Fallinwater0328

Sashimi, your last statement is the exact reason why I drastically switched my major from architecture to psychology. I am an intuitive person with no particular interest in designing practical architecture, not to mention sitting in a corporate firm like SOM, (totally unimaginable!)

Gehry is, according to himself, an artist and then an architect. In fact, he originally came to USC as an art major and was more involved within the art community than in architecture. There was a period in his career that he was hugely influenced by the Modernist Movement, but he sharply rejected it as he realized his childhood experience (the carps, seeing Alvar Aalto etc.) played an irreplaceable in his development as a person. That eventually led him to reject things he learned at USC and Harvard.He gave a talk at USC last semester, sayinng that all architects thought he was insane, it was his artist friends who gave him a hand and offered him the emotional supports he needed.

I am Chinese (born and mostly raised in China) and I actually came Dean Qingyun Ma's hometown. From my perspective, Chinese architects will not be a group of stellar new comers for they have no unique theoretical basis whatsoever. While they are producing some interesting pieces, their major problem is their over-reliance on the western schools of thoughts. For example, Dean Ma's firm, MADA s.p.a.m is inevitably influenced by OMA. They are merely trendy, not steady. If they can produce some impressive monographs, their status may be improved. Otherwise, they are just a bunch of starlet architects on their way to become starchitects, which probably will never get there.Just some random thoughts.

Cultural destruction? Well, Chinese are as strong as Jewish people, despite the traumas we went through, the civilization is perpetuated in a proper way. The so-called culture is just like architecture, there aren't that many who can both appreciate it and master it!