2 good things happened to me early in the year: Shanghai and Atelier Bow-Wow: Echo of Space / Space of Echo. The former was my 2nd visit to Shanghai- I made both trips from Osaka via ferry to visit a dear friend- & the latter was a chance acquisition from a bookstore in Kobe. Both my trips to Shanghai and Atelier Bow-Wow’s book gave me some insight into the relationship between physical space and their uses, between Shanghai’s buildings, alleys, people and their LAUNDRY specifically.
I dérived through Shanghai as a way to get at this huge town’s gestalt. What my wandering revealed was a city spoiled with a great variety of cityscape and activity. At the heart of Shanghai are lontang, back alleys bursting with community and social life, shikumen, stone gate houses that are a fusion of the Chinese courtyard house & English terraced housing, & yanshidian, tobacco & paper shops at the entrance to lontang. These 3 unique features provide the city with the foundation of its built fabric and social environment.
A little over a month after my visit I picked up my copy of Echo of Space / Space of Echo. The authors, Tokyo husband and wife architect duo Atelier Bow-Wow, relate how with organic connections between experiences and participants: The places “form of being” always shows the people involved how its “form of doing” should be… Both the “form of being” as a physical environment and the “form of doing” as its development & maintenance are simultaneously present in architectural, urban and landscape experiences. The concept of being and doing emphasizes the connections between the built environment as a facilitator and people as instigators invested in their place. I have so far mentioned 3 elements of Shanghai’s environment that I have identified as “being”, but what are their forms supportive of? What “form of doing” do the 3 “forms of being” facilitate?
Well, the most visually and socially obvious would have to be LAUNDRY. Within the city’s lontang- & these forms of being & doing often flow out on to the streets- you can find pirated DVDs being hawked, hair cuts given, skewers grilling, scooters being repaired, produce sold, games of chess and mah-jong played, but no single form of doing is more prominent than LAUNDRY. LAUNDRY can be found hanging from tree branches, telephone poles, benches, birdcages, basically anywhere and everywhere. When approaching a shikumen, most often what can be viewed beyond the stone gate are garments strung in the air. At the yanzhidian there are usually more clothing items suspend from a TV antenna, or perhaps from the bars on the shop windows. And when entering a lontang… LAUNDRY’s every where and you can usually catch 2 or 3 people chatting away while inspecting there clothing, batting a duvet or using an extended pole to hang there LAUNDRY that much higher and therefore that much more visible to passing audiences.
Of course, I’m sure this phenomenon is not quite specific to shanghai- I did see some handsome examples of laundry being washed and hanging to dry along the canals of Shanghai’s neighbouring water towns- but I was astonished to see such a magnificent show of LAUNDRY. In fact, the everyday relationship between the built environment, laundry and people is nothing short of public, festive and monumental.
I could go on to discuss the air quality in Shanghai and how it possibly accents LAUNDRY, I could mention the many failings in Shanghai’s contemporary cityscape, I could even compare and contrast LAUNDRY in my home town of Montreal, or my current home Kobe, but I want to end with an observation about Shanghai’s forms of being and doing could be further accented and show cased: Shanghai prides itself on being china’s fashion capitol. Could lontang’s and their apparent connection to LAUNDRY be used, as a form of being to showcase fashion? I envision back alley cat walks for the local fashion industry. Grandma’s hot pink pyjamas will hang proudly from a magnolia branch while china’s upcoming fashion labels flaunt their prêt-a-porté printemps 2011. Shanghai and LAUNDRY.
Weather is a big factor. Winter has so few dry days that when they happen you get these profusions of laundry. Hanging alongside laundry in winter is meat and fish, from tree branches and every place you mentioned. Try to imagine the energy demand of this city if everyone owned a dryer. In fact, why do any of us have dryers?