15 Books on China and Design

— Amanda Dameron comments on Ai Wewei’s Blog:

“I picked this one up at the Monterey Design Conference last year, knowing that the architect and artist Ai Weiwei had maintained an important online diary that had contained his musings on art, politics, design, furniture, people, and a great deal many other things. I knew that the Chinese government had shut the blog down on several occasions but had done little to dampen the author’s influence both in his own country and abroad. The way that it’s written and printed, with many entries, some short, some longer, make it possible to open this book at any page and get sucked in immediately. I just opened it, and I landed on this: “Writing one’s feelings is simple, but can also be a difficult thing, for at least the following reasons: You can’t be sure this is really what you are thinking; If you write something down, it will never be anything else.”

APD-Pacific Design Yearbook (Asia-Pacific Design) is the world's first annual collection of graphic design work oriented toward designers and design institutions of the Asia-Pacific region. Since the first edition in 2005, APD has come to be regarded as the standard of the industry. No. 8 covers eight categories: visual identity, orientation systems, type, posters, packaging, print, logos, and graphics and extended products and features about 300 designers or design agencies.

From the Publisher. China Chic is the first book to explore the evolution of Chinese dress, from the dragon robes and lotus shoes of the imperial era to the creation of new fashions like the cheongsam and the “Mao suit” that symbolized modern Chinese identity.

From the Publisher. China is on the verge of a design revolution. A “third generation” of the People’s Republic of China that came of age during China’s “opening up” period of the 1980s now strives for fame, fortune, and self expression. This generation, workers in their thirties and forties, has more freedom to create—and to consume—than their parents or grandparents. In China’s Design Revolution, Lorraine Justice maps the evolution of Chinese design and innovation.

Justice explains that just as this “third generation” (post-Revolution, post–Cultural Revolution) reaches for self-expression, China’s government is making massive investments in design and innovation, supporting design and creative activities (including design education programs, innovation parks, and privatized companies) at the local and national levels. The goal is to stimulate economic growth—and to establish China as a global creative power. Influenced by Mao and Confucius, communism and capitalism, patriotism and cosmopolitanism, China’s third generation will drive the culture of design and innovation in China—and maybe the rest of the world.

Justice describes and documents examples of Chinese design and innovation that range from ancient ceramics to communist propaganda posters. She then explores current award-winning projects in media, fashion, graphic, interior, and product design; and examines the lifestyle and purchasing trends of the “fourth generation,” now in their teens and twenties. China’s Design Revolution offers an essential guide to the inextricably entwined stories of design, culture, and politics in China.

From the Publisher. Over the past fifty years, archaeological explorations in China have unearthed a wealth of textile materials, some dating as far back as five thousand years. In this magnificently researched and illustrated book, preeminent Western and Chinese scholars draw upon these spectacular discoveries to provide the most thorough account of the history of silk ever written.  

Encyclopedic in breadth, the volume presents a chronological history of silk from a variety of perspectives, including archaeological, technological, art historical, and aesthetic. The contributors explore the range of uses for silk, from the everyday to the sublime. By directly connecting recently found textile artifacts to specific references in China's vast historical literature, they illuminate the evolution of silk making and the driving social forces that have inspired the creation of innovative textiles through the millennia.  

Dieter Kuhn is professor emeritus of sinology, University of Würzburg, Germany. James C. Y. Watt is Brooke Russell Astor Chairman Emeritus, Department of Asian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Chen Juanjuan was senior research fellow, Palace Museum, Beijing. Huang Nengfu is professor at the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing. Li Wenying is deputy director, Xinjiang Institute of Archaeology. Peng Hao is professor of archaeology, Wuhan University, and senior research fellow at Jingzhou Museum, Hubei. Zhao Feng is vice director, China National Silk Museum, Hangzhou; director, Chinese Centre for Textile Identification and Conservation, Hangzhou; and professor of textile and costume history, Donghua University, Shanghai.

From the Publisher. Within a few years of the Manchu invasion, Chinese craftsmen combined their highly refined design aesthetic with exotic woods, veneers, and lacquer to create some of the finest furniture ever made. This fascinating and little-known area of Chinese decorative art from the period of 1640 to 1790 is illuminated in Classical Chinese Furniture. These beautiful stools, desks, chairs, and bureaus have become the fastest-growing area of collecting within China as impassioned experts rediscover the glory of their artistic patrimony. The heart of Classical Chinese Furniture is the presentation of 52 masterpieces that provide an invaluable lesson on the Chinese approach to aesthetics, craftsmanship, architecture, and culture.

Internationally celebrated Swiss curator and cultural mastermind Hans Ulrich Obrist never looks back. Since 2005, he has asked artists, architects, scientists, actors and philosophers the world over to fill in the blank for what's to come. Now, he turns to China to further his ongoing speculative narrative. In this elfin-size, bilingual (English/Chinese) volume, people active in Chinese culture tell Obrist what they think the future will be. Co-published with the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, this is the first installment of a new series published by Pinacoteca Giovanni and Marella Agnelli. Participants include A Yi, Nadim Abbas, Ai Weiwei, Daniel A. Bell, Cao Fei, Yung Ho Chang, Chen Jiaying, Chen Xiaoyun, Chen Man, Chen Wei, Cheng Ran, Cheng Wenhao, Chi Huisheng, Heman Chong, Chu Yun, Ding Yi, Duan Jianyu, Fang Lu, Gao Lei, Gao Weigang, Ge Lei, Frank Gehry, Gu Dexin and many others.

From the Publisher (1974 Dover reprint of the 1949 edition). The definitive work on an area of Chinese design, long recognized as an important folk art. 1,239 designs are shown, with titles, commentaries, and other information: 265 groups of design based on parallelogram, octagon, hexagon, single focus frames, wedge-lock, parallel waves, swastikas, U-scroll, and more.

The conventions used to construct traditional Chinese ice-ray lattice designs are investigated. Parametric shape grammars are defined for the recursive generation of these patterns. In his classic monograph, A Grammar of Chinese Lattice, Daniel Sheets Dye sets out. a catalogue of traditional Chinese lattices constructed between 1000 BC and 1900 AD. "Most of these ornamental and grille designs have a clearly observable or regular structure that allows for their straightforward generation by simple shape grammars. The group of Chinese lattices called ice-ray, however, do not exhibit this periodicity or regularity.

From the Publisher. Lisa Ross’s ethereal photographs of Islamic holy sites were created over the course of a decade on journeys to China’s Xinjiang region in Central Asia, historically a cultural crossroads but an area to which artists and researchers have generally been denied access since its annexation in 1949. These monumental images show shrines created during pilgrimages, many of which have been maintained continuously over several centuries; visitation to the tombs of saints is a central aspect of daily life in Uyghur Islam, and its pilgrims ask for intercession for physical, mental, and spiritual ailments. The shrines, adorned with small devotional offerings that mark a prayer or visit, are poignant representations of collective memory and a pacifistic faith, and endure despite vulnerability to natural forces of sand, heat, and powerful winds. Their simplicity and austerity as captured by Ross invoke ideas of spirituality, eternity, and transcendence.

Three essays—by a historian of Central Asian Islam, a Uyghur folklorist, and the curator of an accompanying exhibition at the Rubin Museum of Art—situate the photographic content in context. This volume emerges at a critical time, as modernization and new policies for development of China’s far west bring about rapid, extreme, and irrevocable change; the region is its largest source of untapped natural gas, oil, and minerals. Many of the sites in Ross’s work are threatened by political and economic pressures—her images are valuable, therefore, not only for their intrinsic beauty, but as an important record of a rich and vibrant culture.

Originally published as Volume 2 of The Tao of Painting, this is the first English translation of the Chinese handbook the “Chieh Tzu Yüan Hua Chuan” (1679–1701). Includes instructions, discussions of the fundamentals of painting, and notes on the preparation of colors.

From the Publisher. China's explosive urban growth continues to make headlines, illustrated by dramatic shots of the latest commercial or residential building, each more outstanding (and often more outlandish) than the next. As the country's new money matures, it is increasingly being redirected from the necessity of industry to the nicety of culture. While the recession has put a damper on plans for new cultural venues in many world cities, museums in China are booming. Once scarce, they have multiplied rapidly, with more than 1,000 opening in the last decade. They are now found throughout the country in megacities, smaller urban centers, and even in more remote places like Ordos, Inner Mongolia, in the middle of the Gobi Desert. New Museums in China presents fifty-one of the most innovative museums of the last ten years in beautiful photographs, detailed drawings, and insightful texts based on new interviews with an international slate of architects. This spectacular collection makes an excellent survey and sourcebook for architects, art and design enthusiasts, and Sinophiles alike.

From the Publisher. Victoria Newhouse, noted author and architectural historian, addresses the aesthetics and acoustics in concert halls and opera houses of the past, present, and future in this stunning companion to the highly regarded Towards a New Museum. Site and Sound explores the daunting, perennial question: Does the music serve the space, or the other way around?

Heavily illustrated throughout—with historic images, spectular color photographs, detailed drawings—this volume is an informed and enjoyable presentation of a building type that is at the heart of cities small and large.

Newhouse starts with a survey of venues from ancient Greek and Roman times and progresses to contemporary works around the world. She singles out Lincoln Center in particular for its long history and its transitions and remodelings over the years. Two major chapters cover the present: one focuses on recent work in the West, including the National Opera House of Norway in Oslo by Snøhetta (2008), the Casa da Música in Porto, Portugal, by Rem Koolhaas (2005), and many more; the second examines the boom in concert halls in China. A final chapter looks at projects that are currently planned and the future of an architecture for music.

Read Author Q&A on Designers & Books.

From the Publisher. In a contemplative essay that develops a parallel between void, space, time, and the science of vision in Laotzu's philosophy and in modern architecture, Amos Ih Tiao Chang reveals the vitality of intangible, or negative, elements. He writes that these qualities make architectonic forms "come alive, become human, naturally harmonize with one another, and enable us to experience them with human sensibility." The author expands Frank Lloyd Wright's thoughts on the affinity between Laotzu's philosophy and modern Western architecture by discussing "Natural Life-Movement in Architectonic Vision," "Variability and Complement," "Balance and Equilibrium," and "Individuality and Unity." He accompanies his text with architectural drawings and four Chinese paintings.

From the Publisher. Buildings by Chinese architect Wang Shu—the 2012 winner of the Pritzker Prize— feature clear and simple contemporary designs that make use of traditional methods and materials. The reuse of building materials is characteristic of his buildings. Shu’s design process always begins with an intense study of the location. The architect spends as long as possible on the site, absorbing its atmosphere. He then produces drafts in the form of hand-drawn sketches, creating them in relatively quick succession. Imagining the House follows this process in various buildings. Photographic documentation of the locations elucidate Shu’s on-site research. The reproductions of drawings in this book demonstrate how the designs change and become more concrete over the course of the process. The book provides unique insights into the work of an architect who has hitherto received little attention in Europe, thereby addressing a considerable omission in the publishing world.

From the Publisher. Young, enthusiastic, and ambitious—that was how the Dutch architect John van de Water made his way to rapidly modernizing China in 2004. His ambition was to put the internationally appreciated body of ideas produced by NEXT Architects, of which he is a partner, into practice in that country. Hectic years followed, with more than a million square meters of realized projects on Chinese soil. The boundaries of his Western frame of reference had to be continually reviewed in the light of the Chinese context. A wide range of situations and clashes between Western and Chinese thinking occurred: incomprehension, confrontation, misunderstandings, acceptation, realization, sympathy, and—ultimately—added value. You Can't Change China, China Changes You is van de Water's personal, disarming, and occasionally hilarious account of this fascinating and challenging quest for an authentic architecture.

Read Author Q&A on Designers & Books.