The "Songyang Story" was invited to participate at the symposium of The Biennale Architettura 2018   - "Meetings on Architecture” on November 24. Chinese architect Xu Tiantian participated in the theme pavilion exhibition with seven rural buildings in Songyang, expounding the story in the rural revitalization of China.

(Photo: People's Daily app)

During this panel, the forum guests discussed various topics on nature’s free gifts of sunlight and moonlight, air, gravity, materials, natural and man-made resources within architecture.

In the keynote speech, Xu introduced her stories of Songyang over the past five years. With the method of “Architecture Acupuncture” and the principle of “Minimum Intervention”, she analyzed the different humanistic historical life characteristics and economic structures of each village and followed the tradition of the village and nature to integrate the buildings and the nature humanities of the village. She proposed to change the status of architects in the process of rural construction, to look at rural construction from the perspective of doctors, and to diagnose our living environment and pathological problems in rural communities.

(Photo: People's Daily app)

Rafael Moneo, the internationally renowned architect of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, said that the changes brought about by the “Songyang Story” will allow more people able to stay and work in their hometowns. In the past, people were forced to stay away from home. In the future, more people will return to and stay in their hometowns, and contribute to the development of their hometown.

This year, the "Songyang Story" has been exhibited at the Aedes Architecture Forum and the Frankfurt Book Fair and will be present at the Swiss Architecture Museum and the Architekturzentrum Wien.

(Compiled by Wang Xiangyu)