The “Third Space:” Wang Shu’s Transcultural Encounter with Peter

Eisenman

Abstract
This essay explores the transcultural encounter between American architect-theorist Peter
Eisenman and Chinese Pritzker-winner Wang Shu as seen in Wang’s response to what might be
called the “anxiety of form” in 1980s China. It first investigates the architectural discourse in China
and how Western architectural ideas, particularly those of Eisenman, entered the country through
translated texts published in the Chinese journal The Architect.
Secondly, taking Wang’s early theoretical writing (master thesis, 1988) and his first public
building (Haining Youth Center, 1989-1991) into account, the essay locates two moments in Wang
and Eisenman’s encounter. Comparing to numerous literatures on Wang’s later works, his early
works have received less attention from scholars. Wang‘s use of the term xingxiang,based on the
reading of Eisenman and other intellectuals’ works, demonstrates his new understanding of “form”
that departs from the problem of style and became associated with linguistics turn, thus implying
an epistemological transformation. A formalist reading of the Haining Youth Center shows how
Eisenman’s generative diagram can be applied to create an architecture that reactivates Chinese
building tradition. This analysis suggests that architectural form is a fundamental concern of Wang
in his early design.
In these two moments of encounter, instead of a merely passive receiver, Wang is rather an
active knowledge producer. Considering that Eisenman’s interest in China and its culture came
much later, the influence between Eisenman and Wang is almost exclusively one-way. Rather, it is
architectural discourse that provided a middle ground to connect them both. Architectural discourse
can be considered as the “third space” where two architects meet in a global world, borrowing the
term from Homi Bhabha. In this “in-between” space, Western critical models mix with Chinese
traditional way of thinking to produce a body of hybrid architectural knowledge that is beyond the
legacy of Eurocentrism.

Keywords: cultural exchange, 1980s China, architectural journal, hybrid architectural

knowledge

1
Part I. 1980s China: Fever for Knowledge

I interviewed Wang Shu and his wife Lu Wenyu in 2019 when I was studying Wang’s

doctoral thesis. I asked him, “Is the design of the lamps in your own house a reverence for Peter

Eisenman?” He smiled and replied, “Yes…but I tried to hide this very specific influence.”1 This

comment became the seed of my interest in the linkage between Eisenman and Wang that

prompted this paper. Here I am referring to a project called “Eight Uninhabitable Houses” that

Wang published in The Beginning of Design (sheji de kaishi, 2002). Taking the lamp as the basic

unit to define the space, eight moments of spatial manipulation generates a constructed

environment (figure 1). Without knowing that the cube is in fact a lamp, this distorted-scale image

can be read as an architectural project. Though it is physically uninhabitable, this project inhabits

Wang’s consciousness. Taking the lamp installation as an architectural object, the “motions” of

the lamp’s cubes represent, or illustrate, or even create a relationship between the wall and the

ceiling. When I first saw Wang’s manipulation of lamp cubes, I was immediately reminded of

Peter Eisenman’s “Cardboard Architecture” from the late 1960s through 1970s (figure 2). Wang

himself also referred to Eisenman many times in both his master and doctoral theses as direct

evidence of this transcultural encounter.

Peter Eisenman (b.1932), an American architect-theorist and a representative of the late

avant-garde emerging in the 1960s, became known and influential in China’s architectural scene

during the 1980s via some translated essays.2 The gap between the 1960s and 1980s implies that

1
Interview with Wang, May 2019
2
As one of the most important figures in the architectural scene of the postwar United States and Europe, many
historians and critics contributed to historize/theorize Eisenman’s works from different aspects. For example, in K.
Michael Hays’ Architecture's Desire: Reading the Late Avant-garde, Peter Eisenman’s “post-functionalism” is
regarded as a way of architecture’s engagement of the praxis of life (specially refer to the expanding consumer society
of 1970s) and Eisenman has been theorized as a representative the late avant-garde. See also, Johnson, P., Wigley,
M., & Museum of Modern Art. (1988). Deconstructivist architecture. Museum of Modern Art ; Distributed by New
York Graphic Society Books, Little Brown and Co.

2
figure 1 Wang Shu, “Eight Uninhabitable
Houses” (1997),
The Beginning of Design (sheji de kaishi,
2002). pp: 58

figure 2 Peter Eisenman, “House X”,

from the website of EISENMAN
ARCHITECTS

3
this encounter was anachronic. For Eisenman, the 1960s and 1980s were also distinct stages in his

own career.3 In the sixties through seventies, he focused on a late-modernist understanding of form,

structure, and self-referentiality, exemplified by his doctoral thesis, The Formal Basis of Modern

Architecture (1963) and an experimental house project series, “Cardboard Architecture,” in which

the House I and House II were the first drafted between 1969 to 1970. In the 1980s, Eisenman

established his professional practice and started his “deconstruction” projects such as the Wexner

Center at Ohio State University and the Koizumi Sangyo Corporation headquarters in Tokyo.

Meanwhile, in China, the Chinese government announced the Open Door Policy in 1978,

ending ten years of turbulence caused by the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The following

decade of the 1980s was a chaotic period known for the “New Enlightenment Movement” and the

phenomenon of “Cultural Fever”.4 In the High Cultural Fever, Jing Wang described the cultural

realm of that decade as:

…what accompanied the onslaught of various “fevers” in writers, artists, and intellectual (the fever
about One Hundred Years of Solitude in 1984, the fever for root-searching and new methodologies in 1985,
Cultural Fever in 1986) –– in sum, post-revolutionary fevers about knowledge (zhīshi rè) and
enlightenment…This was, on the contrary, an era in which miracles and superstition triumphed over
rational forces, an era in which “our nation is seeking inspiration from the symbols of ancient
civilization”…5

This description reveals the contradictory psyche of the intellectuals of that era: a fever for Western

knowledge and a craving for their traditional roots at the same time. The wave of economic and

3
For Eisenman’s change in mode of working from 1960s to 1980s, can see Patin, Thomas. “From Deep Structure to an
Architecture in Suspense: Peter Eisenman, Structuralism, and Deconstruction.” Journal of Architectural Education
(1984-) 47, no. 2 (1993): 88–100.
4
Some scholars like Xu Jilin argue the decade of 1980s should be regarded as another Enlightenment after the “May
Fourth” (wusi). See, Xu, Jilin. The Fate of the an Enlightenment –– Twenty Years in the Chinese Intellectual Sphere.
In East Asian History (2000). For the phenomena of “Cultural Fever,” see Wang, J. (1996) . High culture fever :
politics, aesthetics, and ideology in Deng's China. University of California Pres. 38; Zhang, Xudong. Chinese
Modernism in the Era of Reforms : Cultural Fever, Avant-garde Fiction, and the New Chinese Cinema. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 1997
5
Wang, J. (1996) . High culture fever : politics, aesthetics, and ideology in Deng's China. University of California
Pres. pp:38

4
social reforms led to looser ideological control and the rise of some liberal art movements such as

the well-known “85 New Wave Movement” (85 xīncháo).6 The fever for knowledge, as Jing Wang

described, spread to many cultural media, including arts, literature and cinema. In architecture,

Chinese architects and young students like Wang Shu eagerly incorporated the legacy of

Modernism into the burgeoning Postmodernism.

In recent years, the interest in the origins of contemporary Chinese architecture in the

postreform era (the 1980s and 1990s) has increased in the English-speaking world. One area of

these research focuses on interactions between architectural discourse and design practices. Some

of their studies revealed a major transformation of theoretical discourse in architecture taking place

in 1980s China; both Chinese translation of Western texts and Chinese architectural journals

played a key role in this transformation.7 Translated book series and some articles in emerging

professional journals connected the Chinese architectural scene to the latest theoretical discussion

and building practices in Europe, the US, and Japan. For example, Wan Tan, a professor at

Tsinghua University who studied in the US in the late 1940s (1947-1949), initiated and edited the

Architectural Theory in Translation Series (建筑理论译丛，jiànzhù lǐlùn yícóng, 1987-1992) –– in

total thirteen books –– which included Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in

Architecture and Christian Norberg-Schulz’s Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of

Architecture, totaling thirteen books in translation. Meanwhile, several new professional journals

6
For “85 New Wave Movement” (85 xīncháo), one can find a general introduction in Wu Hung. (2014).
Contemporary Chinese Art : a History, 1970s>2000s. Thames & Hudson. 52-81
7
Some scholars including Hua Li, Guanghui Ding, Kai Wang, and Ying Wang worked a lot to investigate the role of
architectural discourse in shaping the production of modern/contemporary architecture in China. See, Hua Li, The
Construction of Discourse and the Transition of Ideas –– a Historical Retrospective of the Theoretical Themes in
Architectural Journal, 1954-1991. Architectural Journal 2014 (09); Guanghui Ding, Constructing a Place of Critical
Architecture in China: Intermediate Criticality in the Journal Time+ Architecture, (Routledge, 2016); Ying Wang and
Hilde Heynen, “Transferring Postmodernism to China: A Productive Misunderstanding”, Architectural Theory
Review 22, no. 3 (2018). In a recent issue of Time+Architecture (no.3, 2021), nine scholars together discussed the
history of modern Chinese architectural thoughts.

5
emerged, after the Open Door Policy (1978), including, The Architects ( 建筑师， Jiànzhùshī,

1979-), World Architecture (世界建筑，shìjiè jiànzhù, 1980-, Tsinghua University), and Time and

Architecture (时代建筑，shídài jiànzhù, 1984-, Tongji University).

It is therefore unsurprising that translated texts and architectural journals were the primary

media that circulated Eisenman’s ideas in the 1980s China. The newly established journal like The

Architect and World Architecture actively engaged in introducing Western theoretical ideas and

architects’ works to the domestic architectural scene. While World Architecture focused more on

architectural practices, The Architect left a space to publish Chinese translation of Western

theoretical texts on each issue. Wang Shu also mentioned in our interview that The Architect was

among the sources that connected him to the latest Western architectural thought.8 Given that

context, this essay will analyze issues of The Architect published between 1979-1989 in order to

take a look at how the ideas and works of Eisenman entered China and became part of its

architectural discourse during this transformative decade.

Founded in 1979, The Architect aimed to “reflect the latest development of domestic and

foreign architectural theory and design in a comprehensive way.”9 In particular, two sections of

the journal, “The Introduction of Foreign Architects” and “Translation”, were “star columns” and

served as a window onto the West. 10 For example, in the first issue of The Architect, the

“Translation” section introduced Mies van der Rohe’s architectural ideas including “less is more,”

8
Interview with Wang, May 2019
9
The quote is from Ding’s essay. For the discourse of The Architect in the 1980s, see, Ding, Guanghui. Reconstructing
the Discourse of Modernism in 1980s China: The Role of The Architect. (chongsu xiandai zhuyi jianzhu huayu ––
jianzhushi zazhi de zuoyong yu gongxian). The Architect, 2019 (04). pp: 45-53; also see, Dai, Lu & Xiao Zhijing. The
Contribution of The Architect to the Re-development of Architectural Discipline in China in its first ten-year of
establishment. () The Architect, 2019 (04). pp: 34-44
10
Ibid, see the essay of Dai, Lu & Xiao Zhijing

6
as well as multiple images of recent works such as Centre Georges Pompidou and Sydney Opera

House which visually shocked young students in the early 1980s, who were still being trained

under the Beaux-Arts tradition.11

Chinese readers got early exposure to Eisenman by and large, through secondary sources,

together with the theory of Postmodernism and many other “postmodern” architects such as Robert

Venturi, James Stirling, and Michael Graves. This exposure revealed Chinese readers’ general

interest in contemporary Western architects, instead of a particular attention to Eisenman’s

individual approach. In 1982 and 1983, The Architect published the translation of Charles Jenckes’

book, Late Modernism and Postmodernism and The Language of Postmodernism, in a series of

issues in the “Translation” section.12 In the second issue of 1983 (no.15), Eisenman’s House III

appeared in the translation of The Language of Postmodernism, in the section where Jencks used

Eisenman’s “Cardboard Architecture” to illustrate various similarities that architecture shares with

language and the semantic rules that architecture follows in order to communicate with a broader

public. Jencks juxtaposed Eisenman and Graves as both of their works seemed to have a basis in

semiotic theory (figure 3). Jencks considered Eisenman’s pure architectural language as Modernist

while his symbolic use of the language belonged to Postmodernist.13

After the translation of Jencks’ book, the journal continued to introduce semiotics and its

application to architecture in the following years. In the first issue of 1986 (no.25), one article by

11
For the reception and education of École des Beaux-Arts in the 20th century China, see Ruan, Xing. "Accidental
Affinities: American Beaux-Arts in Twentieth-Century Chinese Architectural Education and Practice." Journal of the
Society of Architectural Historians 61, no. 1 (2002): 30-47. The author recalled when he started his architectural
training in 1982 at the Southeast University, the Beaux-Arts design method still dominated the training of young
students. To note here, Wang attended the same university one year before Ruan, in 1981.
12
Charles Jencks, “Houxiandai jianzhu yuyan” [The language of post-modern architecture], trans. Li Daxia, Jianzhushi
[The Architect], no. 13 (1982): 201–12; no. 14 (1983): 230–44; and no. 15 (1983): 211–28. Ying Wang examined the
circulation of Jencks’ text in China’s architectural discourse, see, Ying Wang & Hilde Heynen (2018). Transferring
Postmodernism to China: A Productive Misunderstanding., Architectural Theory Review, 22:3, 338-363,
13
Charles Jencks, “houxiandai jianzhu yuyan” [The language of post-modern architecture], trans. Li Daxia, Jianzhushi
[The Architect], no. 15 (1983): 223–224

7
 figure 3 Eisenman’s House III,
the translation of The Language of Postmodernism, The Architect, no.15. pp: 222-223

figure 4 Eisenman’s House VI,

The Theory of Peter Eisenman and the Features of Semiotics and Syntax in His Works, The
Architect, no.15. pp: 208-209

8
Shen Fuxu in the “Architectural Theory” section discussed the relationship between language and

architecture and another by Yue Mincheng introduced Michael Graves’ metaphoric architecture in

the “Introduction of Foreign Architects” section. 14 An interest in the intersection of modern

linguistics (or semantics) and architecture appeared in other journals in the mid-1980s, such as

Architectural Journal and World Architecture as well.15 In the second issue of 1988, an essay

dedicated solely to Eisenman, The Theory of Peter Eisenman and the Features of Semiotics and

Syntax in His Works, was published and again authored by Yue (figure 4). This article was one of

first to introduce Eisenman’s theory and works to Chinese readers, in particular “Cardboard

Architecture,” in a comprehensive way. Yue’s article referred to some of Eisenman’s own writing

on “House I,” “House II,” “House X,” and “House 11a,” and his article “Aspects of Modernism:

Maison Dom-ino and Self-referential Sign,” as well as linguistics-inspired critics, such as Rosalind

Krauss and Mario Gandelsonas, who wrote about Eisenman.

In the article, Yue emphasized that modern linguistics was the foundation for understanding

Eisenman’s exploration of architecture’s “deep structure,” exemplified by House I to IV as well

as the Wexner Center. When modern linguistics and semiotic theory were introduced to the

Chinese architectural scene in the 1980s, they provided architects, including Pritzker-winner Wang

Shu, new thinking tools for thinking about the analogical relationship between language and

architecture, and a response to what might be called the “anxiety of form,” an ongoing concern in

Chinese architectural discourse in the 20th century. The early theoretical writing and design

14
Shen Fuxu, “yuyan, luoji, jianzhuyishu” [Language, Logic, and Architecture], Jianzhushi [The Architect], no. 25
(1986): 9-16; Yue Mincheng, “maikeer·geleifusi he ta yinjingjudian de yinyu jianzhu (shang)” [Michael Graves and
his quotative metaphoric architecture (part 1)], Jianzhushi [The Architect], no. 25 (1986): 193-202
15
See, Liu Kaiji, “tan guowai jianzhu fuhaoxue” [On Western semiotics in architecture], shijie jianzhu [World
Architecture], 1984 (05): 11-17; Xiang, Bingren, “yuyan, fuhao, ji jianzhu” [Language, sign, and architecture], jianzhu
xuebao [Architectural Journal], 1984 (08):

9
practices of Wang Shu, who was studying architecture in the 1980s, provided an example of

Chinese architects’ response to the changing architectural discourse within that decade.

Part II. The Anxiety of Form: Two Moments of Encounter between Wang and Eisenman

A. Master Thesis: Finding a Spatial Language that Integrates the Rationality and Sensibility

Wang Shu began college studies in 1981 and received his M.A. in 1988, both at the Nanjing

Institute of Technology (today’s Southeast University). He was not merely a witness to the “New

Enlightenment Movement” and “Cultural Fever,” but he also actively engaged as a participant by

incorporating the the latest cultural trends and knowledge from the West into his works. Wang’s

reading of Eisenman was fully mediated by the intellectual context and architectural discourse of

the time. According to Ruo Jia’s interview, Wang spent much of the summer of 1985 in libraries

reading books such as Ferdinand de Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics, encountering the

works of Roland Barthes, discovering Li Youzheng’s translation of J. M. Broekman’s

Structuralism: Moscow-Prague-Paris.16 These readings coincided with what was being discussed

in the architectural journals in the mid-1980s –– the analogy between architecture and language –

– and provided Wang an entryway into Eisenman via a semantic lens.

Wang finished his master thesis Siwu Shouji: Kongjian Shiyu Jiegou (死屋⼿记: 空间诗语结构，

The House of the Dead: The Poetic Structure of Space) in 1988. Multiple references in his master

thesis attest to Wang’s wide range of knowledge of aesthetics and semantics from Western

philosophy as well as the works and thoughts of modern/postmodern architects including Le

Corbusier and Eisenman. Quotations from Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jacques

16
Jia, Ruo. Theory Backfires: Shu Wang’s Post-structuralist Alternative and a Fictionalized China. Pidgin (25). pp:
142

10
Derrida, Herbert Read, Marcel Duchamp, Christian Norberg-Schulz, Le Corbusier, Aldo van Eyck,

Charles Jencks, Robert Venturi, and Peter Eisenman show the breadth of intellectual influences in

his early theoretical writing. An initial quote from Friedrich Nietzsche, “revaluation of all values,”

sets a resistant and skeptical tone for this 60-page essay. By asking the question, “Does architecture

need a foundation of reality?” Wang positioned language as the medium that connects human

beings and reality. As he explained, the goal of his writing was “to clarify a spatial language that

integrates the conceptual and perceptual.” He argued,

Human beings don’t confront reality in a direct way but there exists a layer similar to language. The creation
should be based on the continuous critiques, destructions, and reconstructions. The driving force comes
from the urgent need of the innermost…Entitled with “the Poetic Structure of Space,” I summarized my
writings in these several years in order to clarify a spatial language that integrates the conceptual and
perceptual, a poetic form of abstract geometry.17

A discussion that integrates linguistic terms such as “typology,” “rhetoric,” “metaphor,”

“misreading” along with corresponding architectural examples, arrives at the conclusion that “the

discourse constructed by current institutions that we have been used to can be deconstructed by a

pure formal analysis.”18 The thesis implies an ontological return to architecture with a recognition

of architecture’s potentiality to integrate the conceptual and perceptual.

Wang inquired into the relationship between signifier and signified, or form and meaning.

This inquiry into a system of notation led Wang to the works of Eisenman, who questioned the

nature of our perception of reality and the meanings ascribed to reality. When defining his own

house experimental projects as “Cardboard Architecture,” Eisenman stated,

“Cardboard Architecture” is a term which questions the nature of reality of the physical environment;
“Cardboard” is a term which attempts to shift the focus from the existing conceptions of form to a
consideration of form as a signal or a notation which can provide a range of formal information; “Cardboard”

17
Wang, Shu, Siwu Shouji: Kongjian Shiyu Jiegou (死屋⼿记: 空间诗语结构，The House of the Dead: The Poetic
Structure of Space), 1988. Note, pp: 4. [translated by the author]
18
Li, Xiangning; Zhang, Xiaochun. Interview with Wang Shu. shidaijianzhu (Time+Architecture). 2012, (04)

11
is a means for an exploration into the nature of architectural form itself, in both its actual and conceptual
states.19

Wang’s reading of Eisenman was largely based on the translations available in mainland China in

the mid-1980s, primarily from translated essays on Chinese architectural journals and some books

from Japan. He would have been aware of Eisenman’s works, at least “Cardboard Architecture”

through 1960s/70s and some “deconstruction” projects in the 1980s. He quoted Eisenman’s

theoretical thinking in the seventies and referred to Eisenman’s House XI in order to illustrate how

the syntax of architecture works to create spatial relationships. Assisted by Eisenman’s writing,

Wang studied Western Modernism via a formalist perspective. Wang’s master thesis referred to

and discussed Eisenman’s ideas primarily in two sections, Figure and Rhetoric (xíngxiàng

yǔ xīucí), and The Truth in Space (kōngjiān de zhēnshíxìng), to consider “how spatial language

can manifest a relative world.” Wang argued,

Based on a deep understanding of the philosophy of language, Peter Eisenman confirmed that the rhetorical
figure (xingxiang) helped to manifest the relativity of the world. To define architecture as a “typology,” it’s
unavoidable to introduce the system of traditional sites, history, and meaning, which can lead to the mixture
and rigidity of vocabulary…Peter Eisenman resists the metaphoric figure (xingxiang) in the aesthetic sense
by rhetoric figure (xingxiang). This resistance is also exemplified by his persistent pursue of the openness
of architectural symbolism. That is, to regard what is possible existent in reality, which is manifested in the
“absence” of language.20

In his discussion of form, Wang uses the term xingxiang –– a word that combines two characters,

xing (form) and xiang (image) –– which differentiates his discussion of “form” from his

predecessors. The term xingxiang implies further meaning concerning visuality and perception,

concepts which did not belong to the conventions of Chinese architectural discourse. Architecture

as a discipline became established in China in the early 20th century and its discursive production

19
Eisenman, Peter. “Introduction to Cardboard Architecture” Casabella, no. 374, 1973, p. 24
20
Wang, Shu, Siwu Shouji: Kongjian Shiyu Jiegou (死屋⼿记: 空间诗语结构，The House of the Dead: The Poetic
Structure of Space), 1988. Note, pp: 25 [translated by the author]

12
is largely a consequence of the transcultural dialogue with the West. The translation of concepts

accompanied by meaning shifts, or the “translingual practice” defined by Lydia H. Liu, helped

transform architectural discipline in China.21

“Form” is one of the central issues in Chinese architectural discourse since architecture was

introduced to China as a modern discipline in the early 20th century, but it was not always

expressed in the same terms, which often resulted in an unstable understanding of “form.”22 Some

terms related to the discussion of “form” including shiyang, xingshi, and fengge, dominated the

architectural discourse in different historical periods. For example, shiyang and fengge, both of

which can be translated as “style,” were frequently used in the 1920s/30s. In the 1950s, xingshi

appeared in the famous revolutionary slogan, “socialist content, national form” (社会主义内容，民

族形式. shèhuì zhǔyì nèiróng, mínzú xíngshì), a principle taken from the Soviet Union. In the

transformative 1980s, different terms for “form” were used in varying ways while the “anxiety of

form” still dominated the exploration of Chinese architects. As Ruo Jia summarized,

“Contemporary Chinese architectural practice is rooted in a question posed by the modernist

architectural reimagination of China after the end of the Maoist regime and at the onset of Deng

Xiaoping’s Open Door policy of 1978: What form should China’s new, reformed architecture

assume after the Cultural Revolution?” 23 Wang’s discussion of xingxiang, emerged as an

alternative term to shed light on the discussion of “form.”

21
Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity (Stanford, 1995)
22
In the Spector of Style, Wang Ying wrote, “The predominant concern of Chinese architecture in the 20th century
was the choice among different architectural styles” and she examined the shifting understandings of style in the
century-long discourse. Wang marked three waves of debates of style in the architectural history of 20th century China,
respectively in the 1920s/30s, 1950s, and 1980s. In Chinese, style (shiyang, fengge) and form (xingshi) are sometimes
exchangeable. Compared to the term “style” from context of art/architectural history, “form” has deeper root in
Western philosophy and played a more fundamental role in the historiography of modern art/architecture. So the essay
discusses the translingual practice of form and how this crucial concept connect Wang Shu and Peter Eisenman.
23 Jia, Ruo. Concretizing an Interdependent Architecture. Log, no. 51 (2021): 145

13
 On the other hand, “form,” a classical concept in modern art and architectural history

discourse, is also the central concept in Eisenman’s early writing. Art and architectural historians

such as Heinrich Wölfflin and Rudolf Wittkover applied formalist techniques (eg, proportion,

mathematics, composition) to analyze the style of Renaissance architecture. Colin Rowe, who

studied with Wittkover at the Warburg Institute in London, conducted a comparative formal

analysis between Palladio’s Villa Foscari and Le Corbusier’s Villa Garches, thus theoretically

proving a continuous history of Western architecture. Rowe’s formalist way of thinking was

extremely influential on young Eisenman. A student of Colin Rowe at the University of Cambridge,

Eisenman finished his doctoral thesis The Formal Basis of Modern Architecture in 1963, the

starting point of his later career. In the thesis, Eisenman investigated the nature of form in relation

to architecture with the diagrammatic formal analyses of eight works by four modern architects.24

In American Graffiti, an introduction to the “New York Five,” Manfredo Tafuri regarded

“Cardboard Architecture” to the formative stage of the neo-avant-garde.25 For Eisenman, during

that period, “form” was a self-referential sign that unifies both perception and rationality. He

proposes a view of architecture that is an “architecture about architecture” exclusively beholden

to a grammar of signs operated by the “deep structure”—a concept borrowed from linguist Noam

Chomsky—with implicit underlying relations and an abstract order. Eisenman’s formalism

departed from the question of style and became associated with the turn to linguistics.

In light of the linguistic turn and some readings of post-structuralist theory, Wang’s

exploration of xingxiang and his effort to find a spatial language that integrates rationality and

sensibility is close to Western modes of thinking and comparable to Eisenman’s early thinking. It

offered a new paradigm to understand “form” as both an ontology and concrete perception, unlike

24
For more about Eisenman’s doctoral thesis, see Luo, Xuan. Aporia and Its Disclosure. Log, no. 41 (2017): 55-62.
25
Tafuri, Manfredo. “American Graffiti: Five x Five = Twenty-five.” Oppositions 5 (summer 1976: 35-74)

14
the dichotomy of form and content in the 1950s revolutionary slogan, “socialist content, national

form,” where the meaning of architecture comes from an extrinsic and empty ideology. This new

model encouraged architectural students like Wang to abandon previous discussions of style and

inquire into the mechanism of meaning producing as a response to the decade’s “anxiety of form.”

B. Haining Youth Center: a Formalist Reading

Haining Youth Center (1989-1991), a project completed immediately after finishing his

master thesis, is Wang Shu’s first built public building. As Wang Shu wrote, the design of the

center put his theoretical inquiry into practice: “Does architecture need a foundation of reality?”

and an attempt to create a “spatial language that integrates the rationality and sensibility, a poetic

form of abstract geometry, and a pathological therapy of an increasingly sick life.” 26 A

comparative reading of Eisenman’s “Cardboard Architecture” and the Haining Youth Center

focuses on how the latter is formally generated. In addition to the pure formal operation, the

reconstruction of Wang’s conceptual design at Xishan Park reveals how Wang embodied the

traditional Chinese building spirit –– an ecological relationship between the human-made and the

natural environments –– into a formal logic to achieve “a poetic form of abstract geometry.”

Compared to Wang’s later public projects after the 2000s such as Xiangshan Campus, his early

works attracted less attention by scholars, but I suggest that this formalist reading provides an

important perspective to understand his later works.

A green paddy field dominates the view on which a white building stands. At a thirty-degree

rotation from the white building, a red cube is inserted into the building; a triangle volume is placed

on top. The photos taken thirty years ago offered us an image of the building’s initial locating at

26
Wang, Shu. Notes on Poetic Space – Notes on Two Design Practices [kongjian shihua – liangze jianzhu sheji
xizuo de chuangzuo shouji]. The Architect (1994, 06). pp:85. [translated by the author]

15
figure 5 the site at the edge of the city before construction (1990)

figure 6 after the construction: Haining Youth Center (1991)

16
the edge of the city. (figure 5, figure 6). Haining, a county-level city in Zhejiang Province, held an

architectural design competition for the new youth center in 1989. Like many other cities along

the Yangtze River Delta, Haining quickly developed its economy in the 1980s following the Open

Door Policy, but such a public architectural competition was still unprecedented at that time. Two

conceptual designs came to the final round of the competition: one from the China Academy of

Art by Wang Shu, another from Tianjin University with the guidance of Zhang Youxin, a student

of Liang Sicheng. Wang’s design was selected as the finalist and the other proposal, in traditional

Chinese style, was abandoned. In the late 1980s China, Wang’s design was indeed avant-garde, if

we understand avant-garde as an oppositional attitude towards mainstream values. His abstract

geometrical forms provided an alternative to the previous dualist relationship between “national

form” and “socialist content.” The director of the Preparation Committee, Xu Yuanjun, a lover of

Western modern music in particular the works of Igor Stravinsky, appreciated the abstract figure

Wang created. When being asked why Wang’s design was finally selected, Wu Guanjia, another

crucial member of the selection committee, recalled that its “implication of vivacious and high-

spirited youth” made Wang’s design stand out.27

Today, the architecture still stands in the corner of Wenyuan Road (south-north orientation)

and Shuiyueting West Road (east-west orientation). More buildings surrounding the youth center

were constructed after 1995 and the initial rural scene disappeared as a consequence of the rapid

urbanization. Three major volumes of the architecture are placed parallel to the roads: the multi-

functional hall in the northwest corner, the cube veneered with rectangular red tiles in the middle,

and a theatre in the southeast corner. A long narrow volume veneered with white mosaic is inserted

into the red cube at a thirty-degree angle and connects to the northwest multi-functional hall and

27
letter exchange with Wu.

17
southeast theatre. There are two volumes to place the staircases. One is in the south as part of the

front façade, connecting the red cube and the long narrow white volume. The other is a spiral one

within a transparent cylinder that connects the long volume and the theatre in the back.

So, with such a highly abstract form, how can the building imply a concrete semantic meaning,

such as Wu’s interpretation of “the high spirit of the youth?” Does Wang’s application of a

formalist approach in China testify to Eisenman’s early exploration “to determine whether a

physical environment possesses within its formal structure a potential for such communication?”28

To distinguish between what is actual and what is implied is exactly the question that Eisenman

explored in House I, as part of his exploration to understand the nature of the structure of form

itself. (figure 7) In the spatial experiment of House I, the form is structured per se and produces a

set of formal relationships due to the inherent logic of forms. The level of implied meaning, as

opposed to the perceptual level (experience), is Eisenman’s definition of deep structure. In Wang’s

master thesis, he was aware of the question of “deep structure,” or the structure of sign in the

institution of architecture. Wang appreciated what Eisenman did in the House VI: “the process

itself becomes an object; not an object as an aesthetic experience or a series of iconic meanings

but an exploration into the range of potential manipulations latent in the nature of architecture,

unavailable to us because they are obscured by cultural preconceptions.”29 (figure 8) The semantic

openness generated by Eisenman’s architectural syntax helps Wang set the theoretical legitimacy

of the spatial language he created. The latency of abstract figures inspires open interpretations,

such as Wu’s “the high-spirit of the youth.”

28
https://eisenmanarchitects.com/House-I-1968
29
Wang, Shu, Siwu Shouji: Kongjian Shiyu Jiegou (死屋⼿记: 空间诗语结构，The House of the Dead: The Poetic
Structure of Space), 1988. Note, pp: 26-27. [summarized translated by the author]

18
figure 7 the generative process of House I (1968)
from the website of EISENMAN ARCHITECTS

figure 8 the generative process of House VI (1975)

from the website of EISENMAN ARCHITECTS

19
 In Wang’s own article where he explained his design concepts, he did not deny the application

of an Eisenmanian formalist strategy, but emphasized his creation as “a poetic form of abstract

geometry.” By “poetic,” he referred to the rich cultural and natural information within the specific

architectural site. Instead of only focusing on the “deep structure” of architecture itself, Wang took

the site and architecture as an integrated entity and consciously discovered the structure of the site

by organizing uncoded cultural and natural information. He learned from the traditional Chinese

garden where the relationship between landscape (site) and architecture was much more integrated

than that of the Western garden. In this sense, Wang applied Eisenman’s poststructuralist approach

and the idea of autonomous architecture to rethink Chinese built tradition, that is, the human-nature

relationship embodied in the traditional Chinese building practices. However, today’s Wenyuan

Road and Shuiyueting West Road cannot reveal anything about the architect’s consideration of the

site because it is not the site of the initial conceptual design in the competition.

Instead of where the architecture stands today, the site originally designated for the

competition was at the Xishan Park, a river in front (around fifteen southeast) with a mountain

behind it. In Chinese fengshui theory (which literally means, wind-and-water), or Chinese

geomancy of arranging buildings, lands, and burial sites that can be traced back to Taoist

philosophy developed two thousand years ago, two of the core principles of an ideal building site

are: “sitting in the north and facing the south” and “bound by mountains and near water.” In this

sense, Xishan Park is an ideal fengshui site in traditional Chinese thinking. The Xishan Park is also

an important historical-cultural site of Haining, which encompasses Huili Temple and the Tomb

of Xu Zhimo, one of the most important romantic poets in the history of modern Chinese literature.

Wang’s design proposal was intended for the Xishan Park site (figure 11). However, after his

proposal was selected, due to a geological report, this site was not viable for construction, so the

20
local government decided to move the site to the intersection of Wenyuan Road and Shuiyueting

West Road, the current site. The design for the Xishan mountainous site was directly transferred

to the Wenyuan-Shuiyueting flat site, and thus some of the initial concepts concerning the site

disappeared in today’s building. Based on some official documents of the competition, some

unpublished drawings, and the architect’s own narratives, the essay reconstructs Wang’s

conceptual design for Xishan site to reveal how he created a “a poetic form of abstract geometry”

by integrating the site and architecture.

Wang explained his design concepts in an article published in 1994, where he mentioned the

Xishan Park site and how the design is formally generated based on the site:

The major building of Haining Youth Center is a narrow cuboid, with the length of 50 meters, width
of 9 meters, height of 20 meters and 15 degree to the southeast. In the middle of cuboid with 45 degrees to
the south-north axis, a 10 meters red cube is inserted. Taking the major building as the border, a rectangular
video classroom and a square multi-functional hall are added. The pilotis on the ground floor of the major
building enables the insertion of two volumes from the south and the north. Both flat roofs serve as open
air theatres. The vertical transportation is solved by two volumes, respectively in the southwest and
northeast. One faces to the plaza and another one is a cylinder with the diameter of 5 meters and the height
of 25 meters. 30 (figure 10, figure 11, figure 12)

The red cube, the video classroom and multi-functional hall face to the south-north direction in a

rather straightforward way without a rotation of “rotation of 45 degrees to the south-north axis.”

(figure 12) Wang’s explanation seems confusing when looking at the current building. However,

Wang’s formal operation is far more than reasonable because the river in the Xishan site posses a

fifteen degrees to the southeast. He placed the major building in front of the river and placed the

red cube in directly southeast direction for more natural light. (figure 13) Though in terms of the

complexity of spatial relationships generated by forms, the Haining Youth Center cannot compete

with the system that Eisenman created in “Cardboard Architecture” series, Wang’s consideration

30
Wang, Shu. Notes on Poetic Space – Notes on Two Design Practices [kongjian shihua – liangze jianzhu sheji
xizuo de chuangzuo shouji]. The Architect (1994, 06). pp:87-88. [translated by the author]

21
figure 9 the reconstruction of Wang’s conceptual design (Xishan site)
drawing by the author
based on the map of Haining (1995)

22
figure 10 the reconstruction of Wang’s conceptual design (plan)
drawing by the author

figure 11the reconstruction of Wang’s formal logic

drawing by the author

23
figure 12 the reconstruction of Wang’s conceptual design (axonometric projection)
drawing by the author
based on the blueprints of Wang’s preliminary design

24
of the site, in particular the natural elements of the site, can be seen as his early experiment to

apply a poststructuralist approach to rethink Chinese building tradition. In the conceptual design

of Haining Youth Center, the river is the generator for the creation of the major building. Two new

axes, the fifteen-degree axis and forty-five degree axis, dialogue with the natural elements of the

site.

Wang Shu applied the new model of thinking “form” that he learned from his Western

precedents including Eisenman to rethink Chinese building tradition. He is not an exception of

what Wang Jing has described in High Culture Fever –– a period when Chinese intellectuals

eagerly incorporated Western thinking to reflect Chinese tradition.31 Wang’s consideration of the

ecological relationship between the human-made and the natural environments as well as his

reference to Chinese traditional garden, though only an implicit clue in Haining Youth Center’s

conceptual design, became a more articulated concern in his later works, such as Suzhou

Wenzheng Library (2000) and Xiangshan Campus (2004). As the first Pritzker winner from China

mainland, Wang’s architecture is praised for its strong sense of cultural continuity and re-

invigorated tradition.32 However, the reconstruction of the conceptual design of Wang’s first built

work manifests that architectural form is a fundamental concern of Wang in his early design. If

one agrees that the works by an individual architect also have a history, the architect’s starting

point unfolds a prehistory of his later designs, thus I suggest that this formalist reading provide an

important perspective to understand Wang Shu’s later works.

31
See note 5
32
https://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/2012.

25
Part III. The “Third Space:” the Production of Architectural Knowledge on a Global Level

Either in the forms of arch-writing or built works, architecture is a highly intellectual activity

that creates new knowledge. Instead of a merely passive receiver in the cross-cultural dialogue

with Peter Eisenman, Wang Shu is rather an active architectural knowledge producer in the

exchange process. In The Location of Culture, Homi Bhabha uses the term “third space” to refer

to a creative space that lies between two cultures in exchange, or two subjects in interaction. For

Bhabha, there is always a gap between the statement and its reception: the “subject” who speaks

and the “subject” who receives never coincide.33 This “in-between” space rejects the idea of pure

culture but advocates for a hybrid one.

In Wang and Eisenman’s transcultural exchange, architectural discourse is significant in

creating the “third space.” While Chinese architects like Wang Shu showed a strong interest in

Western modern architecture in the 1980s, Eisenman’s attention still focused on architecture’s

autonomy and self-reflexivity. He had almost no contact with China during the 1980s/90s when

some of his contemporaries, such as John C. Portman, Rem Koolhaas, and Jean Nouvel, started to

go to China for commercial and governmental landmark projects, neither did he have any other

access to Chinese culture. His direct contact with the country was much later: only in 2018 did

Eisenman visit China for the first time and give lectures at Tongji University and China Academy

of Art. These facts reveal an intriguing feature of the exchange between Wang and Eisenman: it is

almost a one-way influence. However, this does not mean that Wang and Eisenman share nothing

in common and lack a foundation for interaction. As analyzed in Part I and Part II.A, both of them

were mediated in the theoretical discourse, including modern linguistics and post-structuralist

theory. They are not connected directly via architectural objects, but via architectural discourse as

33
H. Bhabha. (2004). The location of culture. Routledge.

26
a middle ground that creates the “third space.” To be more specific, the linguistic turn and post-

structuralist theory bring two architects to a synchronous discursive space; by thinking through the

same critical models, Wang reactivated Chinese building tradition –– the ecological relationship

between human-made and the natural environment.

Discourse, as defined by Michel Foucault, refers to ways of constituting knowledge together

with social practices. 34 The “New Enlightenment Movement” and “Cultural Fever,” as social

practices in the 1980s China, incorporated Western theoretical texts in the form of Chinese

translations. A translated approach to knowledge is particularly well suited to create the “third

space” for the production of hybrid knowledge. Through reading a “translated” Eisenman, Wang

applied a formalist way of thinking illuminated by the linguistic turn and post-structuralist theory

to resolve the discussion of style that had long been dominant in Chinese architectural discourse;

in designing Haining Youth Center, he explored what Eisenman called the “deep structure” to

rethink the spatial relationship in the traditional Chinese gardens and build a harmonious

relationship between human and nature. From arch-writing to building practice, Western critical

models finally mix with a Chinese traditional way of thinking as a body of hybrid knowledge.

This specific transcultural encounter not only provides us a lens to understand the

transformation of architectural knowledge and how this transformation has an impact on

architectural design practices in 1980s China, but also offers an example of the production of

architectural knowledge on a global level. That is, when the theoretical discourse that originated

from the West is incorporated into the non-Western region, how it can be creatively used as a

resource to reactivate the tradition of non-Western cultures and produce architectural knowledge

beyond the legacy of Eurocentrism.

34
Foucault. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge. Tavistock Publications.

27