Art Vandelay: Tropical Asia in Calgary and golfing in Wenzhou, China —What does he do? —He’s an importer. —Just imports? No exports? —He’s an importer-exporter. Okay?
Elaine and George in ‘The Cadillac’, Seinfeld
Peter Osborne
We, as architects, are used to importing and exporting; visiting, viewing, learning and recreating is an entrenched tradition. We send people on traveling fellowships and make personal pilgrimages in hopes of gleaning some lesson about architecture that we can take home with us. Likewise we work hard to spread the gospel, sharing our ideas, our buildings and our building traditions with each other. However, importing and export- ing is no longer just encouraged by our peers. Clients are increas- ingly looking for global architects to import or export architecture. What were once personal acts of discovery are now commissioned.
In March of 2004, in China with Graham Edmunds Cartier Architects of Calgary helping present a master plan for a golf course resort, I was exporting architecture. The project is located in two valleys on the outskirts of the industrial city of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province where everything from sunglasses to gas powered scooters are manufactured. Wenzhou is booming and like many cities in China it has an emerging middle class. It is here where the golf course takes shape — two resort hotels, 1500 vacation houses,
a water park, service towns, and three 18-hole golf courses. The Chinese client specifically requested Canadian architects to (re)create Canadian architecture in China. With this new kind of exporting, architects no longer just apply the lessons they have learned; they export meaning. The China project exports a ‘Canadian way of life’ with our wide-open spaces, our love of nature and the possibility for a middle class.
While in China I was also researching Asian architecture for the design of the
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local architecture | in a global world
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on |site 12
local architecture | in a global world
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