Wei [Dao]
Mapping the Contemporary 'Weidao' in Chinese Architecture: A Speculation on Cultural Identity Formation in the state of Transformation
A shell of the past is left behind with an absent soul. On the urge to search for a sense of uniqueness in cultural identity particularly to China, one cannot avoid the discussion around the term 'weidao'. A term rooted deeply in implications of a profound Chinese traditional connotations, is aimed to be used as an agent in our speculation of the associated phenomenon around an architectural cultural transformation within the Contemporary Chinese context. A primary research is conducted in form of image collection. By posing the question of “a spatial understanding of the Chinese ‘weidao” to the general online users of China, the result will assist us to address the problem more acutely.
Contesting a Simulacrum: Hyperrealistic Domestic Space in 21st Century in China
On the journey to formulate a new sense of cultural uniqueness, the home is a medium and a site for experimentation. The contemporary Chinese domestic space manifests itself in an appearance of a composed ‘theme park’, operates in a proliferation of counterfeit. Define by Jean Baudrillard as “a model of real without origin or reality”, the notion of ‘hyperreality’ is accommodated within the contemporary Chinese domestic space. Yet, the paper utilises the ‘home’ as a pair of lenses to speculate upon social, political and economic factors in which affect the formulation of contemporary Chinese subjectivities. The question to the necessity of ‘authenticity’ is contested with the phenomenon of hyperreality.
