Fictionalizing City:

Wang Shu's Architecture Theory

Wang Shu, the first Chinese winner of the Pritzker Prize, is the representative of the contemporary Chinese architect. His projects use traditional materials, vernacular crafts, and historical heritages as references. Wang Shu has never been afraid of criticizing Chinese urbanization. His design approach is entirely different from the mainstream, which are examples of modern interpretation of the historical heritages, which also illustrate his architecture theory that comes from Fictionalizing City.  

Fictionalizing City (1995-2000) is the title of Wang Shu's doctorate dissertation. Wang Shu consolidated his theory by studying European linguistic thinking to give modern authority to the traditional art value. Meanwhile, the linguistic approach reflects the ancient spirit of historical Chinese cities. More importantly, Wang Shu's unique narration in Fictionalizing City represents the traditional architectural language. As he wrote, "Due to this theory, we come to realize that urban design associates itself closely with every possible user through an architectural language rather than an instrumental language." The idea of fictionalizing comes from the reality of every Chinese historical City without inventing a secondary artificial language. Thus, Wang Shu defined architects are philosophical craftsmen, or in other words, amateurs.   

Wang Shu takes linguistic methods as a ladder to climb up to the modern debate on Chinese architecture. The study of his theory is the key to discovering Wang Shu's modern interpretation of traditions. When more and more scholars consider he will be the gesture of Asian architects, it is vital to understand Wang Shu as an enhancement and critique of this old continent's heritages. 

In 2012, when Wang Shu became the Pritzker Prize winner, most Chinese architects did not know who Wang Shu was and why. In the 2012's Pritzker Prize ceremony, the Jury committee gave Wang Shu this academic citation, "the (Wang Shu) work is that of a virtuoso in full command of the instruments of architecture—form, scale, material, space, and light"¹. 

After ten years, now Chinese local government describes Wang Shu as "a famous architecture scholar, an architect, a representative scholar of neo-humanism architectures, and a world-famous leader of the Chinese neo-architecture movement, the first and the only Chinese winner of the Pritzker Prize"².

In the past decades, Wang Shu has found a way to open the road to contemporary Chinese architecture modernization. In this journey, he acquires triple identities, a theorist, an architect, and a professor. While among these titles, the first and the most fundamental target for Wang Shu is becoming a theorist. That's why Wang Shu first spent six years writing his doctoral dissertation to consolidate his architecture theory before becoming a practicing architect and lecturer. 

This doctoral dissertation is the "Fictionalizing City." Fictionalizing City is not only a title but also the name of Wang Shu's design approach. In this dissertation, Wang Shu illustrates his origin of thinking in an academic structure step by step. Based on this theory, Wang Shu started his practices.

A few researchers found the value of Fictionalizing City and studied it from the narration perspective. For example, in 2019, Gaojin Xinleng, Jonathan Hale, and Qi Wang³ presented a detailed textual analysis of this dissertation, concluding that it has novelistic characters. In 2016, they used Saussure’s method to locate Wang Shu’s citation and ideas in a coordinate system (fig. 1). In comparison, this text will summarize Fictionalizing City's core ideas with a parallel presentation of Wang Shu's projects.

Compared to many contemporary architects' theories, Wang Shu's Fictionalizing City is rarely known to the public because this theory has a limited intersection with others. It is because Wang Shu wants a clean cut with the past mechanical urban theories. He said, "It is the inconsideration of the inconsiderate urban design in the past (Wang Shu, 2000)". 

Wang Shu tried to go back to the origin of the architectural language. He said, "Due to this theory, we come to realize that urban design associates itself closely with every possible user through an architectural language rather than an instrumental language⁴". This sentence also points directly to most Chinese architects, who pretend to think for the public but rely on mechanical architecture concepts. 

Wang Shu's critiques are not groundless. The urbanization of China during that period is radical. In 2001 Koolhaas gave a critical comment on Chinese urbanization in the book Great Leap forward. He considered Chinese urbanization as "destroying everywhere the existing conditions" and "creating a completely new urban substance⁵". Kenneth Frampton associated Wang Shu's rebellion with this terrible phenomenon. He said, "Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu have witnessed firsthand the juggernaut of maximizing Chinese modernization from its impact on their city." Meanwhile, "both foreign and Chinese architects have participated in the wholesale destruction of traditional Chinese building culture for the immediate rewards of money and fame⁶". On the contrary, Wang Shu kept his deep concern in this background. In the dissertation, Wang Shu wrote, "In a period when various positive factors contribute to making daily life systematic, specialized, strict and completely different, it is inevitable for us to strike to a position of dissolution and to explore what is the designing language of Chinese city⁷". 

Because Wang Shu wanted to find the Chinese architecture language, thus, Wang Shu first sought help from linguistic philosophy. He bonded urban architecture tightly with the spirit of linguistic philosophy. "Because few can ultimately go beyond language to develop a deep insight towards Being, or rather die meaning system of the language of urban architecture, it intends to prepare for an urban design all the possible means (Wang Shu, 2000)⁸". It is a short but compelling statement that inherits the spirit of linguistic philosophy. The British philosopher Michael Dummett once give linguistic turns a definition. He said the principles of linguistic philosophy are "first, that a philosophical account of thought can be attained through a philosophical account of language, and, secondly, that a comprehensive account can only be so attained⁹".

Wang Shu presents a very similar statement that he accepts only the approach of architecture language and rejects other possible methodologies, believing it was the only way to go through the origin of human settlements. He said, "Then heading for language will lead to a thoroughgoing criticism on urban design and at the same time brings about emancipation for it¹⁰". Wang Shu was seeking a complete review of the urban study. 

Although Wang Shu gave a promising and fascinating declaration to create a new theory from a linguistic approach, he did not forget that he was doing something without former experience. He said, "I insist: the tentative openness comes out with sign of imperfection, because it has no former experience to borrow and no certain method to follow. Its difficulty lies in its initiation. Therefore, it is not important what the conclusion is, what stands significant is the action has been taken. Surely, once it starts, it will not stop trying¹¹". Wang Shu listed six points at the beginning of the theory to show the potential of Fictionalizing City. Meanwhile, he also involved many architects, artists, and philosophers with linguistic approaches. Aldo Rossi could be one of the most significant references. 

In the abstract, Wang Shu presented the value of his doctoral dissertation from six impacts. Those keywords are Wang Shu's threads to explain his theory, which are refined to see the whole image of his views. In the abstract, Wang Shu introduced that Fictionalizing City will bring effects on urban design today in these six aspects:

1. Narrow down the boundary of the architecture study.

2. Build an understanding of architecture language to find its structure

3. Abandon the idea of "urban development."

4. Get into the urban text without any conditions

5. Wipe out the difference between urban historians, architects, artisans, and planners. Leave only the construction.

6. Go back to the reality of cities

These effects also follow a sequential order. Starting by narrowing the boundary of urban studies, then purifying several concepts inside the theory, readers can finally reach the reality of all the cities.

Wang Shu wanted to narrow the boundary of urban study to find the definition of urban architecture. He thought this process should only rely on the linguistic and semiology approaches because he believes urban existence is linguistic. In other words, the architecture in city is a linguistic phenomenon. This transformation in both methodology and epistemology is called by Wang Shu the "Linguistic turn in urban studies." As he said," we are to confine our topic to city only and succeed to define urban architecture without any other influences except the reference to linguistics and semiotics. The city lies like language; therefore, I claim it a shift of urban research to linguistics, which is the main topic first half of my¹²."

Wang Shu explicitly used the concept of "urban architecture," which is coherent with Aldo Rossi's invention in The Architecture of the City. It is not a coincidence. To find the image of urban architecture, Wang Shu first used Calvino's "invisible cities" as the opening of the dissertation. After that, he compared Calvino's invisible cities and urban architecture. Wang Shu considered Calvino to be an architect of Fictionalizing City. Based on this observation, Wang Shu reached the discussion of the city concept. 

In the ninth chapter of part I, Wang Shu asked, "What is Aldo Rossi's research approach in 'The Architecture of City?¹³" He significantly demonstrated Rossi's contributions to urban research. Wang Shu considered Rossi's semiotics approach in urban study helps setting up the principles for contemporary architecture theories. In Wang Shu's opinion, the typology approach purifies the topic in urban studies. Aldo Rossi defined individual architecture as typology and described the city as an abstract fabric that unifies all the typologies. It focuses on the relationship between various buildings instead of their physical existence.  

Wang Shu's postgraduate coursework and Haining Youth Palace could help understand Wang Shu's preference for Aldo Rossi's theory. (fig. 2). In his master thesis, Wang Shu used Aldo Rossi's projects as references to illustrate his design.¹⁴

In his early project, Wang Shu designed a youth palace inserted by an abstract cubic block, which has a similar shape to Rossi's cemetery in Modena. This project is one of Wang Shu's early practices in 1995. Compared to Wang Shu's other projects, it is more like a post-modern experiment by transplanting Rossi's design partly. But it is still relevant to Wang Shu's theory because Wang Shu soon realized the limits of Rossi's approach in the Chinese context.

Although Wang Shu takes Aldo Rossi's theory to enter the discussion and practices of urban architectural design, Wang Shu also criticized Aldo Rossi's methodology for developing it into his Fictionalizing City. He considered Rossi's approach comes from semiotics, which keeps distance from daily observation and experience. For example, Aldo Rossi liked to take midlevel cities as research targets to exclude the scattered settlements in various periods.

Wang Shu wants to add another layer above Rossi's urban theory. This process is Fictionalizing City. Wang Shu trusts the stability of typologies, believing the typologies are static no matter how cities evolved. The Fictionalizing only arrives after the acceptance of the typology study. The key to Fictionalizing is to eliminate all the specific forms and observations through a process that can only be achieved by imaging in the formless typology world. It is about to think "how" the layers are overlapped instead of thinking about what the layers are. 

At this stage, the boundary of urban studies was drawn by Wang Shu; however, the demonstration of fictionalizing started. Wang Shu concentrated on several concepts from Rossi. After that, he accepted and criticized them for constructing his theory's basis. But Why Wang Shu chose Rossi as part of his theory basis? Because Rossi's linguistic approach faced a background in the 1960s Italian urbanization movement. Similar to this period, China also has the phenomenon that functionalism dominates all the fields of architecture. 

Against this background, "Fatti Urbani" is rediscovered to embrace other aspects that contribute to daily urban life. Aldo Rossi combined his structural understanding of urban architecture with the semiotic approach and opened this concept to additional layers. He said, "In fact, I am convinced that there should be many more studies devoted to the history of the idea of the city¹⁵”.

The urbanization background of Fictionalizing City is similar to Rossi's "Fatti Urbani". Wang Shu continues Rossi's theory to bring him a linguistic foundation. His critique of Rossi is more like a development. From the design perspective, Aldo Rossi's buildings are more scientific than Wang Shu's. Wang Shu's designs are more site-specific than Rossi's. 

For example, the timber façade in Xiangshan Campus shares the typology of the traditional courtyard (fig. 3). However, more than designing this space typologically, Wang Shu used vernacular nature material to become the facade of a university building. It is a collage of bamboo and modern space. When the windows open, the courtyard becomes vivid. When they are close, the courtyard becomes peaceful. Wang Shu exposed the traces of craftsmanship to bring back people's memory of living in the countryside.

Wang Shu's vision concentrates on Aldo Rossi's critiques of Italian urbanization. Meanwhile, Rossi's linguistic approach scientifically draws the boundary of urban architecture, which helps Wang Shu establish his independent theory. More specifically, Ferdinand de Saussure is Aldo Rossi's first reference in the Architecture of the City. Rossi stated, "The points specified by Ferdinand de Saussure for the development of linguistics can be translated into a program for the development of an urban science (Rossi, 1982)." The first value of Wang Shu's Fictionalizing City is a direct citation and development of Rossi's linguistic approach in the Chinese context.

Although Aldo Rossi provides a scientific way to criticize irrational urbanization, he only gives a preliminary answer, which Wang Shu wants to continue in Chinese cities. Furthermore, Wang Shu wrote four chapters to discuss the other values from the second to the fourth. In the first chapter, Wang Shu wanted to present the notion of architecture language as the second value. He considered the architecture language a system to identify the layers of urban architecture. It is a tool for understanding the components of cities.

While he admitted that he could not draw a clear image of the architectural language, on the opposite side, Wang Shu takes this ambiguity as the nature of architectural language. He said, "We do not mean to eliminate the ambiguity of architectural language. On the contrary, we are rather intending to understand and establish this ambiguity and move on to seek for a structure to formulate this ambiguity and formalize the thoughts of semiotics¹⁶". The conflict of tradition and revolution, openness and close, requires an attitude to say yes and no simultaneously. In this sense, Fictionalizing City becomes an overlap between two opposite sites. The imagination comes from the tension inside. Furthermore, this ambiguity helps to predict and trace simultaneously, which corresponds to the cities' reality. If someone wants to expel the maze of cities, they are removing the aesthetic of cities. 

To be more specific, in the Xiangshan Campus, Wang Shu put various recycled tiles and bricks on the facade to preserve the urban history. Instead of using modern materials, this interaction between traditional and modern materials generates the halo from time, making this building the modern monument of collective memory. Countless bricks overlapping each other become a poetic wall reflecting local history. The abandoned bricks gain their second life in a contemporary structure. Facing this misty façade, the visitors start to fictionalize each brick and free their imagination on it.

Following this observation that architecture is dynamic existence, the third value is reshaping the concept of history. Wang Shu believed that "Pluralistic interpretation gives birth to the openness of the stale ancient city and meantime induces new elaboration in the course of re-interpretation it became useless, died in a history fact and is presenting itself in the moving anthropological fact, because no historical view can fully convey the meaning of it¹⁷".

Wang Shu took an ancient map of a Chinese village as an example (fig. 4). This map equally presents hills, rivers, pools, farmlands, buildings, bridges, streets, and trees. When modern planners tend to show those fabrics in the same stock, this Zhifeng map is like a collage image where each place has its language but co-exists. Although it doesn't provide accurate data on all the elements, it is very close to people's daily experiences in their surrounding environment. It is a fictionalized city plan without the difference between old and new. The gap inside the components provides the space for imagination, making this city an open text.

This open text welcomes architects to enter in. However, their participation should get rid of all the pre-decided methodologies. As Wang Shu stated in the fourth value, "the real linguistic criticism is not to judge or criticize but rather to devote itself to the city without any pretext so as to differentiate, recognize and cut it into half with a position of 'presence'¹⁸”. The architecture design process becomes a "seeking for the structure." Meanwhile, "With description of a kind of 'inner experience' of City, this design has practicability and the eventual return to real City lies in a pure designing process without any pretexts, presupposed approaches or an unification in methods¹⁹." The comparison between the Zhifeng Map and the plan of the Xiangshan Campus (fig. 5) shows Wang Shu's continuity in this Chinese urban tradition. In 2001, Wang Shu got a commission from the China Academy of Art to design a new campus in Xiangshan, Hangzhou. This whole project is constructed separately, the north part was completed in 2004, and the south part was finished in 2007. This campus is on a giant scale containing over 20 buildings with around 150,000 square meters.

Wang Shu wanted to present the Chinese architectural tradition collectively. He designed this school not only as an architect but also as a planner and an artist. During that period, he kept shifting his vision between the scale of planning and the scale of tectonics. As a planner, Wang Shu followed the orientation of the hill, planning all the buildings like designing the village houses. As an architect, Wang Shu carefully designed the layout and dimensions of the building to create diversity among each other. As a craftsman, he used various vernacular crafts and materials to construct tectonics. 

While after Wang Shu demonstrated the traditional urban architecture language, he decided to bring back equality. "The abandon of classification in this paper eliminates the apparent differentiation between architects, designers and artisans." Please come into the cities" is Wang Shu's invitation. It is not a poetic journey nor a routine with narration. It is a relaxed walk that meets the fragments accidentally. There is no expectation before entering the urban. It is only about standing with the cities. Only the construction of the City's own will live. Then a dreamer and constructor of this Fictionalizing City will concentrate on the architectural language of the City. He may achieve a deeper sense of the profundity of urban architectural language and the paradox of multi-meaning rather than its instrumental fiction and beauty”. In the fifth value, Wang Shu melts the solid architecture concept. In front of the pure urban architecture language, there is only an imaginer in the Fictionalizing City.

In Xiangshan Campus, some spaces are designed without specific functions. People will enter those places accidentally, where they can study, rest and think inside (fig. 6). That is how Wang Shu protected unexpected lives, letting them grow with diverse stories inside the campus. Those places discourage occupants from using it but encourage them to experience and become part of it.

When the urban architecture became transparent, Wang Shu considered the purification of the attached language coming. "It starts from the minimal unit, with no aim to develop, expand and frame a unified structure. Quite oppositely, it aims for a fragmentational weighing and deliberation which is insuccessive, indefinite and indirectional²²". These rebellions require architects to forget to design a building but focus on the design itself. It will help architects to find authentic happiness in exploring.

In Wang Shu's drawings, he sketched many housing types from vernacular residential typologies (fig. 7). With tiny transformations in the volume, Wang Shu came up hundreds of houses in his mind. Those courtyard houses followed the same idea without losing the characteristics of traditional space (fig. 8). Then Wang Shu organized and collaged various buildings in the paper and constructed them on the site. This process didn't involve any mechanical architecture concept but a pure devotion to the city.

When architects give up their instrumental languages, the critiques of contemporary urbanization will activate. In the last value, Wang Shu thought it was time to return to the reality of the Chinese urban environment. Wang Shu said, "Activate existence, evoke existence, and advance towards existence, all for existence! What we are criticizing is language itself and urban architecture itself. I take no hesitation to stand with the unauthorative textual design, imagine and experiment the commonness in the different small units which are strict, inexccesive and unauthorative.This is an idea, an ideal every City of China in the early 21th century regained²³".

After years of writing and practicing, Xiangshan Campus becomes Wang Shu's solid experimental design for seeking Chinese architectural identity. Surrounded by modern communities, this campus is a physical critique of this land's rapid deconstruction, protecting the dignity of the traditional dwelling and growing with nature. 

It is the spirit of Fictionalizing City. Wang Shu wanted to use this text to open the self-reflection of traditional Chinese languages. The instrumental language critiques aim to liberate the design from ideologies. His theory follows the previous linguistic research and sets up an order for future architectural design. Meanwhile, it becomes an unconventional force that destroys conventional methodologies. It will create an intimate relationship between architects and the cities by liberating both of them. Finally, it will generate a relaxed atmosphere, where the designers can stand inside the cities and play in the gap among all the conflicts.

The modern architecture movement in China is very aggressive, while this continent's intangible urban heritages are too silent. Wang Shu aims to fill the enormous gap and reveal the conflicts. So Wang Shu designed a strict brief to reintroduce the value of the traditions. In this process, Wang Shu transformed his rage, worries, and pride into a rich text. Finally, he got his freedom in the world of Fictionalizing City. 

After Wang Shu's demonstration, Fictionalizing City became a complex concept. It is a critique of mechanical architecture design, a linguistic approach, a manifesto, a revolution, the reality of cities, and the original way to design architecture. It reflects Wang Shu's attitude toward architecture design; it should keep its distance from the restless political movement but stay close to daily life and traditions. 

Beyond guarding Chinese tradition, Wang Shu's dream is to help people find dignity and freedom in modern cities. Wang Shu said, "As a matter of fact, 'I' stands as refute to the 'individual' theory of philosophy in the past. 'I' is a mark, challenging the belief; which regard human being as an abstract existence and disagreeing with the so-called 'spiritual architecture'. It sticks to a pure individual experience of a city on the base of nature intending for a certain collectively. 'I' is only a living component of the total structure of a city²⁴".

What is Fictionalizing City? It is a theory inspired by the abroad approach that helps to find the value of domestic heritages. It is campaigning to present tradition post-modernly to fight against Chinese modernity. It is a manipulation of both heritages and modern architecture. It is a box to put solid prejudices on the cities altogether and dismiss them. As Wang Shu said, "Enhancing existence in a city and guarding its freedom are the real value of 'fictionalizing a city²⁵”. Fictionalizing City is an attitude that tries to find eternal peace inside all the built environments.