Beijing: Lost in Translation?

Beijing: Lost in Translation? Presentation prepared for International Conference on China’s Urban Land and Housing in the 21st Century Centre for China Urban and Regional Studies Hong Kong Baptist University December 13th – 15th, 2007 byEric J. Heikkila, Professor USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development & Chinese University of Hong Kong (AY 2007-08)

An exploration of three premises • Material urban form constitutes a formal but implicit language through which cultural expression is manifest • Beijing’s hutongs are a language form intrinsically expressive of traditional Chinese culture • As hutongs are replaced by more modernistic urban forms, an important part of Chinese culture is, quite literally, lost in translation

First premise: • Material urban form constitutes a formal but implicit language through which cultural expression is manifest

1. The linguistics of urban form • From semiotics to semantics • Alexander: Pattern language • Hillier: Space syntax • Chomsky: Psychology of language • Bierwisch: Language and space • Stiny: Shape grammar • Constructing spatial sentences

From semiotics to semantics • Urban semiotics • The city as a discourse • Walking as rhetoric

Urban semiotics • Semiotics (“semiosis”) as a “sequence of interpretants – interpretants being a collective, public observable product laid down in the course of cultural processes, even though one does not presume the existence of a mind that admits of, uses, or develops them Umberto Eco

“The city is a discourse ... ... and this discourse is truly a language: the city speaks to its inhabitants, we speak our city, the city where we are, simply by living in it, wandering through it, by looking at it.” Roland Barthes

Pedestrian speech acts • “The act of walking is to the urban system what the speech act is to language or to the statements uttered ... a rhetoric of walking ... the long poem of walking manipulates spatial organizations” Michel de Certeau

Patterns as nodes in a graph • Patterns may be identified with nodes in a graph, and the graph is connected by edges of different lengths ... A pattern is an encapsulation of forces; a general solution to a problem. The "language" combines the nodes together into an organizational framework. • Nikos Salingaros (2000), after Christopher Alexander et al (1977) lower level patterns combine to form higher level patterns

Generative grammar • Generative grammar is the explicit theory proposed to account for linguistic competence • Intrinsic to this theory is a model of the process by which language competence is acquired • Generative grammer describes the transformations by which linguistical competence at a “deep structure” is manifest at the “surface structure” of language. • The deep structure of a language accords with its internalrepresentation -- Chomsky, 1979

“I-space” • How are spatial concepts accomodated within a linguistical framework? • Bierwisch (1999) postulates an I-space corresponding to Chomsky’s I-language • “I-space is accomodated by semantic form in terms of primitives interpreted by strictly spatial concepts”

Shape grammar • “In a shape grammar, the shapes in the set S and the symbols in the set L provide the building blocks for the definition of shape rules in the set R and the initial shape I … shapes generated using the shape grammar are also built up in terms of these primitive elements” -- George Stiny (1980), Introduction to shape and shape grammars, E&P:B

Semantic primitives “It may be reasonable to suppose that at least traditional notions like ‘agent of action’, ‘instrument’, ‘goal’, ‘source’, and so on, are part of universal semantics; then such notions would be available for semantic representation” -- Chomsky (1978, p.141)

Constructing “Spatial Sentences”Example from Kyoto: Borrowed view (“Shakkei”) adjectives object verb adverb subject

Revisiting the first premise: Material urban formconstitutes a formal but implicit language through which cultural expression is manifest While by no means conclusive, the preceding analysis appears to provide sufficient grounds for proceeding on the basis of a conditional acceptance of the first premise

Second premise: Beijing’s hutongs constitute a language form that is intrinsically expressive of traditional Chinese culture

Beijing’s hutongs • The old city of Beijing is characterized by a bewildering yet intimate labyrinth of a myriad hutong (alleyways) and traditional siheyuan (courtyards) housing

This traditional configuration defines “us” and “them” with progressive levels of intimacy as one penetrates inner courtyards

Semantic progression • There are intriguing parallels between the construction of Chinese written language and basic courtyard structures • In both cases, simple structures (“patterns”) can be combined to form higher order structures from Wu Liangyong (fig. 5.11) “wei” – the Chinese radical meaning “to surround”

Simple progressions of semantic complexity “borders” “to surround” “field” “selfish/cocoon” “coil” “tired” “silk” “small” Inspired by McNaughton (1979)

Simple housing complex Courtyard housing follows a similar semantic progression, with complex expressions of form being assembled from simple components Figure 5.12 from Wu Liangyong

Self-replicating fractal structures • The basic interlocking form of enclosures and delimiters replicates itself with fractal-like regularity from the smallest scale (individual rooms) to the largest scale (the city) Courtyard structure of Old Beijing Figure 1.2 from Wu Liangyong

City walls Resulting hierarchy of urban spaces City Main roads Block Hutong Sub-block enclosures and delimiters Outer walls Courtyards Bldg walls Building adapted from Wu Liangyong (1999, figure 5.7) Partitions Room Furniture

Revisiting the second premise: Beijing’s hutongs constitute a communicative form that is intrinsically expressive of traditional Chinese culture

Third premise: As hutongs are replaced by more modernistic urban forms, an important part of Chinese culture is, quite literally, lost in translation

The new Beijing • Contemporary Beijing is not being redeveloped so much as it is being replaced • Traditional hutong neighborhoods have disappeared with astonishing speed, and the remaining neighborhoods are increasingly isolated and seemingly out-of-place

Modernistic structures and supporting urban forms are flaunted as “proof” of China’s newfound status as an economic powerhouse China’s new ideology: “2-0-0-8”

Chinese modernity • This phenomenon of urban form is appropriately viewed in the context of a much wider discussion about the nature of Chinese modernity Fashion plates circa 1935 from Leo Ou-Fan Lee, Shanghai Modern

Linking architectural patterns to social patterns -- Salingaros (2000) Traditional architectural patterns combine with social patterns to form higher-order pattern Modernistic architecture as an anti-pattern

3d. Counter-arguments • de Certeau revisited • “Chineseness” • Imposed quaintness • Structure and agency

de Certeau revisited • For Michel de Certeau, it is the use of a language rather than merely its form that constitutes culture • He uses as his “theoretical model the construction of individual sentences with an established vocabulary and syntax ... the act of speaking (with all the enunciative strategies that implies) is not reducible to a knowledge of the language” • More generally, we should not under-estimate human ingenuity nor over-estimate the deterministic qualities of over-arching (linguistical) systems

“Chineseness” • Likewise, contemporary studies of overseas Chinese suggest that “Chineseness” is as robust and multifaceted as it is elusive • Yeh Wen-Hsin (2000) speaks of “a culturally defined Chinese universe with negotiated boundaries, in which the attributes of “Chineseness” are not culturally predetermined and immutable, but are the products of an ongoing historical process • From this perspective it may be both trite and misleading to associate some essential quality of “Chineseness” with the physical form of an architectural artifact

Imposed quaintness • A related pitfall is that of scholars (especially those from the West) admonishing Chinese to forego the perks of modernization in order to retain the quaintness of traditional practices • The essence of such a message is one of cultural imperialism in the sense articulated by Edward Said

What is gained by the linguistic argument? • In the absence of a linguistic model, one is left with the replacement of one surface structure (in the sense articulated by Chomsky) by another surface structure • It is only with a linguistic model that one can explicitly posit that something important is said in a source language • From this perspective, questions of translatability follow immediately, naturally, and inevitably

Beijing: Lost in Translation?