Because of a man named Wang Xuelin, I hate architecture. Those blueprints when packing up the beds, but now those things are pressed under the bedding, thick with mildew, as quaint and impersonal as he was, and as quaint as those Soviet-style group homes he was involved in designing; my mother said it was because of the Cultural Revolution, when both conservatives and rebels wanted my grandfather. My grandfather was a conservative who always felt that those Soviet houses would provide homes for most people, but he became a thorn in the side of the rebels during those days of bad blood with the Soviet Union.
Since he was vilified for degrading Chairman Mao, who represented the sun, because two strokes were added to the circle he drew on the draft paper before he went home one day, yes, he couldn't understand anything beyond the instrumental nature of the symbols from the beginning; then he was invited to the construction site to see the exposed substandard steel bars during the Wenchuan earthquake reconstruction, and his problem came back, yes, he stayed in the building itself all his life and didn't vacate it. He never moved. In 2022, he died, and I think I don't hate him or architecture, but rather I like things that are pure and "old-fashioned". What I hate seems to be that in this day and age, too many things outside of architecture are defining this ancient discipline. What I want to ask is not what we are today, but rather to look back and ask how we could be like this.
Wang Xue lin, passed away in 2022.6.27, An obscure architect, engineer, and dear grandfather of mine.