Ai Weiwei's Architecture of Freedom

Ai Weiwei’s courtyard home is on the outskirts of Beijing, which was just where, for awhile there at least, he could do his art and his writing fearlessly and without much concern. But then, a few years ago, the surveillance cameras showed up; officials began paying more visits to his house. Then, after his blog was shut down, he got knocked on the head by a cop, almost died, and landed in house detention. Then his brand new Shanghai studio was destroyed by the government.

Then in April, officials virtually kidnapped him, accused him of tax evasion, seized property from his house and detained him in a secret location outside of Beijing.

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When he was allowed one brief meeting with his wife, he told her, that he was taking long walks everyday, had his blood pressure checked seven times a day, and was eating and sleeping well. He was released today on bail, never having been formally charged, and needs official permission to leave his house.

In the years before his nearly three-month detention, Weiwei had tangoed with the government on his blog and, after that was shut down, on social media, in the international press, and, as always, through his art. He’s also the designer of a number of elegant buildings, including Beijing’s Olympic stadium, which he worked on with the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron.

But he’s always detested architecture, for its profession and its pretensions. In 2008, he said of designing buildings that he “just hopped on the wrong train by mistake. I don’t care where it’s going or where it stops. I have to get off.” His design company is called “Fake,” as in not genuine (he would later slam the Bird’s Nest as a “fake smile”), but also as in fa ke, the Chinese homophone for his favorite four-letter English suggestion. When he led a throng of dozens of Western architects to the desert of Inner Mongolia for a giant architecture park a few years ago, he brought with him a video crew to film everything, probably for a Herzog-like portrait of China’s foreign architecture circus.

The cause that got him in trouble with Beijing had much to do with bad architecture too: the thousands of children killed in the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, largely due to the easy collapse of the area’s “tofu” school buildings. That gave him more anger than ever, and in his quiet, darkly funny way, he wasn’t afraid to share it.

In quieter times, he wrote about things like design and his cats. In this blog post from May 10, 2006, which JSOnline recently pointed me to, and to which I’ve added some images of his buildings, Weiwei looks at the spaces where he’s lived (everywhere except a prison camp, he says) to describe his simple conviction that people (and animals) deserve open-ended spaces as much as open-minded societies. The government would shut down his blog in 2009.

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Ai Qing scuplture park, Zhejiang

Ai Wewei blog post, Sina.com, May 10, 2006. (Photos added by me)

I was born in a courtyard on Beijing’s east side called Tofu Alley. We accompanied my father when he was “demoted” and sent to do physical labor in Dongbei province, and moved into the home of a lumberjack in the Dongbei forest. Later we were transferred to Xinjiang, and moved into Soviet-style block housing; when we were placed in our company of troops, we first lived in a dormitory, and then in an “earthen pit” — a ditch dug into the ground, and covered with branches and mud. When we vacated it, it was turned into a pigpen…

In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 1983.

Later, when I went to the United States, I lived in a Philadelphia townhouse; in the Berkeley bay area I stayed in someone’s home on a hillside overlooking the San Francisco Bay. I’ve also lived in a young men’s club, which was a room under the rafters of a building. In New York, I lived in an artist’s warehouse-style studio. Because I was a self-funded student, cash was tight, so I either stayed someplace cheap, or I lived with someone else. All together, I’ve moved almost twenty times…

Soon after I moved back to Beijing, I lived in a courtyard home, and now I live in my studio. In terms of residential dwelings, I’ve lived in essentially every possible variety. Traveling in Europe I’ve stayed in family-style bed-and-breakfasts and boutique hotels; in Italy I lived in a three-hundred-year-old home whose furniture and furnishings hadn’t been altered over the years, and I’ve bedded down at a friend’s castle and in luxurious casinos. With the exception of a prison camp, I’ve been in virtually every kind of structure.

The house I live in today relatively suits my liking, because it suffices for all the potential ways that I might spend each day. It allows me to do things as I please: if I want to move around in the middle of the night, I do. I eat when I want to, there is freedom in everything. My studio is a mere step away, and it’s convenient for me to chat with friends. It is a flexible space.

Top: Residence, Ancram, New York, with HHF+ Architects; Bottom: Archeology archives, Jinhua Architecture Park

When I hear words like “sleek” or “chic” in relation to design, I can’t help but think they are medical terms, something like “diabetes” or “nephritis.” I hate those words, although I rather like “simple,” which is employing implicit methods to effectively deal with things in a straightforward way. Because I am a rather simple person, the activities that I encounter don’t require me to use my intellect, and I’m very fortunate that, generally speaking, nothing requiring the heavy use of my own intellect comes my way. The affairs of architecture and interior design are quite simple, as you merely need to rely on intuition and the simplest craft to complete your task. Basic materials and treatments are also sufficient to satisfy our sense of happiness. Just like cooking: you don’t need to throw all your spices into the pot, vegetables boiled in plain water can also taste good because their essential nature, color, and flavor are provided by the sun, the air, and the earth.

Stone pier, La Ruta del Peregrino, Mexico.

The cats and dogs in my home enjoy a high status; they seem more like the lords of the manor than I do. The poses they strike in the courtyard often inspire more joy in me than the house itself. Their self-important positions seem to be saying, “This is my territory,” and that makes me happy. However, I’ve never designed a special space for them. I can’t think like an animal, which is part of the reason why I respect them; it’s impossible for me to enter into their realm. All I can do is open the entire home to them, observe, and at last discover that they actually like it here or there. They’re impossible to predict.

My design possesses a special characteristic: it has leeway and possibility. I believe this is freedom. I don’t like forcing my will upon other people. The ways that you allow space and form to return to their fundamental states, allow for the greatest amount of freedom.

Three Shadows gallery, Beijing

Writings from Weiwei’s blog have been translated by Lee Ambrozy and published in Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews and Digital Rants, 2006-2009, by MIT Press. Follow Weiwei on Twitter in English on this Tumblr, but don’t expect much posting anytime soon.

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Ai Weiwei’s Architecture of Freedom