This blog is your guide through the two seminar events: Snowball Shanghai – on March 25-27 in Shanghai (download seminar publication) and Snowball Helsinki (download programme) which was organised on February 12 at Kiasma, Helsinki.

Snowball – Event on Finnish and Chinese architecture
滚雪球——芬兰与中国建筑设计研讨会
Venue: Mansion Hotel, No. 82 XinLe Rd., Shanghai
地点：上海新乐路82号首席公馆酒店
Dates: March 25-26, 2010
日期：2010年3月25-26日

Please, download seminar publication here

Snowball – Event on Finnish and Chinese architecture takes place in Shanghai on March 25–27, 2010. Organised by the Finnish Association of Architects (SAFA), as part of Finland’s cultural programme for the Shanghai 2010 World Expo, the event consists of a two-day seminar exploring common grounds and differences between Finnish and Chinese architects, a networking program and a one-day excursion.

滚雪球——芬兰与中国建筑设计研讨会将于2010年3月25-27日在上海举行。本活动由芬兰建筑师协会（SAFA）主办，作为2010年上海世博会芬兰文化项目的一部分，包括了为期两天、探讨芬兰和中国建筑师之间的共同点和差异的专题座谈会、交流活动及持续一天的游览活动。

The objective of the event is to offer insight in the latest achievements of both Finnish and Chinese architects, through presentations of new projects, solutions and visions. By bringing professionals from both cultures together in a three-day program, Snowball aims to establish and deepen the Finnish and Chinese networks. The program is set up as such to establish potential business and creative matches between Finnish and Chinese architects, as well as to reinforce the exposure and business opportunities for Finnish architecture in China.

本次活动旨在通过介绍新项目、方案和愿景，让人们深入了解芬兰和中国建筑师的最新成果。通过为期三天的项目安排，滚雪球将来自两种文化背景的专业人员聚集一堂，建立并深化芬兰和中国间的交流。本次活动的开展是为了在芬兰和中国建筑师之间开拓潜在的商业机会，提倡富有创造性的双方合作，增加芬兰建筑师在中国的曝光度，并为其在中国寻找更多的商业机会。

This year, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Helsinki, the capital of Finland, as one of the world’s best cities to live in. The ranking scores each city on 30 factors across six areas: stability, healthcare, environment, education, infrastructure and culture. Helsinki was also nominated as the World Design Capital 2012 – a decision reflecting the importance and status of design in the city. Ranging from everyday objects to sustainable urban solutions, design is manifest in the lives of the city-dwellers in many ways. Seen from a broad perspective – in city planning, architecture and other related fields – design plays an integral role in the social, economical and cultural development of Helsinki.

今年，《经济学家》资料处将芬兰的首都赫尔辛基列为全球最适合居住的六个城市之一。这次评比针对以下六个领域里的30个因素对各个城市进行了评分：稳定性、保健服务、环境、教育、基础设施和文化。赫尔辛基还获得了“2012年世界设计之都”的提名——这一决定显示了设计行业在这座城市中的重要性与地位。设计行业所起的作用被体现在赫尔辛基居民生活中的许多方面，从日常用具到城市可持续发展的解决方案不等。让我们从更为广泛的视角对设计行业进行观察——城市规划、建筑风格以及其它的相关领域——设计行业在赫尔辛基的社会、经济和文化发展中扮演着不可或缺的角色。

When it comes to a booming economy, increasing modernisation and a continuing population shift from rural to urban areas, China is in the midst of significant changes. The Snowball seminar explores the common ground between Finnish and Chinese practitioners in the field of sustainable urban and architectural design. The theme of the Shanghai Expo, Better Life, Better City, is reflected in the programme.

中国正处于重大变化的中心：经济繁荣、现代化不断推进、从农村到城市正持续进行人口的迁移。滚雪球专题研讨会探讨了在城市可持续发展和建筑设计领域里芬兰和中国建筑设计从业人员之间的共同点。上海世博会的主题“城市，让生活更美好”在此次活动中得到了体现。

Snowball – Event on Finnish and Chinese architecture is co-organised by the Finnish Association of Architects, Finpro/Finland at World Expo 2010 Shanghai China, Greater Helsinki Promotion, MovingCities and Lychee Productions. The event supported by the Ministry of Foreign affairs and the Ministry of Education of Finland.

滚雪球——芬兰与中国建筑设计研讨会是由以下组织联合举办的：芬兰建筑师协会、芬兰对外贸易协会/2010年上海世博会芬兰参展组委会、大赫尔辛基推广促进局、MovingCities和Lychee Productions。本次活动得到了芬兰外交部、就业与经济部以及教育部的大力支持。

Welcome!

欢迎您的到来！

More information and programme details: snowball(at)movingcities.org

NOW hosted the Snowball Helsinki after party at their old studio space in Kamppi. We had fun and dim sum!

After the introduction of Bert de Muynck from Moving Cities (see below), Snowball Helsinki – Arkkitehtuurivientiä Kiinaan event featured talks from Finnish architects and decision-makers. Exploring the present and the future collaborations in architecture between Finland and China, these professionals shared their personal experiences and new insights.

JKMM Architects on making Kirnu, the Finnish pavilion at Shanghai Expo

- Why China?

The key question for architects wanting to operate in China is: why do you want to practice architecture just there? We wished to go to China because the preconditions to do good architecture are there: the clients, projects, funds and cost-effective operating conditions.

- Architecture as a story

In order to succeed abroad Finnish architects must have a unique point of view and a concise message. A strong concept links architecture to different things – to things outside architecture that people are interested in. In order to present Kirnu to the Chinese, we created a story about Finland, the ice age and its effect on the landscape as well as how, here, you can hire an island for the summer and take your laptop with you. We talked about nature and the Finnish mythology as a source of inspiration. In the end, we do live in a special place.

- China vs. Finland

How is China better than Finland from an architect’s point of view? The contractors are nowadays better in China than in Finland and the constructors still take professional pride in their work. In China, it is possible to carry out designs that require hand made elements. And if something goes wrong, it is also possible to correct the mistakes whereas in Finland this might be too expensive.

- What are we?

Finland should see itself as a small and friendly partner. We are not going to conquer the world but instead we should operate as experts within international teams. It is also important to build true collaboration through, for example, inviting more Chinese people to live in Finland and to change us!

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Yrjö Sotamaa, Aalto University and Tongji University: Challenges and opportunities in China

Challenges:

- Everything is big and…

… the projects are very speedy (the work takes place 24/7).

… the combination of communism and market economy creates a decision-making system that is complex and untransparent.

… networking is of primary importance.

… the management of time is extremely flexible – people are not able to make decisions that much in advance as they must always be available for their supervisors.

… quick financial gain is the main driver. In many ways this is a benefit: people are hard-working and pragmatic. On the other hand, this often conflicts with Finnish design approach which bases on thoroughly considered concepts and solutions.

… it is sometimes challenging to find good professionals even though in China there are many of them.

Opportunities:

- The markets for building and design are gigantic – solutions for sustainable development  and quality are in demand and a new way of living is developing rapidly. Finland has potential to provide to this demand, although we do not have experience of building big metropolises.

- For concrete opportunities, Aalto University and Tongji University will co-found a Finnish-Chinese collaborative hub and platform in Shanghai in spring 2010. The idea is to support multi-disciplinary co-operation between the two countries and also bring in players from other countries.

- Cumulus will organise a Young Creators for Better City Better Life conference in Shanghai on September 7–10.

- There are a lot of opportunities, what we need is brisk entrepreneurship and abilities to take risk.

- The strengths of Finland lie in the knowledge related to environmental technology, digital skills, true innovations and concept design.

–

PES: How to take architecture to China?

- Carry references, expertise and a lot of visit cards with you.

- Network with other Finnish professionals.

- Find a reliable, local partner who has a good hold of “quanxi”, public relations.

- Co-operate with a Chinese office tha assists with the material required for local competitions: models, renderings, books, panels and especially multimedia products and texts. In China, these will can be produced quickly and at a reasonable price.

- Be prepared for very tight schedules and sudden changes when it comes to almost everything.

- Remember that the Chinese expect unique design concepts with ecological attitude and metaphors from the ancient Chinese culture.

- In order to get the deals following competitions, the proposals must be revised, tough bargaining negotiations must be held and the trust of the client must be won.

- The most demanding public projects require a very good Chinese partner, ideally a design institute.

- Be prepared for unprofitable activities even in the long term. At best, the payment might be sent directly to Finland in euros but usually it will be delivered in RMB.

- The importance of personal relationships cannot be emphasised enough. You must go to China and invite the Chinese here. Trust is important.

–

Pekka Timonen: World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 word by word

World = What does it mean that we will be the one and only World Design Capital 2012? How to grasp the opportunity? What we do must be meaningful in the context of the whole world – and the world is big.

Design = The concept of design covers the whole range of creative human activities that focus on physical environments as well as on services and products. Design exists everywhere. It should be part of each processes from the beginning to the end.

Capital = The assets that include people, knowledge, skills, things, potential

Helsinki = 5 cities – Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen, Lahti

2012 = Not the objective itself but the tip of the iceberg reflecting the whole process of embedding design in life in Helsinki. That process has already started!

What becomes of World Design Capital Helsinki is defined by actions. The role of the city of Helsinki is to communicate, contact, co-ordinate and contract – to create a platform for change and to pull people together. In 2013, Helsinki must be one of the best in utilising design for social, economical and cultural development.

No Matter exhibition by the Chinese artist Pan Jian Feng (b. 1973) takes place at the Lasipalatsi gallery (Mannerheimintie 22-24) on February 12–14. It forms part of the visual-arts programme at the Shanghai Expo opening in May. Pan Jian Feng will be present in person at the Lasipalatsi gallery, where his works about Chinese everyday life will be shown for just three days. The exhibition opened to the public on Friday February 12, on the eve of the Chinese New Year celebrations on the Lasipalatsi square. Pan discussed his working methods after the SAFA seminar at Kiasma Theatre on Friday at 4.15 pm.

Pan uses various media, including paint, animation, video, porcelain painting and ink drawing, relying heavily on his tradition of calligraphy. In these diary-like series of ink drawings No matter, Pan Jian Feng depicts the whimsical quality of a day in Shanghai.

Observation and drawing are an integral part of Pan’s daily artistic work. He is particularly interested in people’s feelings, and in memory. In Just like a man, he gives an ironic depiction of the daily pressures of being a man in Shanghai. To please a Shanghai woman, a man is expected to be wealthy, intelligent, successful and eager to please…The Big Mouth Cup is an ongoing series of hand-painted porcelain mugs. The subject of the work is the mass-produced enamel mugs – familiar in Finland, too – that used to serve as spaces for printing the words and political slogans of Chairman Mao. In this project, Pan has returned the mug to the people, encouraging them to decorate it with their own personal messages and feelings. The mug-installation in the Lasipalatsi exhibition can be used by visitors, thus acting as a warm greeting. The exhibition also includes Pan’s animated piece Morphing and documentation of his artistic work.

Pan Jian Feng is participating in the Helsinki Artist in Residence Programme (HIAP) on Suomenlinna during February 2010, as a guest of the Invitation to Helsinki project. One purpose of his residency is to establish artist-in-residency exchanges and collaborative projects between Helsinki and Shanghai.

For more information, please contact:
Curator Marita Muukkonen (HIAP), tel. 0440 965 103

On the eve of the Chinese New Year, Snowball Helsinki – Arkkitehtuurivientiä Kiinaan event was held today at Kiasma. The event started with an overview on the field of architecture and urbanism in China by Bert de Muynck. He is the other half of MovingCities, a Shanghai based duo of “shrinks in the urban debate” as Bert and his partner Mónica Carriço like to describe their practice. MovingCities are also the curators of Snowball Shanghai – Event on Finnish Architecture to be organised in Shanghai this March.

To begin with, Bert quoted a Demos report from 2007 saying: “As China continues its explosive growth, so does the market for speculation about its future.” So, let’s speculate. In search of tomorrow’s design agenda in China, Bert presented different viewpoints to architecture and urbanism in the country undergoing massive change. Here’s some of them:

Scale and pace

“The scale and pace of China’s urbanisation promises to continue at an unprecedented rate,” reads McKinsey Global Institute’s 2009 report. “If current trends hold, China’s urban population will expand from 572 million in 2005 to 926 million in 2025 and hit the one billion mark by 2030.” The McKinsey report also projects that China will build almost 40 billion m2 of floor space over the next 20 years, requiring the construction of between 20.000 and 50.000 new skyscrapers.

The Chinese city

China’s urbanisation is and will be fundamentally different from its experience from the past 15 years, and eco cities are the current trend in urban development.

When it comes to design, many cities have a similar construction style. “It is like a thousand cities having the same appearance,” like Qiu Baoxing, the vice minister of construction at PRC has noted. A common feature seems to be that each constructor wants to build the highest, most expensive building – and sometimes “just to have a beautiful thing without considering its function, or how the city will work,” remarks Kongjian Yu, a professor at the Graduate School of Landscape Architecture at the Peking University.

Learning by doing

In architectural projects in China, there’s often a conflict of creativity between the client and the architect. The client is the most powerful person who determines how a building looks like and has the power to change design decisions.

In addition to learning the local methods of working, practicing architecture in China requires the understanding of the socio-cultural transformation of the Chinese society. It’s also important to ask oneself the question of how to deal with cultural continuity. Like Bert noted in his presentation, “it’s important to remember that life is more important than accelerating economic growth”.

Case studies

To conclude, Bert presented some case studies of unique solutions for China through the architecture and urban design of practitioners such as Urbanus, Ai Weiwei, Wang Hui, Wang Shu and Xu Tiantian to mention a few.

Last Sunday, OK Do went to see Last Train Home, a movie by the Chinese-Canadian director Lixin Fan (2009) at DocPoint documentary film festival in Helsinki. The movie was about the largest mass migration known to mankind: 130 million Chinese people setting out for their holidays on the eve of Chinese New Year.

Last Train Home documents a migrant couple caught up in this desperate annual migration seeking to get to their children in a rural village they left behind to seek work in the booming coastal city of Guangzhou. Moreover, it is an exploration on China, a country discarding traditional ways as it hurtles towards modernity and global economic dominance.

This year, the Chinese New Year is celebrated on February 13. In Helsinki, the main event is organised at Lasipalatsi Square by the cities of Helsinki and Beijing.

While in the process of determining the agenda and selecting the participants of the upcoming Snowball Architecture Seminar in Shanghai, MovingCities takes a moment for self-reflection. To start with, we selected samples of familiar work related to the Chinese architectural practice.

MovingCities guest-edited, along with dr. Ned Rossiter, an article entitled How Foreign Architects Became International Architects – A Case Study of China’s Creative Construction Agenda for the Urban China magazine’s Creative China issue. The text contrasts the pre-occupation of the international media with the so-called starchitects operating in China according to the agenda of the ORDOS 100 project: bringing an army of largely unknown foreign architects to China.

In the same issue of the Urban China magazine, architects Hao Dong and Binke Lenhardt of Crossboundaries Architects map architectural practice in Beijing in an article listing the various forms of architectural practices within the Chinese market – the state-owned architectural design institutes, the partial or fully privatized firms or enterprises as well as the private firms, architectural offices, ateliers and studios:

“Even though the Chinese practice can be identified according to the four groups discussed above, there is also another obvious way to categorize the architects: age or generation. The age-groups of active Chinese architects consist of people born in the 50s, 60s and 70s. No matter where they currently work, architects more or less carry the mark of their generation in terms of professional education, ideology, political attitude, etc.”

More background to the contemporary Chinese architectural agenda, largely framed by the work of private architectural offices, is provided in the China According to China documentary. Completely filmed by Diego Grass Puga for 0300TV before the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and edited right after its ending, China According to China presents thoughts on the country’s current architectural situation as well as its history by five local architects.

The online documentary presents the work of Ai Weiwei (FAKE design), Jiang Jun (Urban China magazine), Yu Kongjian (Turenscape), Wang Shu (Amateur Architecture Studio) and Ma Qingyun (MADA s.p.a.m.). In the documentary, these architects define the issues that every Chinese architect has to deal with today – all of which may set the parameters of future development for Chinese architecture.

We interviewed Ai Weiwei and Wang Shu, both architects born in the 1950s, for MARK magazine on their work, analysis and visions on operating in the contemporary China.

Artist and architect Ai Weiwei explains his ideas in an upfront way in the article I jumped on the wrong train:

“Chinese architects are simply blind or mentally retarded in some way. They don’t realize they’re living at a unique time in history. There is no intellectual discussion, no meaningful practice. I wrote a few articles on how architects should change and be more conscious of what they’re doing, urging them to make work that addresses the current state of affairs – to consider density, speed, scale and unfamiliar building regulations. Only then can a meaningful new architecture be realized.”

Architect, a professor at the China Academy of Arts in Hangzhou and the dean of the Architecture Faculty Wang Shu explores the rich legacy of China’s intellectual and architectural history. Taking a seemingly simple approach to architecture that culminates in astonishing creations,  he explains the difficulty of being a Chinese architect in the article Local Hero:

“There are three very difficult stages during the building process. The first is how to convince the government. The second deals with designing working details and with other construction issues. Many architects fail in this stage. They may have a good idea, but more often than not it’s poorly executed. The third stage is the hardest of all. When a building is finished, the Chinese rarely think of it as a work of art. They treat is as a container with many functions that they can change randomly and at will. This is very difficult for me.”

Helsinki International Artist-in-residence Programme brings Pan Jian Feng, a versatile Shanghai-based artist, for a residency in Suomenlinna as part of their Urban studies project on Finnish and Chinese environmental art. Jian Feng will hold an exhibition at the Lasipalatsi gallery as part of the Invitation to Helsinki project. The exhbition opens on February 12 at 17.00 – right after the Snowball Helsinki Seminar. OK Do met with Pan Jian Feng in Shanghai at the Design Snowball event in November 2009.

Pan Jian Feng (b. 1973) has a background as one of China’s foremost typeface creators and design strategists. Having worked for big multinational agencies and having later founded his own company, Alt-Design, Pan recently changed the corporate world to a life of an artist. Exploring Chinese daily life, his projects range from photography and video installations to ink painting and porcelain.

“It’s all about life,” Pan Jian Feng tells about taking up art. “Art is more like a continuation of my life while in an agency you always had to work according to a brief.” However, in China, moving from the corporate world to the artistic one is rare. “It made my mom very angry,” he says.

One of Jian Feng’s projects is to paint all the interesting people that he meets. “It’s my daily practice – like a visual diary,” he explains. “I document at least 20 people each day. Some are my friends, some are neighbours, some I’ve never met before.” His paintings have a close connection to Chinese calligraphy. Instead of “painting” people, he actually describes his activity as “writing” people. And just as in Chinese calligraphy, he respects the process: “It’s not about writing correctly, it’s about meditating.” Like this project, many of Pan Jian Feng’s works seem to reflect the contemporary meaning of Chinese skills – or Chinese life in general.

“When I was travelling in southern France, I was very impressed by the blue colour of the sea,” Pan Jian Feng explains another project on Chinese identity. “I wanted to share this blueness with my Chinese friends, but didn’t know how to bring the blue back to China.” In China, the concept of blue is linked to the Western world and during the past century, China has been trying to learn from the West and find its own way at the same time. “The question that emerges is, what is the true blue that China should study and how,” he continues. As a reaction to the fast pace of change, Jian Feng has used traditional Chinese objects like enamel cups as media for his work in a country, where people tend to be in constant search of something new, forgetting the old.

Like the Western blue or the enamel cup, Pan Jian Feng’s work involves a lot of symbols that require some knowledge of Chinese culture and aesthetics to understand. For instance, while studying Visual Communication at the University of Central England, he made a design with red images representing longevity and happiness, which his tutor interpreted as bloody and violent. Moreover, his typography often involves hidden messages playing with the Chinese writing system.

Currently Pan Jian Feng is focusing his skills on experimental typography with the aim of developing a forum for international dialogue in the field. His latest works include a game which applies Chinese calligraphy styles and techniques to Western typography and contemporary communication. In the meanwhile, he keeps on reading and writing people.

Greetings from the  Shenzhen & Hong-Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture! Tuomas and Martta met Bert & Mònica from MovingCities there to plan and discuss the Snowball Architecture seminar in Shanghai next spring.

The biennale’s impressive opening ceremony took place outdoors, complete with a symphony orchestra playing BGM and a newly built futuristic urban skyline as the backdrop. At events like these, the global architecture scene really gets together, and it was nice to bump into other Finns like Anu Leinonen from O.M.A. Beijing as well as Pirjo Haikola who works as a researcher at the Why Factory of TU Delft.

Later we had a nice dinner with editor Jun Jiang from Urban China Magazine and the currently HK-based, ex-UIAH student Dylan Kwok with whom we celebrated his winning of the DesignSmart Young Design Talent Award in Hong Kong.

At OCT (post-)Industrial Park, we met Yilin Lin and managed to visit the architecture and design office URBANUS and see an exhibition on their first decade of practice. And finally, we drove far east out of town to attend the inauguration of the new Vanke HQ, designed by Steven Holl and Li Hu who were there to open their exhibition Urbanisms: 4 projects in China, before we had to head back to Shanghai and Helsinki.

This blog is your guide through the two seminar events: Snowball Shanghai – on March 25-27 in Shanghai and Snowball Helsinki which was organised on February 12 at Kiasma, Helsinki.