评审结果发布会

[comments in general]

Mendini :
This year's competition was quite satisfactory. All in all, the proposed projects were of high quality and showed improvement compared with submissions for past contests. Most entries exhibited a clear understanding of the theme and expertise with many new elements. In the areas of architecture, interior, and furniture, entries from Korea, China, and Japan managed to display distinctiveness in styles of each respective country. As I see, it was possible because, more than anything else, the submissions showed a strong understanding of the tradition and the theme. Many entries succeeded in finding a solution to problems in their country by tapping the tradition. They presented a successful mixture of architectural elements of East and West toward problems that are found in their respective country. As problems of modern architecture lie not in its quest for something technological but in want of poetic, emotional elements, it is important to provide children with such space.

Zhang :
I was impressed by the high level of all the entries of this competition. It takes architects a lot of time and energy to take part in an international competition such as this. I would like to pay tribute to those architects who participated in this contest. It is not the first time that I have participated in interior-related competitions, but this contest has been particularly impressive to me. It has progressed in a remarkably orderly and fair manner regarding how to submit the entries and screen them. Above all, the theme presented a chance for us to probe into how to solve the many questions that we have today. It provided an opportunity to think once again about how we should promote reconciliation among people and between humans and nature. I was also impressed by the screening process itself. The jury did their job devotedly and fairly. All 15 prize- winning entries were of high level. A close examination of the winning entries will reveal that they all combined modern and traditional aesthetics. I noticed that all contestants did a lot of study on the culture of Korea, China, or Japan. For example, the Grand Prix winning work may look very modern, but in a closer look, it made good use of the characteristics of the traditional Chinese architectural styles of Hutong (lanes and alleys) and Siheyuan (dwelling compounds or quadrangles). The competition was a great success in that submitted designs made many innovative and novel proposals. With the theme of the Design Beyond East & West, it presented a new concept to us.

Kim :
I think this competition presented many excellent entries with a right understanding of the theme. When it comes to the theme, it breaks down to three points: First, what does "Beyond East & West" mean? Second, what do architecture, interior design, and furniture design do? What can they do? That is, what should we show in the categories of architecture, interior design, and furniture design, and how to show it is the second question. Third, what are the cultural characteristics of civilization of China, Korea, and Japan? What challenges do the three countries have today? What direction should the design of the countries take? Especially regarding the first point, I'm afraid there were some misunderstandings in the previous two, or the first and second, competitions. The concept of Beyond East & West seems to have been understood in such a way that the design of the East stops to follow the West and revisit things Eastern. The concept doesn't mean that. Briefly speaking, until the 18th century, the East and West treaded their own separate ways. From the late 19th century to the 20th century, the East more or less followed the West. In the 21st century, however, as more exchanges between the two spheres take place and the world has merged into one global village, we are faced with problems common to all humanity. In this context, the theme directs us which way to go. That is, Western designers should be concerned with problems of the East, while Eastern architects are advised to find a solution to their problems in the flow of world history, and not just that of the Eastern tradition. And, as seen in the fact that the Grand Prix went to a professor's team from Tsinghua University, China and the proposals from the United Kingdom and Canada won the Gold Prizes, the theme offered an opportunity to participants to think about aspects of the Eastern design. In the past competitions, when the submission is over, I used to check the theme one more time before setting out to select the entries in an effort to present a new direction for the next competition through the prize winners. When the winners of the past two competitions are compared with this year's winners, a obvious trend is noticed. Of the more than 300 works that were submitted from 44 countries, I find that the selections of the winners were rightly made as they were the most committed to the theme presented by the organizer. I'm glad that those works continue in the flow from the selections of the first and second competitions.

Sejima :
I joined the jury for the competition for the first time. It was a very interesting work for me as the entries came from so many countries. It was interesting, but on the other hand, I also found that it was strange. I wondered if the categories should have necessarily been divided into three areas, or interior, furniture, and floor plan. In addition, as the design focus was on the three countries of Korea, China, and Japan, I thought at first that it might not be easy to distinguish the three countries. I've never thought of it in Japan. However, while participating in the screening, I found that it was at least an opportunity to think of the distinction, although I still don't have a clear understanding. Anyway, this competition was very interesting in that it provided an opportunity to think of the fact that, although they are neighbors, they are still different, even while they also have many things in common as neighboring countries. The screening itself was also an interesting process as the four jurors are from four different countries. I found the winning entries, selected by the joint judging of the four jurors, good works worthy of the honor. Not many competitions deal with such a difficult, and, in a sense important, theme such as this. However, this theme does indeed point to the problem that we should solve. It was noticeable that most presentations tried to combine two different things, one of ideal, utopian elements and the other of realistic, technological aspects, and not to select only one of them.