VAII Global Connect｜CAFA Visual Art Innovation Institute Expert interview Series
CAFA Visual Art Innovation Institute Expert Stephan Petermann
Stephan Petermann
Master Architecture History and the Theory of Building Preservation, University of Utrecht. Visiting Studio director Knowlton School of Architecture, Ohio, 2017
Member of the Advisory Board for the Dutch Cultural Council
Member of the Advisory Board for the Dutch Creative Industries Fund
Member of the Advisory Board for the Internationale Bauaustellung in Thüringen
Editor-in-Chief of Elements of Architecture
Editor for several other OMA publications including Al Manakh, Project Japan and El Croquis
Most of his research work is on the edge between academia and practice. His work has been reviewed by a wide-variety of scholars and important critics and published in academic and important architectural magazines
Expert interviewed:Stephan Petermann
Interviewer:Hu Bei
CAFA VAII ：It’s so nice to have you here, Stephan.
Stephan Petermann：Yes, to be here to create a re-connect to connect, very nice!
CAFA VAII ：I am Bei HU. I’m interviewing you on behalf of CAFA Visual Art Innovation Institute today. Our first question is please talk about your work updates and the achievements since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. And is there any change in your life and work, and what is it?
Stephan Petermann ：This seems the right question. Obviously it’s been going on for a considerable time. The Covid crisis came at the moment that our work and new schedule with ZHU Pei but also with Rem Koolhaas, Prof. LYU Pinjing, and many others at school sort of came to closure because, we were working on a big exhibition in New York at Guggenheim Museum called “Countryside”, where we tried to share some insights of the development of the Chinese countryside over the last decade and the opening was in 20th February 2020. You can imagine that this was really the last thing before the Pandemic started, which we were able to finish. And it’s still already tense situation, where obviously, there were some concerns coming from China and many places. But it was dreadful to see that after the Opening of the Exhibit, few weeks later in the Central Park, across from Guggenheim Museum, people had to build emergency hospitals for the citizens of New York. And It was very dramatic.
Now we’ve been able to keep in touch. So all has changed. I used to be able to travel to China frequently, but now I haven’t been to China physically for a long time, though we’re very grateful to the Tencent, the meeting rooms, and WeChat, the area where both Rem and I are still manage to connect. And we still are doing studios with CAFA, which we are very grateful for, with ZHU Pei and a lot of Chinese students. But it’s still a very big miss that we can’t go, specifically also, at a moment when geopolitical tension between parts of the world is arising. The inability to go is not easy, it’s a challenge. But at the same time we invest a lot of time and effort energy in maintaining our relationships and the connections. And we want to maintain our involvement knowing what’s happening in China, what the people are thinking, what they are dreaming of, what they are inspired by, what they are challenged by and this kind of view.
Countryside·The Future Stephan Petermann
CAFA VAII ：So the next question is please talk about your artistic creation and relevant work during the Pandemic.
Stephan Petermann ：With CAFA, we developed a number of new approaches for countryside design. After these initial phase of doing all sorts of researches and trying tore-underst and the key drivers that have changed and shaped the Chinese countryside, we went more with Zhu Pei into a practical approach and method, looking into new ways of re-thinking the ration between top-down government ideas and bottom-up initiative and trying to see where they can support each other and how we can make that less painful and burdensome and more pragmatic and also effective economy. We feel that within the big transformations and the completion of the poverty alleviation programs of the government, it’s our need for next step, in terms of, a lot has achieved, but now we need to accelerate to a next phase. And we are trying to explore with the students in CAFA, what does that look like, not only purely in design, but also re-thinking our sight of designing towards economy, digital, countryside, what our opportunities there for locals and the small communities, and trying to extend architecture into other areas.
There’s also been a published large article in a Chinese book about poverty alleviation, which I was able to finish together with the working on the magazine (VOLUME). We did a number of issues, while we also have some Chinese contributors already reviewing basically our view of China, which was quite a comprehensive piece. And we are working for other designs, they are closed to home here because although we would very much like to work more in China on different types of project, without being able to travel there it’s just very hard situation. We’ve been developing some new opportunities on new ideas. And our focus’ on a particular area. In Jiang Xi Provence, in the Xihu area near Jingdezhen, where we are experimenting with a number of types of approaches on how to balance between the official policy level, and how to translate into bottom-up approach, so somehow meet, trying to balance between top-down and bottom-up approaches. Because we feel that sometimes there is unnecessary misbalance. And we would also create more opportunities, trying to see how we can integrate parts of the learning that we have from the countryside into actual design proposal that stretch outside of architecture per se.
Looking at the village economy, looking at the social structures of the village，we’re on making lives better in many of these areas. Sometimes that’s by design, and sometimes design is not actually relevant, but you have to help in other ways. This is an experimental approach which we have the support of ZHU Pei for some time, which is really great amazing. Also back in Europe, because obviously we’d like to work more in China, but without traveling it’s just really very impossible. I mean, you know how these things work. And I think it’s been a fun thing also for some other western colleagues who returned from China back to Berlin and back to Europe to work. We are all trying to see how we can insert the things we learn from China in Europe, which has been trying to get the possible parts of our experiences in China and see what we can do with them while we are here. So we also learn. Not only can China learn from us, but we can learn fromChina. We make this really an exchange. And we do design project also in working with other types of parties from financial sector, and also from farming, high-tech, developments, and digital culture, all kinds of directions. So it’s been a busy 2 years, very busy actually. But hopefully, again, with more Chinese, we can put it soon.
CAFA VAII ：Yeah, hopefully. Can you talk about maybe one specific approach?
Stephan Petermann ：The development that we are exploring, it’s something fairly unique. I think a number of architects still out in China are also looking at this. It’s through a form of acupuncture, using design of acupuncture into landscape. So we really try to do “nots”. Let’s say, there are generic huge scale plans but also really small interventions that can make the difference no matter how small the scale. You might notice that Rem’s (Rem Koolhaas) work is in China known for CCTV building which is one of the huge buildings. But this is absolutely the opposite of it. We are trying to find very small means, even like the furniture level or the level of convincing villagers of embracing Taobao or trying to find new form tourism with them. To enter all this level engaged, basically, we take our task as designers really far more towards just trying to help people in creative way: develop new content, develop new business opportunities, and make the countryside just a more interesting place, where new stuff happens. So this is by far our approach. Yeah, it can go in all directions in time, of marketing, but also buildings, small pavilions, art projects, it can all help in a way.
CAFA VAII ：Yeah. Small improvement is all that help make the difference.
Stephan Petermann ：Yeah. There is obviously an expression, sometime from the top level, to make a huge mixture plans, which can also be really good. But at the same time, sometimes it’s just not so big. That’s also an advice about architecture. You know, you can plan anything from a huge city to the smallest detail of a building. It can excite you and you can say, oh wow! The system does so nicely and so beautifully. So that’s part of we how to do and continue to do.
CAFA VAII ：So our next question is about What do you think of the future trend of visual art and design?
Stephan Petermann ：That’s a good question, a very good question. I think in the West we really destruct with this dynamic. It was really something that came as a complete shock. I am in writing so because there are a lot of people ordeal, and a lot of casualties in all of these very dramatic things, also in terms of our identity. It has changed things a bit although at least we are morally aware of it. When the first lock down in China happened, I tried to connect and write a story about how Chinese people think about this type of change. Because a lot of fundamental questions were raised in the West, like, is this the end of office, is this the end of this, should we change our life, etc. And I asked my WeCha group how are you going and what’s the big change. But it remained relatively silent. People were just like, “Ah, you know, this thing happened.” And “you have bump in the road.”“Yeah, we continue. We built on progress.” I was really impressed with that. It was not good for my piece of my article, because basically, it was a very simplefaithful answer. But in different review, West is obviously struggling with their own image and their own identity. I think there is still a lot of work to do. Also in that sense, waiting for art and for culture to declare. Do we shame who we want to be, what we want to do What is our society like I think the other big theme that is important and still need fundamental revision also from design is sustainability and making ecological design. I think also in China, there is a lot of work in that respect. We need to rethink the way we design cities, buildings, infrastructure. There is a huge task ahead and that we need to go from a linear process to a circular process. This sounds maybe easy or like marketing talk. But it’s actually a really big task that we have in thesociety. And that’s what I see also as my challenge for teaching of a culture.For architecture, how do we make this ecological shift.
CAFA VAII ：Yeah, that’s really important. How does your article work relate to your practice inarchitecture?
Stephan Petermann ：finishing a different research project about office buildings, where we are trying to look at not so much the buildings themselves, but more their life. Basically, after the completion, what type of change is happening to the building. So we are trying to document for a number of buildings on how they change over time. This is the type of research not often done. Here, and also in China, we are trying to find out how long a building can actually last, and which element lasts longer than other elements, and if they are destroyed or demolished, why they are demolished. So we do not take these things for granted anymore. As for me, I have a background as a historian, this is a big shift and a big learning as well. Do we actually understand the building that we use, and how can we find ways to avoid, for example, the demolishment of buildings You know, it’s such a big footprint on the environment. If you keep on demolishing, rebuilding, demolishing and rebuilding, I understand for part of the economy, this is very effective, and people make a lot of money building new buildings the whole time. But for our climate, for our environment, it’s very dramatic andbad. And I want to focus my work as well as my writing and my research on finding ways to avoid this environmental bad things to happen. There’s a lot of systematical parts of the way we approach design that we have to re-discuss and redevelop. I think China can be, and will be the crucial partner in that. I mean, America, we lost. They are in such a bad position that I don’t even care about it any more. For China, I see there is energy. I see there is interest. I see also there is cultural element in Chinese heritage which is very closely connecting to ecology and to?environment. And I see there a huge win-win condition that is on the horizon.
CAFA VAII ：Yeah. Here is our last question. Can you talk about your following artwork plans?
Stephan Petermann ：We will continue with ZHU Pei on developing proposal for countryside. We are very excited about that. Also we are getting close to construction of some of these projects. We are also preparing with CAFA for an exhibition on Rem’s (Rem Koolhaas) work in China，a big project and also small projects, which is gonna be an exciting opening September next year, if everything goes close to some of the plan. We hope to bring this show to CAFA. We are working on the magazine(VOLUME), trying to make it a platform for western, non-western, global communication about architecture that transcends the geopoliticalstruggles and difficulties, which is to find a way to interest each other and to find a positive aspect of globalization. We continue to encourage with ahope this countryside research can lead to a more structural approach that can benefit not only to one region but to other parts of China as well. Rem hasbeen coming to China since 1995. I’ve been coming to China since 2005. Both of us are very much interested and also will remain interested regardless what happens in next years.
Yeah, stay happy! Stay interested! Stayengaged! Stay in fun! Stay eating a lot! Stay enjoying! Stay challenging! Stay critical! Wait for us, we will be back. Regardless how long the Pandemic stays,we are part of a big global community. We enjoy it. We think it’s a great opportunity that CAFA offers. CAFA has to remain offering hopefully in the future as well. We think of it really not as a breakdown, but maybe as a commitment that we have to, and I want to fulfill.
CAFA VAII：Thank you for your time. And that’s all for today’s interview. And we are looking forward to your upcoming work and exhibition and publications. Thank you!
Stephan Petermann ：Great! Thank you so much and good afternoon.
CAFA VAII：You,too!
Interview Curator/CHANG Zhigang
Chief Editor/DONG Huiping
Interview Assistant/WANG Yongmeng, FAN Gongqing, Zheng Yawen
Editor/SHI Miaomiao
Interview, video/Hu Bei
English translator/DONG Jing, Hu Bei
Visual Design/ WEI Xiangmin
Image/CAFA VAII Stephan Petermann
