[Several factors have combined to create opportunities for such projects. Restrictions on the transfer of rural land have been relaxed. Urban residents, weary of repeated food safety scares and environmental crises, have become increasingly interested in rural lifestyles and organic farming. Domestic tourism, bolstered by the growth of the middle class, is booming.]
By Amy Qin
The Sun Commune project by the
architect Chen Haoru focuses on farming
and community development. CreditLam
Yik Fei for The New York Times
|
LING’AN,
China —
Nestled in verdant hills amid bamboo forests and feathery grass meadows, the
Sun Commune is a thriving eco-farm about 60 miles from the eastern Chinese city
of Hangzhou . Its centerpiece is a pig barn.
Yet
this home for 30 or so black hogs is no ordinary outbuilding. An open-air
bamboo-lined structure, it has pyramid-shaped thatched roofs and a swimming
pool. On a recent afternoon, the swine snoozed to the soothing sounds of soft
jazz in their custom-built residence, which has been called China ’s most beautiful sty.
The
sty was designed by Chen Haoru, an architect and professor at the architecture
school of the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou . He is part of a wave of architects who, as
funding for projects in big cities has dried up in recent years, have turned
their attention to China’s other frontier: the rural outback.
“Ten
years ago, there weren’t that many opportunities to do projects in the
countryside,” Mr. Chen said as he led a tour of the Sun Commune grounds. “All
of the focus was on the cities. There was no interest in the rural areas.”
Several
factors have combined to create opportunities for such projects. Restrictions
on the transfer of rural land have been relaxed. Urban residents, weary of
repeated food safety scares and environmental crises, have become increasingly
interested in rural lifestyles and organic farming. Domestic tourism, bolstered
by the growth of the middle class, is booming.
President
Xi Jinping has endorsed the shift in emphasis. During a speech in 2013, he
called for the construction of a meili xiangcun, or “beautiful countryside,”
one in which “money is not squandered on unnecessary things” like tasteless
exterior enhancements.
The
nature of the projects varies. Some focus on tourism, others on farming or
community development. In addition to Mr. Chen’s pig barn, notable examples
have included a village library near Beijing by Li Xiaodong, a rural community
center and museum in Henan Province by He Wei and a rural regeneration project
near Hangzhou recently completed by Wang Shu, who was awarded the Pritzker
Prize, architecture’s equivalent of the Nobel, in 2012.
But
they all have a common goal: to revitalize the countryside and enhance its
appeal to young people, farmers, visitors and educated workers.
“The
most important thing is to make the villages attractive to people again,” said
Mr. Wang, who also teaches at the China Academy of Art.
“The
farmers have lost confidence in their own way of life,” he added. “They think
villages are backward and that cities are good.”
He
Wei, an architect and professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing , said: “These projects are not just about
making beautiful buildings. said “They’re about function and stimulating
economic activity.”
Opportunities
to build in the countryside have expanded even as mass urbanization continues
to hollow out China ’s villages.
The
country’s rapid urbanization has led to groups of villages’ being razed to make
way for high-rises. From 2000 to 2010, the number of villages in China dropped from 3.7 million to 2.6 million, a
loss of about 300 villages a day, according to research by Tianjin University .
In
Zhejiang Province , the site of the Sun Commune, thousands of
villages have been destroyed. According to research by Mr. Wang, only about 30,000
are left in the province. And most, he said, are in danger of disappearing in
the next decade.
“Everyone,
including the local government, is interested in this topic of how to revive China ’s villages,” he said.
Architects
see an opportunity to play a special role in this revitalization. For one thing,
their designs can enhance the reputation of a rural development project and
stimulate tourism or agriculture.
That’s
what the Shanghai businessman Chen Wei had in mind when he
turned to his friend Mr. Chen, the architect, to help him build a barn for pigs
as part of his organic farm. This was in 2013, at around the same time that 16,000
dead pigs were found floating in the nearby Huangpu River after having been dumped by farmers upstream.
“In
China , the city people never really interact with
rural people, so there’s very little social trust,” said Mr. Chen, the
businessman and now the director of the Sun Commune. “The barn is a major draw
— it’s part of our brand. It attracts people from the cities to come to the
farm so they can actually get to know the people who are growing their food.”
Others,
like Mr. Wang and his wife, Lu Wenyu, have taken on rural projects with the aim
of creating a model for sustainable development in the countryside.
In
2012 Mr. Wang and Ms. Lu began working on Wencun, a village about an hour’s
drive from the Sun Commune. Through constant negotiation and consultation with
local government officials and villagers, Mr. Wang and Ms. Lu oversaw an
expansive regeneration project that included the construction of two dozen new
houses and the refurbishment of some of Wencun’s existing homes and public
spaces.
The
new homes, completed this year, combine elements of traditional houses in the
Wencun area — like an inner courtyard and a room where families pay respects to
their ancestors — with modern amenities like an access road for cars and a
space designated for watching television. Mr. Wang’s signature design elements
are woven throughout: narrow rectangular windows, unfinished concrete exteriors
and patchwork masonry.
As
of a few weeks ago, only a few of the houses had been occupied. But a villager
who poked her head out of one said: “So far, it’s been nice living here. It’s
cleaner, and the walls are whiter.”
While
the Wencun project is still getting off the ground, Mr. Wang is already trying
to work out how this type of design-based development might be replicated on a
larger scale.
“With
Wencun, we’ve created a research and work method that can be copied, but the
challenge is still scalability,” he said. “In terms of implementation, every
village has different traditions and vernacular architecture. There’s no one
template.”
Perhaps
the biggest challenge when it comes to building in the countryside, though, is
unpredictability. Rural land-use rights are especially tricky, since property
in the countryside is collectively owned and, technically, it is illegal for
urban residents to own rural land. Even when an outsider reaches an agreement
with a villager to buy or rent land, there are very few legal protections.
That
was a problem that the artist Ou Ning encountered when he and his family were
recently forced to leave their home in Bishan, a village in rural Anhui Province . Though villagers credit Mr. Ou with helping
to rejuvenate the community and attract tourists, some suspect that the social
aspect of his project — which focused on art and rural reconstruction but also
touched on ideas like anarchism and utopia — may have rattled local Communist
Party officials, according to a report by The Times of London.
In
February, just over a week after Mr. Ou and his family had celebrated their
third Lunar New Year at their restored home in Bishan, the paper reported that
the local government had shut off the electricity and water at the house
without warning. Contacted by telephone, Mr. Ou declined to comment, citing the
sensitivity of the situation.
“In
the countryside,” said Mr. He of the Central Academy of Art, “the government
can cut off a project much more easily than in the cities. In one night, all of
your work can be torn down. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”