Who is Designing for the Poor?

Ou Ning

Chinese version published in Art World, February 2005
English version translated by Phoebe Wong, published in Plugzine, Issue 1, April 2005

According to the Business Weekly, 900,000 Chinese made a trip to Europe in 2004. The number, exceeding that of Japanese tourists, ranks first among foreign visitors in Europe. To go with the trend, Chinese has become a language option at Parisian concierges. Chinese channels are available on the suites’ TVs. Last year, Chinese tourists spent USD42,000,000,000, mostly on accommodation and luxury items. A few years back, Chinese people who had the fortune to pay a pilgrimage to Louis Vuitton’s flagship store at Paris were always misrecognized as Japanese. Now then, whenever the French ladies see an Asian face, they greet them instantly with “Ni Hao.”

Luxury goods become the latest obsession of China. The magic spell of Louis Vuitton transgresses life and death –– the brand is desired even for the afterlife. Auyeung Bing-chi, a Hong Kong designer, produces papier-mâché Louis Vuitton for funerals. His first-rate products were much applauded by the families of the deceased, and he was told that his “clients” were exhilarated when receiving the “gifts”. Auyeung once studied graphic design at the First Institute of Art and Design. With the help of computer technology, he brings the traditional practice of funerary papier-mâché up to date. Besides Louis Vuitton, his products include LOMO cameras, Canon printers, electronic guitars, pets, etc.

The funerary papier-mâché, mostly hand-made of cheap fibre paper coated with gold or silver foils, includes currency of the underworld, mascots, “necessities” as well as luxury goods. These items include all sorts of everyday objects, such as tea wares, spittoons, irons, boots, umbrellas, refrigerators, motorcycles, automobiles, and perhaps helicopters. For a craft-industry of this kind, their designs may be dull, but do reflect people’s aspirations for a better life. Despite a flood of advertisements in China, luxury items are still exclusive for the elites. People, missing the fortune in this world, fancy getting it in another. The funerary papier-mâché projects materialism to the underworld. At the same, it reflects ours.

The flow of pirated Louis Vuitton to the underworld in China shows how the brand meets the most profound need among the Chinese. At the same time, it epitomizes globalisation. At “Delta Lab,” a seminar at the second Guangzhou Triennial, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas argued that the pressure of globalisation created a sense of hunger, and architecture became a means to fill up the emptiness. Thus Asia, especially China, went through rapid urbanisation. Shopping works the same way too. Shopping is the last public activity in the age of consumption. Colossal shopping malls can be found all over the world. Luxury items are sold at the heart of every city. Shopping is ritualised by grandeur. Prada had its New York headquarters designed by Koolhaas; the one in Toyko by Herzog & de Meuron. These top architects were commissioned with a shrine – for the brand’s fans to perform sacrifice. Here the alive are dedicated to big brands; there, in Auyeung’s case, the big brands are dedicated to the dead. An interesting chiasmus. Auyeung’s twist is that he balances life and death, and in a way, the gap between the poor and the wealthy.

Architects face the limitation from their clients. How did Koolhaas keep his independent criticalness in a joint venture between national (eg. CCTV) and private (eg. Prada) capital? Besides OMA, he set up AMO for independent research. As one of the few independent, politically-alert architects, he encompasses his critiques (on globalisation, world politics, market, consumer behaviour, media culture) in his architectural projects. Contents, published in 2004, is a compilation of OMA’s architectural projects and AMO’s research projects. The monograph, in the format of a magazine is jointly designed by the teams headed by Simon Brown and Jon Link. The first page is a Prada ad. The image, in low resolution depicts a black person selling pirated Prada by the street. If the ad is not a show-off of the brand’s allure, it gives the poor a go: they can take advantage of the high-end products. The ad is matched with the book’s “poor design”: low-resolution images, visible photo touch-ups by using Photoshop, banal paper, congested layouts, overloaded info, and most importantly, merely at a price of 8 Euros. If S, M, X, XL is a jumbo bible (1344 pages, 6 pounds) and a luxury (₤50), Contents (544 pages) is obviously a “low-end product” and matches the budget of the poor.

Years of development have brought the European economy to its peak. With limited land and power resources, it is impossible to reach new heights. People started to think about conservation, environmental protection and sustainable development. Yet in China, in light of continual growth, the attitude of thrift was replaced with conspicuous consumption. The Chinese new rich, with vanity and sheer emptiness, are exhilarated with European brands. The vastness of China gives resources planners and developers the liberty to do whatever they like. Architects from all over the world rush in. Some of them are commissioned by the authority to create landmarks for cities; some by developers to build residential neighbourhoods for the insatiable property market. Amidst frenzied urbanisation, everyone crazes for a suburban condo. At a result, many peasants lost their land. Problems of compensation and employment lead to social conflicts. Everybody wants a car, so the roads are all congested. The heavy traffic causes severe pollution and adversely affects the environment. The cost of speedy economic and urban development always falls upon the poor.

Ever after the country’s economic reforms, Chinese cities have always been influenced by the American model. In particular, the development of suburban housing connected to city centres by highways has become standard. For a long time, automobiles have been a symbol of modernisation. Commuting to the city office from a suburban residence becomes a much desired image of the bourgeoisie. But in fact, such city zoning is a total loss. Panyu, Guangzhou, is a typical case of failure. Because of the development of the so-called Huanan banukuai, the population in Panyu increased rapidly. Luoxiqiao (Luoxi bridge) is overloaded by the busy traffic and is always congested. Furthermore, as many developers are no longer willing to pay for public facilities, whose construction costs were supposedly included in their land costs according to the authority’s idealistic computation, such services are all lacking. People now live in exquisite houses in the suburb, but take pain to squeeze through the congested traffic for necessities like schooling and medical services in the city. Not really better off than the poor.

Targeting at the common problems of the urban planning in Chinese cities, Richard Rogers submitted a “Compact City” proposal when commissioned with the planning of Lujiaju by the Shanghai Municipal government in 1991. The plan was popular in Britain and Europe. It proposes a concentrated yet varied model. Cities with varied functions come together for more effective use of resources. Consumption and pollution are minimised. Sustainability is pursued. Functional zoning is rejected in order to avoid urban sprawl. People are encouraged to walk, rather than drive, and to establish communal ties. Political complexities and market factors had deterred Shanghai from adopting the plan. “Compact City” is a typical European idea. It is based on an awareness of the scarcity of resources. Even since Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland presented Our Common Future, a report published in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment, the future environment has become a common concern among many countries. For the European countries, this problem is all the more pressing. They are alerted by their limited resources and are extra careful with their preservation – the opposite of China, a country characterising itself with abundance.

Being conscious of the scarcity of resources, European design has broken new grounds. In 1993, Droog Design from the Netherlands challenged the stronghold of opulence and came up with a series of conceptual, low-cost, and lo-tech furniture – a most revolutionary design ever after the 1990s. In 1991, Tejo Remy, the most subversive designer in Droog Design, gave discarded/worn objects a makeover and designed “Chest of Drawers”, “Rag Chair”, and “Milk Bottle Lamp” with a grassroot touch. “Chest of Drawers” – the work with a subtitle: “you can’t throw away your memory“ – is formed by a thrown-away piece of fabric. “Rag Chair” is made of a bundle of rag and worn clothes. “Milk Bottle Lamp” is fabricated by using emptied milk bottle. Obsolete objects are brought back to live with simple ideas. The series realizes happiness in scarcity (like the idea of the bliss of poverty), and treasures time. At the Milan furniture triennial 2004, Droog Design presented a further series called “Slow Life.” They showcased their furniture and home-ware designs in a café-like setting, and hired elderly people to serve as attendants. The idea is to give visitors, accustomed to hyper-speed, a break and let them appreciate slowness.

In Britain, Tom Dixon remakes old objects in a similar way. He turns tires into sofas, platforms into beds, expired telephone directories into desks, etc.

In Hong Kong, where land is precious, architect Gary Chang has designed his own apartment. He tries out the possibilities of a space as tiny as 30 sq. meter. He superimposes different functions. The sofa comes as a bed; curtains as a screen for project. The bedroom, living room, screening room, bathroom and corridor are all compressed into a tiny space. Atmosphere changes in accordance with lighting effects. These are possibilities of the impossible -- an intelligence inspired by congestion in Hong Kong. The apartment, in use, has been filmed by French architects Laurent Gutierrez and Valerie Portefaix. In the video, Chang stands/sits/lies around, changes the lighting, lowers the curtain. He lifts the curtain up a bit, a view of the street leaks into the darkened room and superimposes with the video projection. There and then you realise the charm of the apartment: it fits dreams into reality.

Around 1999, many Beijing bands went on stage in clubhouses and pubs under the fad of punk. They did not have the budget for printed publicity, so came up with hand-made alternatives. Most of these are drawn with markers. The line drawings were rough but lively. The imagery was primarily punk musicians and fans. Information of the shows, background of the bands and tantalising slogans were scribbled in uniquely hand-drawn types. As such shows were frequent, their publicity materials eventually formed an expanding visual style. Lu Po is one of the pioneers of such “poor” designs. He was then the owner of a pub called “Scream” (once the base for Beijing punk, eventually evolved into a music label). He painted posters and handbills for every show, like the ecstatic San Francisco ones in the 1960s. These visual works, produced for the band shows, became an embodiment of the music and popular culture of the time. Sometime earlier, there was a Beijing-based, hand-painted punk publication called Fanzine, which was an absolute celebration of free style, nonetheless it did not last. Now most Chinese opt for the new and luxurious. To be fashionable, one seeks for things of grandeur and speed. Except the broke young rebels, nobody cares for these designs that are regards as cheap, banal, messy and somewhat coarse.

For the poor, the subaltern and weaker countries, the road to happiness is always afar and tough. It is never easy to get across class boundaries. When designing for the EU’s propaganda in Brussels, in addition to exposing the barbarous history of the European wars in a collage, Rem Koolhaas has compiled a 5-meter tome for the 8000 regulations for EU entry. The work is a metaphor for political boundary, and in a way explains the slow process for Turkey’s enlistment. Intentionally, the EU is a transnational ideal, but the road is far off. In consideration of the complexities of history, what can design do? At most, it gives the weak a voice.

January 16, 2005