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Experiencing landscape is the root of landscape design. Udo Weilacher

interviews landscape architect Kongjian Yu from Beijing

Article · April 2017

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Im Gespräch

Experiencing landscape is the root of landscape design

Udo Weilacher interviews landscape architect Kongjian Yu from Beijing, October 2016

Udo Weilacher is professor Udo Weilacher: Dear Kongjian, you just Exactly. Productivity and sustainability were
at the chair of Landscape arrived from Beijing and it is a privilege to always very important for me. As a kid I
Architecture and Industrial have you here for the celebration of the 60th was responsible for one buffalo, because
Landscape at TU Munich. anniversary of our landscape architecture this animal was important for our survival. A
and landscape planning program at the buffalo needs water and grass, which had
Technical University of Munich. to be good enough and nutritious. So I had
to find lush vegetation in different places
Kongjian Yu is professor Kongjian Yu: This anniversary is a very every day without destroying the fields.
and Dean of Peking Univer- important event, because in China 60 years
sity, visiting professor at stand for a complete lifecycle. Your program This taught you how to read the landscape.
Harvard University Gradu- has an excellent reputation and I admire
ate School of Design as well that. Especially Peter Latz and several others Yes, that’s a good expression. I had to read
as president and principal in this school in the past had a revolutio- the landscape every day. When I went to
designer of Turenscape. nary influence on contemporary landscape university I got to know other personalities
architecture in the world. But also the people who were very important for my professio-
currently working here, including yourself nal career and my theoretical framework:

©© Sonja Weber (6)

and your writings, are very influential for the Federick Law Olmsted, Ian McHarg, Jane
profession in Germany and globally. So it is Jacobs, J.B Jackson, etcetera. Carl Steinitz
an honour for me to be here. and Richard T.T. Forman were my advisors
at Harvard Graduate School of Design
You were educated in landscape architecture and taught me a lot. In terms of theory,
in the United States and got your PhD from McHarg and his understanding of ecolo-
Harvard. Who were the most important gical planning had an important impact on
professionals that influenced your career? me. I learned about Ian McHarg by reading
English books at college, which at that time
My first teacher was my father, a farmer. I were hard to get in China. My English was
was born and raised on a farm and that is a good, because at college I studied very
most influential fact because I was able to hard and reading “Design with Nature” was Partly I am probably a lucky guy, but open for me. I generated a lot of energy,
touch the ground, I know how water flows, most influential for me. Besides that, Carl Charles Waldheim in his new book “Land- was eager to learn and worked much harder
how rice grows and so on. Until the age Steinitz was the first American professor scape as Urbanism” is delivering a very than any other student.
of 17 I lived in a kind of arcadia where the who visited China and lectured in my good argument and it’s essentially about
relationship between land and people was school. I was allowed to be his interpreter timing and my education as a farmer. I was So when you call landscape architecture an
still intact and harmonious. The farm was for one of his lectures. That’s how I came the right person at the right time in the right ”art of survival“, you refer to your farming
part of a socialist commune with about across his methods of landscape analysis, place, because several decades after the experience.
500 people and around 100 households. visual analysis and GIS. He influenced my end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, there
We grew rice, sugar cane, wheat, soybeans analytical approach to landscape, especially was a huge gap in the development in land- Exactly. When I came back from Harvard,
and so on. The people were working to- on a large scale. Carl Steinitz gave me the scape architecture and ecology in China. I found my village destroyed, my paradise
gether, cooking and eating together in the tools and Ian McHarg this model of thinking. Before the late 1970s normal Chinese youth polluted. That’s exactly what Ian McHarg
same building. I was educated during the Jane Jacobs’ book taught me about the had no access to higher education, but experienced during the industrialization
Cultural Revolution and this life touched sociology of urban landscape. From J.B. suddenly I had the chance to study at the of his hometown, Glasgow in Scotland,
me. Probably the most important lessons Jackson’s writings I learned about the Beijing Forestry University. They offered the before he went to Harvard in 1949. I studied
were how to manage the water and how to vernacular landscape and how to respect it. only program in China related to landscape gardening and learned how to create little
take care of the land. Every inch of arable In terms of design, the works of Michael van architecture, but at that time they called paradises for the elite, but that had nothing
land in China is very precious and has to Valkenburgh inspired me a lot with regard it gardening. Most of the students came to do with the problems we were facing
be productive. The management of the to ecological design, the works of Peter from big cities and I was the one of four in China. The need to survive as a farmer
limited water resources was important Walker, Dan Kiley and Laurie Olin stimulated from a farming village, the son of a landlord creates beautiful landscapes. Urbanization
to cultivate the land and avoid conflicts my minimalistic approach to landscape form. who was considered to be an enemy of the destroys these productive landscapes and
between neighbouring villages. state. My parents were tortured during the at the same time we create shallow forms,
Once you were the son of a farmer and now Cultural Revolution and psychologically I ornamental design, neglecting reality. I am
So your understanding of landscape you are running one the biggest landscape felt humiliated. My self-esteem was quite convinced that we need a revolutionary
beauty is very much linked to the concept offices worldwide. 600 people are working low and I felt oppressed for a long time, but change in our profession, particularly in
of productivity. for you. What is the secret of your success? after the Cultural Revolution the door was China, but also globally.

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Im Gespräch

Gardens are said to be more than just 2003. Today, we have about 10 faculty mem- and PKU is based on science. Our students philosophical roots are more influenced
aesthetic representations of nature, they also bers, coming from diverse backgrounds, but evaluate designed ecosystems and they by the idea of trading. Certainly you have
transport meaning and beauty, which also I learned that our kind of bureaucratic system have to understand how they work. They very productive landscapes, but the urban
seems to be an important part of your design. cannot educate landscape architects. It’s check the water quality and how people environment was always more important.
too much based on the belief that students use the water, the soil conditions and the Europeans want to travel and colonize and
That’s right, but beauty for me is connected must be educated like scientists. Land- natural diversity. In classes on so-called that’s why their perception is focussed on
to the farming experience and linked to my scape architects have to be experiential; landscape sociology, students are allowed points, lines and circles, why they invented
concept of ”deep forms“. It is about form for we need experience first because we are to actually visit villages or urban environ- the survey. Chinese landscape paintings
the sake of productivity. Form is created by creating living environments. We have to ments to experience this life as well as its don’t have a focal point. Looking at them
deep ecological processes and it’s a new allow people to touch the landscape, to be problems. We are also travelling for one is like strolling through the landscape.
aesthetic, because it is deeply rooted in part of it. That’s why I decided to establish month, for example to Germany or Spain in The western paintings always have a clear
working landscapes, in survival landscapes. an independent academy, where we are order to understand what a good city can perspective and western gardens were
Gardening is about a beauty related to training students at graduate level, based on be. It’s important for students to experience symmetric gardens for centuries.
affection whereas the beauty that I am professional training in design studios. We first, before being taught courses or doing
interested in is more related to the art of don’t award a diploma or any degree certi- design studio work. Many German landscape architects are
survival. Both concepts of beauty have their ficate. It was always my dream to establish working in China today and it seems as
right, but we always tend to forget about the something like the German Bauhaus or the Born in China and educated in North America, if they have difficulties to understand the
deep beauty rooted in productivity. British Architectural Association School of you are at home in two very different cultures. essence of Chinese landscape design.
Architecture, because these schools allow What are the most striking differences bet- What is a good method to understand your
I guess it is difficult to teach your knowledge students to be immersive, to learn by doing. ween the Asian and the Western world in the landscape culture?
to young students who didn’t grow up as understanding of nature and landscape?
farmers. How do you communicate the “art But again: how do you, born in 1963 and The best way to learn is to live there, to
of survival” to the students in your newly raised in a farming environment, commu- In terms of traditional or classical cul- experience the landscape and to live with
founded landscape academy? nicate your specific knowledge to young ture, the Chinese, the European and the the farmers. Germans and other Westerners
students, born in the 21st century? American cultures are three different always try to understand the concept of geo-
My academy is called the “Turenscape approaches. The Chinese are reading the mancy or feng-shui. What does that mean?
Academy” and it all started when I founded The first important thing is to raise the stu- landscape in terms of fertility and producti- For example, when designing a community,
the college of architecture and landscape dents’ curiosity and their love for the land. vity. We try to manage landscape intensively, we try to avoid that a new road leads straight
at Peking University PKU. It is the oldest They have to acquire personal experience because it is a part of ourselves, part of towards us, because we try to protect
and very prestigious university of art and of farmland. They have to touch the ground the family. We protect our territory and ourselves. If you are growing grain, you don’t
science in China, founded in 1898. In 1998 and go through the landscape, that’s always look at landscape as a whole. We want anyone else to take it away from you and
we started with a program for landscape most important. Second, we go with our consider it to be a refuge, protecting us you are hiding it. Paradise in China means
planning and design. It was a difficult fight students to the designed landscape and and we try to avoid any damage of nature, something in the womb. This landscape
against the bureaucratic system in order check what’s wrong. Many final theses are but unfortunately, today we have lost this tradition was intact until the industrialization of
to develop a successful Graduate School about post operational evaluation studies, kind of agrarian tradition. Western cultu- agriculture. The problem today is that Chinese
of Landscape Architecture, established in because the program I teach at Harvard res, based on Greek, Roman and Christian society in general is still a pre-industrial
Im Gespräch

society. Our society is still based on comfortable and open them up. Chinese stu-
agriculture, as well as our mentality, our dents are very polite, they will listen very well
social structure and even our political and and never openly criticize you. We educate
administrative structure. We never had the them like that from kindergarten all the way
Renaissance experience and until recently, to college. You should educate them, that it is
we had no experience with an industrial re- okay here to openly express criticism. In order
volution or modernization. Our society is still to introduce them to the European culture of
based on family lineage, on landownership, landscape, you should have them experience
on a top down imperial system. the landscape. Before going to the classroom,
you should take them around for a walk just
When I returned to China in 1997, I wrote around the corner. Experiencing landscape is
papers criticizing my teachers and the old the root of landscape design.
traditional garden theories and gardening
methods. As a result, people tried to attack So far you never got the chance to realize a
me in public media and so on. I was said to landscape project in central Europe. What
be a betrayer who forgot his own history. would be the biggest challenge for you if
That’s different in western culture, because you were asked to work here?
it encourages you to be innovative, open, some cases talk to a thousand people and religion, but maybe we should share the
rebellious, critical, and individual. In China Probably the cultural difference. In my office I answer many questions. I cannot afford garden, the landscape or our food in order
we are concerned about harmony more have 600 people, because in China you need that anymore in terms of time, expense to survive.
than innovation. big teams to finish big projects very fast. For and so on. In China, we need to fight water
example, to realise a big urban park takes us pollution, air pollution and ground pollution I am trying to use my knowledge in order to
How can we help Chinese students in one year – that’s fast and only possible be- in order to survive. In Europe you don’t make the dream of a sustainable landscape
Germany to understand the European idea cause I can easily convince the city mayor to have such severe problems anymore and development in China come true. The sponge
of landscape? do that. The top down system in China in this that’s why landscape architecture here is pro- city concept is one of the problem-solving
case is very efficient. In the USA, I realised bably considered to be not so essential and methods I promote. It’s about creating a
First of all you need to get them more two projects and the planning process was so my experience is maybe not necessarily beautiful China with an ecological network on
socialized and acquainted with Euro- very time consuming. It needed five pub- needed in Europe. In my country, landscape a national level. I try to recover the productive
pean people. You need to make them feel lic hearings and had to travel five times, in has become a survival issue. I think that beautiful paradise landscape in an era of
landscape architecture is always about post-urbanization and post-industrialization.
problem solving, always problem oriented. For our profession in China, we need to
adapt the theories which the western world
Our symposium “Landscape 2056” at the has developed in the past 50 years, but we
Technical University of Munich is about also need to invent new theories, new tools
future cultural developments. What do you because we are facing new challenges. In
personally think will be the most challen- former times, Europe and America were
ging aspects for landscape architecture the centres of innovation, but in the future,
and planning in the next four decades? China will be most important, because
severe problems are concentrated there.
Social and cultural conflicts will dominate European landscape architects and pro-
your future discussions. The cultural impact fessionals should pay more attention to the
from other countries will be significant and developments in China. You might want to
the immigrants will bring new influences think about a school or a TU Munich research
into your society. The Americans have centre in China and the developing countries,
experienced these developments decades because there you might find the solutions for
ago, but Europe used to be a very pure, problems in Africa, India or South America.
white and Christian dominated society. Maybe you should open a branch of TU
Globalization will have a big impact on your Munich in China and educate, because if
society and on landscape architecture. our vision is about saving the world, then we
How do you compose landscape culturally should educate more students and make
in the future? I think we should focus on them understand the art of survival.
the survival issues. What’s the root of
human existence, what’s our common What an excellent vision for the future.
ground? How can we bring people together Thank you very much Kongjian for this
and make them share? We cannot share fascinating interview!

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