YEARBOOK 2018 - 2019 | XJTLU DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE

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BRIEF D
A House for Madam X
2018-2019 YEARBOOK Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University Department of Architecture 西 交 利 物 浦 大 学 建 筑 系
Suggesting that there are contemporary and experimental writing
practices in China that we could learn from, and that could potentially
be translated into new methodologies for the design of architecture,
the brief sets the novel “Five Spice Street” by Can Xue as a point of
departure. Considered as one of “the most experimental writers in the
world,” (MIT, n.d.) Can Xue’s work has set pathways for both reflecting
on and writing about Chinese society, and for critiquing, through her way
of writing, dominant forms of representation.
The novel revolves around its main character Madam X, or rather, it
revolves around the incapacity to define who or what Madam X is.
There are many stories about Madam X. Most likely she is a person, but
maybe she is not. She is the site of endless suspicion, but also of love
and admiration. She is reported to be the weirdest person on the street,
accused of what no one dares to speak about, and betrayed until she is
honoured as a visionary who "represents a society of the future," and
she is elected representative of the street. Shortly after this, her house
collapses, and whether or not it is symbolic of the collapse of the society
and the times that created the story of Madam X, it is an opportunity
for a new house - one that houses the "society of the future.” This is the
rebirth of the future.
“A House for Madam X” sets the task for an architectural project that
will shelter the life of a community. For a site in Shanghai on the banks
of Suzhou River, students will develop new methodologies to explore the
possibilities of architecture as a stage from which social communication
can emerge in its most poetic forms.
TEACHING TEAM
Tordis Berstrand
Aleksandra Raonic
Claudia Westermann
WUNDERKAMMER
Cui Qichen | 崔 琦 琛