Comments on: GM Green Wall in Trafalgar Square designed by Shelley Mosco landscape architect

By: Alexandra Andon

Alexandra Andon — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 08:35:07 +0000

I enjoyed all your comments and think Tom Turner’s idea of a city with green roofs and tapestries walls with unvegetated areas designated would be delightful!

By: Christine

Christine — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:54:50 +0000

Yuan, it is good to remember that the Chinese were not behind International standards at all before the Cultural Revolution, rather they were just different and had different sets of knowledge and experience through dealing with problems and coming up with their own unique solutions.

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:27:14 +0000

Excellent story! I am surprised that the western stereotypes are so well known in China. One of the best things about the creation of the European Union is that the countries are getting so good at making jokes about each other. This is a most welcome change after 2000 years of fighting each other. Eg
In Heaven:
The cooks are French,
The policemen are English,
The mechanics are German,
The lovers are Italian,
The bankers are Swiss.

In Hell:
The cooks are English,
The policemen are German,
The mechanics are French,
The lovers are Swiss,
The bankers are Italian.

In Computer Heaven:
The management is from Intel,
The design and construction is done by Apple,
The marketing is done by Microsoft,
IBM provides the support,
Dell does the pricing.

In Computer Hell:
The management is from Apple,
Microsoft does design and construction,
IBM handles the marketing,
The support is from Gateway,
Intel sets the price.

By: Tian Yuan

Tian Yuan — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 11:21:49 +0000

It is an interesting topic but still very difficult to find the answer re the design style in China. Although China is a country which has very long history, (I think the history contains art history), the trend of design is getting more and more western. There is a extremely popular terminology ‘catching up with international standards’ these years. There is a joke in China: a ship ran into danger at sea, so the captain asked one sailor to persuade the passengers to jump into the sea. The captain knew it would be very hard to persuade them, but in the end the sailor did very well. The captain was surprised and asked: ‘How did you persuade them to jump? The sailor answered ‘I told American: please jump now, then you wil get your insurance indemnity’ – the American jumped; ‘I told the Englishman ‘jumping into the sea is what a gentleman would do’ – the Englishman jumped; ‘I told German, see what the American and the Englishman did – they jumped because jumping is sea is the rule and you must obey’ and German jumped. In the end, one Chinese man was left standing there. He did not want to listen to the sailor, but the sailor persuaded him successfully: he said to him: ‘Please jump, because the American, Englishman and the German all did it. If you do not jump you will not ‘catch up with international standards’. So the Chinese man jumped at once!!!

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 07:31:37 +0000

A very difficult problem for China is how western it should be. It is obviously sensible to take advantage of modern technology – but does this mean adopting western design styles? And do we have a global culture where everything is to be much the same everywhere? Call me ‘just a tourist’ but in India I am always pleased to see the women wearing saris and sorry to see the men wearing ‘Mediterranean’ clothing. And in London I think the Africans are often the best-dressed people – when they wear African clothing for going to church! English people generally want their buildings to look ‘English’ while English architects often prefer a globalised international style.

By: Tian Yuan

Tian Yuan — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 06:14:05 +0000

Christine, I do have interest in comparing different design in a same period. For example, I did some research about the Chinese clothe style in 1960′ Female’s: http://img.jiaodong.net/pic/0/10/57/31/10573161_521193.jpg
Male’s: http://img.jiaodong.net/pic/0/10/57/31/10573162_999745.jpg
Also, I found a Park- Fuxing Park in shanghai: http://img.product.pchome.net/sample_pic/00/00/26/64/2664_5_114.jpg

Then, here are them in 21 century:
Clothes: http://pic.zh114.cn/2008/6/19/200431.jpg
Fuxing Park in Shanghai: http://www.shanghai-visit.com/map/2008/12/2.jpg

Do you find anything similar from the change of clothes and Park design?

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 05:36:14 +0000

Beautiful photographs.
I wonder how the history of Chinese costume design relates to the history of Chinese garden design (which, judging from the books I have seen) is less divided into separate periods than the history of Chinese clothing.

By: Christine

Christine — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:05:53 +0000

ps. Here is an example of children’s dress [ http://www.austinchronicle.com/binary/1352/arts_feature1-2.jpg ].

By: Christine

Christine — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 03:57:05 +0000

The history of Chinese fashion is very rich – and goes much beyond the cheongsam.

“The costumes of the different dynasties all had their own distinctive features and appeared to have no close connection to each other. They represented the culture of the different dynasties and the wisdom that humans were endowed with during the different time periods. The attire of each dynasty vividly reflected and represented the life style, social status, ideology, and mentality of that time. This could be a result of the different characteristics that each dynasty possessed, as people of different dynasties came from different heavenly kingdoms.”

Perhaps Yuan could tell us more about this costume/style of dress?

[ http://traditions.cultural-china.com/chinaWH/upload/upfiles/2010-11/01/chinese_traditional_dress_through_the_agesa3fa71714ced76581b01.jpg ]

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 17:58:54 +0000

Wiki has what is, for me, an interesting article on Chinese dress - and the flowers on the cheongsam (Shanghai, 1930s) remind me of your example of floral bedding in Tiananmen Square. I therefore guess that this style of 'child art' dates from the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. It may have gone to sleep after 1949 and woken up after 1978.