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You Can’t Change China, China Changes You | John van de Water, NEXT architects | 9789064507625

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You Can’t Change China, China Changes You

Author:John van de Water, NEXT architects

Publisher:010

ISBN: 978-90-6450-762-5

  • Paperback
  • English
  • 288 Pages
  • Feb 24, 2012

Young, enthusiastic and ambitious - this was Dutch architect John van de Water when setting off to a rapidly modernizing China in 2004. His intention was to put into practice in China the internationally recognized ideas of NEXT Architects, the firm in which he is a partner.

You Can’t Change China, China Changes You
is Van de Water’s personal, disarming and occasionally hilarious account of this compelling and confrontational quest for an authentic architecture. Are Western design skills able to evolve in a cultural context as radically different as that of China?

/ Ook uitgegeven in het Nederlands

Young, enthusiastic and ambitious - this was Dutch architect John van de Water when setting off to a rapidly modernizing China in 2004. His intention was to put into practice in China the internationally recognized ideas of NEXT Architects, the firm in which he is a partner.

The years that followed were hectic, with more than a million square metres’ worth of projects realized on Chinese soil. The boundaries of his Western frame of reference constantly needed reviewing in the light of the Chinese context. He encountered a wide range of conditions and situations informing the relationship between Western and Chinese thinking: incomprehension, confrontation, misunderstandings, acceptance, awareness, consensus and, ultimately, mutual benefit.

You Can’t Change China, China Changes You
is Van de Water’s personal, disarming and occasionally hilarious account of this compelling and confrontational quest for an authentic architecture. Are Western design skills able to evolve in a cultural context as radically different as that of China?

/ Ook uitgegeven in het Nederlands

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