MVRDV exhibits «China Hills: A vision of future cities»

Saturday 28th of November the Beijing Centre for the Arts will open the exhibition «Green Projects II, Three Dimensional City: Future China» featuring work of Paolo Soleri and MVRDV. The centre piece is an installation by MVRDV, «China Hills»: a scale model of a future Chinese city which offers alternatives to the current urbanization in China. On a hypothetical site of 1x1x0.5 km the plan offers space to accommodate up to 100,000 inhabitants and a well balanced mix of urban program and nature, agriculture and energy production; all in the shape of a Chinese mountain landscape: realizable with today’s technologies. The exhibition is open until February 28th 2010. On 28th November a Forum takes place.

2008 marks the historic global move from a majority of rural population to a majority of urban population. In the last twenty years, the incredible economic growth of China has lead to enormous urbanizations. Though impressive in size, most of these urban developments are rather monotonous and relying on external resources.
As the urban population grows, the needed program will require more space than suitable land is available. In the exhibition MVRDV visualizes the possibilities this offers. The city on a site of 1x1x0.5 km is terraced to offer sufficient space naturally lit for the needed plantation and energy production. This leads to attractive livable areas in high-rises. ‘Stepped’ terraced towers with a rich variety of characters appear. The interiors of these ‘hills’ are destined for retail, industry, leisure and technology.
By inserting these new ‘hills’ in and around the current cities, a sincere Chinese mountain range appears. Blending individuality with collective responsibilities, connecting architecture with urbanism and turning urbanism into landscape architecture.
Beijing Center for the Arts, together with project developer Beijing Vantone Three Dimensional City Investment Co. Ltd, presents the exhibition «BCA Green Project II» – «Three Dimensional City: Future China». With collective efforts from world’s leading architects and artists, national and international experts and scholars on urban planning, city ecology and environment, decision makers from government and enterprises, «Three Dimensional City» is poised to envision an ideal living environment and future urban ecology. The project addresses the depletion of land and energy resources. As an enlightening project from which future urban planning programs can draw inspiration and as an exhilarating of social reformation.

BCA Beijing Center for the Arts is nestled in the southeast corner of Ch’ien Men Street 23, only a brief walk from Tian’anmen Square. With China’s renowned Imperial Palace or «Forbidden City» to the north and the historic Qianmen Gate to the south, BCA has become a new landmark in the heart of the city. Its mission is preserving in history a rich heritage of supreme contemporary Chinese art and pushing the integration of contemporary art in China’s urban development and its impact and effect on our contemporary society.
BCA is a dynamic and cutting-edge space that fosters and encourages the development of exceptional contemporary Chinese art, to be a platform for transnational and interdisciplinary exchanges that stimulates and promotes reflection and creativity in contemporary Chinese art and society. It further aims to build a bridge between the art community and the public by encouraging meaningful dialogue and interaction between the two groups.
For information please contact BCA:
He Jie hejie@beijingcenterforthearts.com
T +86 10 65598008*810

MVRDV was set up in Rotterdam (the Netherlands) in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries. MVRDV produces designs and studies in the fields of architecture, urbanism and landscape design. Early projects such as the headquarters for the Dutch Public Broadcaster VPRO and housing for elderly WoZoCo in Amsterdam lead to international acclaim.
MVRDV develops its work in a conceptual way, the changing condition is visualised and discussed through designs, sometimes literally through the design and construction of a diagram. The office continues to pursue its fascination and methodical research on density using a method of shaping space through complex amounts of data that accompany contemporary building and design processes.
MVRDV first published a cross section of these study results in FARMAX (1998), followed by a.o. MetaCity/Datatown (1999), Costa Iberica (2000), Regionmaker (2002), 5 Minutes City (2003), KM3 (2005), which contains Pig City and more recently Spacefighter (2007) and Skycar City (2007), the latter two will be exhibited at the 2008 Biennale of Venice. MVRDV deals with global ecological issues in large scale studies like Pig City as well as in small scale solutions for flooded areas of New Orleans.
Current projects include various housing projects in the Netherlands, Spain, China, France, Austria, the United Kingdom, USA, India, Korea and other countries, a television centre in Zürich, a public library for Spijkenisse (Netherlands), a central market hall for Rotterdam, a culture plaza in Nanjing, China, large scale urban masterplans in Oslo, Norway and in Tirana, Albania, a masterplan for an eco-city in Logroño, Spain and an urban vision for the doubling in size of Almere, Netherlands.
The work of MVRDV is exhibited and published world wide and receives international awards. The 60 architects, designers and staff members conceive projects in a multi-disciplinary collaborative design process and apply highest technological and sustainable standards.