The Capital Logic And Architecural Production

A series of transformation including the establishment of market economy, the general commercialization, and the legalization of capital are making the contemporary architecture of China undergo transitional changes. At the same time, there are emerging more and more critiques on the architectural commercialization, which even become the leading discourse. A pair of contradictories in reality evolves into a series of "paradoxical phenomena", such as cultural paradox, market paradox, institutional paradox, media paradox, theoretical paradox, practical paradox and so on. Unlike the "problem" in ordinary research which is defined by the way of paradigm comparison, the problems that the "paradoxical phenomena" points to can not be explained in the ordinary paradigm, which belong to the range of epistemology.Therefore, in order to regard the "paradoxical phenomena" which exists in reality as a problem needs to be solved, the research process of the thesis is also a rational process of comprehensive understanding from discovering problems, analyzing reasons, and finding solutions. Therefore, because of the sociality of background, in order to make the cognition of architecture in contemporary transition era more advanced, the only way is to place ourselves into the social reality, combining the focus on the two aspects of paradox, i.e., the architectural commercialization and the architectural paradigm.First of all, it shall start with analyzing the justification of architecture's being in the contemporary society as commodity. Social transformation and capital production lead to the adjustments of all elements including economic structure, political structure, social structure, cultural structure, even social valuable system and so on. The social nature of architecture refers to its time spirit, openness, and motility, which is all determined by the production mode in the end. Therefore, while capital production mode is shaping the social relationships, architecture is also constructed as a kind of ideographic system of commodity. But the commodity is the one reflecting all the social relationships. The recover of the identification of architecture commodity consequentially results in the essential change of its living mode. Though such kind of change may lead to a conflict, it has rationality in history.Secondly, the changes and ruptures emerging in the process of modernization in China result in that the architectural development of China which shows totally different features in different stages. The rising of real estate industry makes the conflicts increasingly sharp. Take residential building as an example in order to set up the fundamental root of demonstration for the research. The thesis discovers that, whether we admit it or not, there exists a big deviation between the expression of contemporary architecture and its due identity as commodity.Thirdly, after the recognition of this gulf, it should then extend the discussion to the "critiques" which are ubiquitous. Actually, the recognitions and critiques within the professional community mainly come from the social. Since in China today, almost all the manuscripts or articles in such kind of aspects adopt the western theories of social criticism with Frankfort School as representative, it's necessary to make an analysis on them. Studying the evolution of the concepts and critique themes of the scholars of different times since Lukacs, such as Adorn, Benjamin, Barth, Lefebvre, Debord, Baudrillard, and Jameson etc., it can be seen that, although these western Marxists were deeply rooted in Marx' criticism theory of commodity fetishism, they all along restricted their studies within the dimension of aesthetic modernity and the paradigm of "subject enlightenment", which obviously have certain limits in value. But it is symmetrical to paradigm concept dating from the period of economy transition in the 1980s, which show strong tenacity in contemporary transition, appearing as the mainstream of ideology. This is the fundamental root of the criticism.Fourthly, the capital productivity has penetrated each corner of city. The thesis explores in general the inevitable relationship between capital and architecture in the contemporary era from the viewpoint of the influences of capital on city space and city culture, the two key factors concerning the material and spiritual systems of architecture. Moreover, taking into consideration that consumption is a major step to realize the increase of capital value, the thesis analyzes the expression of architecture from the perspective of the consumption characters of the contemporary society, so as to further specify the reality of the impacts of capital production on architecture.Fifthly, the transition of production mode asks us to reconsider the so-called architectural "problems" from critical perspective. By reflecting on the "problems" being criticized on the basis of the actual situations (instead of the value paradigms), and then hoping to achieve an overall understanding on the progress of "paradigms", the thesis indicates the root of these "paradoxical phenomena", which is the paradigm crisis of architecture caused by the changes of production mode. This method is more realistic. The thesis also makes use of some projects as "reflective practice" to prove the conclusion by the way of demonstration.Finally, the thesis studies the possible strategies to change the architectural paradigms within the context of market economy, hoping to provide an overall method of transition in paradigms by rebuilding the concept of "architectural production theory" and regarding the multiple dimensions of the paradigm system composition.In view of the holism and complexity of the society in contemporary transition, the thesis adopts the trans-disciplinary methodology, hoping to provide a new perspective to understand the changes of architecture.