great potential as models for future innovations in this emerging realm. Research in a range of disciplines shows that ecological sustainability requires careful study of our past and present behaviors, in addition to a visionary approach toward the future. System for Slow(er) Architectures aims to sustain culture and environment through relationship building, retrieval of knowledge and bilateral technology transfer. This contextualized meeting of indigenous knowledge and new possibilities aims to benefit Fujian families in southern China and to codify and distribute endangered systems of knowledge.
Hui'An County's famous Chongwu Township is in transition. Intergenerational lines of skilled artisans earned its reputation as a treasure of Chinese living cultural heritage and the center of China's stone artisan culture. Historically, it was the highly skilled carvers from this southern Fujian province who were called upon to produce the historical carved relief panels of astounding quality for temples in the capitals in Nanjing and later in Beijing. Old Chongwu Town was walled as a seaboard fortress around 1384. But the practice of stonework there actually dates back to around 300 AD. Hui'An County, Fujian Province retains certain traditional socio-cultural features. Until recently, relative geographical and economic isolation of the area combined with the structuring influence of the livelihood in stonework preserved some of the traditional Minnan customs. Notably however, the Han women of Hui'An County are famed for traveling throughout China as itinerant laborers in the stone and construction industries.
Chongwu Township, now far outgrown its extant city walls, remains the production center of the stone industry in China. Since 1980, demands of global markets have led to an explosion in the total number of stone production factories within the entirety of Hui'An County and to increased global demand for stone products of unlimited diversity. Chongwu Township is on the coast in Fujian Province, a prime location within one of the fasting growing Special Economic Zones. This seaboard town is now home to more than 1000 township industries all dedicated to stone carving or manufacturing of some sort. Custom and mass-produced products are distributed to markets both domestic and international. Products range from figurines and garden statuary, to paving stones, architectural stock, monuments and mausoleums, statuary and temple architecture.
Chongwu Township is an enormous stone production zone. The built environment is a physical articulation of market flows and demands, the material story of what local labor is worth, to whom and where. Moreover, this place is a visual demonstration of the awesome power of knowledge carried on from generation to generation. The endless variety of stone products demonstrates the versatility of these village communities in responding to market forces. However these expansions in scale and diversity constitute a limited, reactive sort of growth. There exists in towns like Chongwu an alternative to reactive, uneven growth. The opportunity to plan for and create long-term, sustained prosperity that benefits average families in the form of engaging and profitable livelihoods.
In China, as in other rapidly developing countries, the growing gap between rich and poor is one of the most serious problems today. The global model of development, based on efficiencies of scale and low labor costs, creates profits in the short term. But it fails to capture externalities such as the environmental impact of high-density factory production, undervalued labor, impacts of transportation of goods, depletion of quarries, and destruction of the waterfront ecosystem; a habitat for sea life and a significant environmental amenity. Having a current population of about 40,000. Chongwu Township is experiencing population loss as young people tend to choose not to return home bringing the benefits of education or exposure to new technologies. Many local families subsist on the edges of poverty, supplementing wages with in-kind earnings and barter from a combination of livelihoods including fishing, shipping and small-scale farming. Despite these challenges, the local population has sustained itself primarily through an ingenious balance between fishing, carving and trade. Local Minnan women especially lack access to education and other opportunities for growth. The opportunity to study Mandarin, the common Chinese language is a genuine luxury for rural women laborers. However the infamous Hui'An Women defy expectations. Highly visible and empowered, they are gainfully employed social actors defying convention as construction workers and experts.
Given its history and resources, Chongwu Township has the potential to be an innovative model for more equitable long-term growth. Chongwu is exemplary of the kind of locally integrated villages China is famous for. What makes such places extraordinary is the combination of tangible and intangible assets, often inherently sustainable. Each village is comprised of delicate networks of interdependent micro-economies, each a product of many generations of refinement. These intricate networks of locally balanced user/product/service/labor micro-economies are increasingly endangered due to the complex forces driving globalization and migration in ‘developing' regions.
System for Slow(er) Architectures aims to enable collaborations between sustainable global practices and unique local knowledge. Indigenous knowledge can indeed be innovative. Based on the idea that in actuality, there is much to learn from local ways developed over hundreds of years of experimentation. Being typical in its depth of integration, Chongwu Township is a window for looking at localities in transition during this time of rapid global change. Through a research methodology of careful study and listening, seemingly redundant practices will be recovered for alternative uses. Although craft practices do not offer economies of scale capable of impacting global production and distribution networks, craft values and approaches may be powerfully coupled with existing production methods in order to cultivate markets for high quality skilled labor.
Distinctive local architecture is the starting point for learning from indigenous knowledge here. The extraordinary self-designed and built multi-story stone slab dwellings distinguishing the entire coastline are unique to this particular county in China and the world. The distinctive hewn stone structures and the general systems orientation that characterizes the local building practices informs community designed and built family homes, commercial buildings and temples at all scales. Intergenerational aptitudes passed from master to apprentice have also resulted in a multiplicity of trade innovations. Locally designed and built housing is a celebration of spirit within necessity. This intangible living fabric of artisanry defines the place, yet it has no long-term function within the logic of global scale development. The delicate balance of various systems can be destroyed by sudden economic changes. To continue to grow and evolve as living culture, these local practices must remain profitable and relevant. These practices have complex socio-economic functions as cultural capital, as community trust and as commodities. The System for Slow(er) Architectures project seeks to steward such practices, the cultural capital of Chongwu Township. This architectural focal point provides a tangible pilot project and a starting point for System for Slow(er) Architectures , a nexus for understanding the complex range of dynamics at play in this township at present and for imagining into the future.
Functioning as a transdisciplinary village/institutional research base, System for Slow(er) Architectures will function as forum for the meeting between local and other knowledge and between knowledge across disciplines. The program encourages research partnerships between Chongwu Township residents, Fujian-based universities, Chinese institutions and foreign institutions in areas such as architecture and design, environmental engineering, economics, sociology, cultural studies, geology and marine biology. It will provide opportunities for mentoring, fieldwork and cooperative education. Experimental partnerships with local and outside universities and Fujian industries will be essential in reality testing for quality, profitability and local fit.
System for Slow(er) Architectures will create mentorship opportunities. Volunteers, students and interns may contribute their time and labor in exchange for learning hands-on with local master stonemasons and builders, women and/or elders. In addition to local commitment, the development of this program seeks the participation of a wide range of expertise including:
- Speakers of the local Hui'An dialect
- Architectural expertise in foundations engineering in typhoon regions
- Sustainable architecture and design schools are sought as partners
- Comprehensive economic analysis of the region
- Environmental engineering research and analysis
- Economic research and analysis
System for Slow(er) Architectures is an experimental research collaboration for the development of working models. The program will build on existing knowledge to develop locally tailored models at a sustainable scale of growth, and establish a local council for decision-making, community stewardship and follow-through. The unique indigenous heritage of the region, the foresight of influential opinion leaders, expertise from regional universities, and decision makers from local government and industry will combine to steward the present and future of this place by means of the same slower culture of connoisseurship and discrimination for which Hui'An is famous.
- Understand the existing knowledge fabric
- Understand the local economic/labor networks
- Codify local knowledge and methods
- Transform redundant systems into innovations
- Promote dignity and pride of place
- Restore the authority of hand artisanry
- Revitalize living culture
- Develop new skills
- Create new jobs
- Develop markets for high-quality craftwork
- Create equitable livelihoods
- Create access to education
- Capitalize on existing resources
- Empower local leadership
- Build capacity throughout the region
- Bank knowledge for the future
- Cultivate a generation of youth stewards
- Mitigate population loss
- Generate exportable models of empowerment
- Generate regional and non-local profits
- Create incentives for waterfront ecosystem restoration
- Disclose the true cost of loss of non-renewable resources
- Foster women's empowerment
- Sustain ecosystems and people
- Consider climate change
- Foster intergenerational mentoring
- Transform women's knowledge into profits
- Enable womens' access to education
- Promote youth/elder mentoring
- Create incentives for local distribution models
To participate or to contribute, please contact:
Systems for Habitation lisanorton@mac.com
Lisa Norton is Associate Professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Last modified 23-May-2006
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