Melting And Transforming

By taking the global consumer culture as the background for the development ofcontemporary architecture, this paper applies consumption theory in analyzingarchitectural practices and sums up the developing rules. Melting and transformingare both the feature of consumer culture and the tendency for contemporaryarchitecture.Nowadays, consumption has become essential to social life. It is not only thedrive for economic growth but also the reference for social differentiation. Allmaterial and cultural products is commodity. Boundaries between cultural practicesand economic life, elite culture and mass culture are melting. On one hand, it resultsin aestheticization of everyday life, on the other hand, no cultural and art practice cankeep away from the struggle for the capital and power.In the context of consumer culture, everything in Architecture, including thebuilding, architect, image and theory, is all produced for consumption. They all followthe logic of consumption rather than the rule of autonomy. Nowadays, architecturebecomes the sign capital aiming at wealthy. Instead of meeting the demands offunction, it focuses on making differences. Not only the limits between different fieldsbut also the traditional hierarchy systems are all broken. Fashion serves as the newethic. Architecture in consumer culture tends to achieve openness, flexibility, fluidity,ephemerality and plurality.China is a special example of consumer society as well as one part of the globalconsumer culture. Since the culture of consumerism is premature and explanted,time-space congestion, hybridity and fragmentation are the typical characteristics ofthe whole built environment. Architectural practices in China pursue for the quantity,scale, speed to build a Material Utopia. Meanwhile, strong identity anxiety results inmanufacturing difference quickly, pursuing for novelty and visual shock, followingdominant culture.The opportunity for architecture in consumer culture lies in dematerialization. Interms of production the application of cultural signs and digital images can expandconsumption and meanwhile reducing resource expenditure. In terms of consumption,turning from being used to being experienced, architecture will become a mediatriggering and enriching our senses, feelings and emotions.