"Ramble" Gooood Interview
IF YOU CAN MANAGE TO MAKE IT THROUGH ALL THE ADVERTISEMENTS YOU MIGHT WATCH THIS VIDEO!!!
QUESTION #3: How do you see the role of architects in China? How to deal with the differences between China and the United States?
Jake Walker: I think that in China Landscape is actually a better field than in the United States. Because the Chinese culture is developed from a kind of garden culture, and the garden culture is where people would make paintings, write poems, it’s where governors would govern. It’s like a political and cultural expression as the garden. And by extension the landscape is understood as a place where people should be designing, a cultural kind of medium. In the United States it’s not like that. United States believes that the Landscape is a place for cultural expression. It’s a kind of young culture and they haven’t really blossomed to that belief that the Landscape is something that represents the culture. So here that’s ingrained in what we do it’s how people just see the Landscape as critical in that way as having a cultural importance. So that’s why it’s just a better field here.
Dan Gass: Personally, I feel that there is a lot of great architects already in China. And when I look around the city I feel that architecture isn’t really helping the city. So for me landscape architects are much more important, because they are dealing with everything outside of the buildings, which is essential for the cities to really start working well. There has to be lot more investment in landscape design and innovative thinking in landscape. So I think the Landscape architects in China is the most important design field right now, partially because of where China is a country in terms of the development. If I was in America, I would be an architect. But in China, I should be a landscape architect.
3 您如何看待景观设计师在中国的角色？如何应对中美之间的差异？
Jake Walker：在中国做景观的环境实际上比美国更好。中华文化是一种从园林中发展起来的文化，人们会在这些地方作画、赋诗，而统治者也是在这样的环境里治理国家。这是一种政治和文化的体现。景观从这个概念里延伸出来，被理解成人们可以参与设计的地方，它是一种文化的媒介。而在美国，景观并不是用作表达对文化的理解的，美国的文化还在成长，他们并没有类似“景观是文化的载体”这样的信念。所以在中国，人们将景观看作是一个重要的部分，我们所做的事是具有文化重要性的。
Dan Gass：我个人认为，在中国已经有很多非常优秀的建筑设计师了。但是当我走在城市中的时候，我发现建筑并没有让城市变得更好。所以对我来说，景观设计会更加重要，因为景观会处理所有建筑之外的事物，让城市真正能够运转地更好。景观设计需要更多的资金投入和更多颠覆性的创造。我认为景观设计师在现阶段的中国是非常重要的，部分原因是中国是一个发展中的国家。如果我在美国，我会成为一个建筑师。但是在中国，我应该做一名景观设计师。