Large, high French windows let the sunshine in, bathing the rooms and reflecting off the white surfaces. This technique is widely used in Japanese interior design, and Riken Yamamoto makes better use of it than anyone.

Disappointed
I visited Beijing in 1999. It had been 11 years since I left China. In that time there has been an increase in the number of high-rise structures along Chang'an Avenue. These large public buildings indeed spoil the vistas along the broad boulevard, which rather disappointed me, and so, after returning to Japan, I wrote a small article entitled Beijing Buildings, the Newer, the Uglier for publication on the ABBS website.

However, news of the Jianwai SOHO project in Beijing's CBD quickly renewed my interest in Beijing's buildings and forced me reconsider my bias against them.

Birth of SOHO in China
Redstone Industrie invited the Japanese architect Riken Yamamoto to design a project in Beijing. Beijing is where Riken was born, and the project was where he could realize an architectural concept that he had failed to achieve in Japan. This concept was SOHO, standing for 'Small Office Home Office', which was first put forward by Riken in Japan, and which was in line with the philosophy of Pan Shiyi, chairman of Redstone. This brought about the birth of Jianwai SOHO, a housing project that would combine housing and working space through the adoption of information technology. The high-rise SOHO buildings, together with the China World Trade Center, lend Beijing a cosmopolitan air.

Proactive IT Awareness
In the past 50 years, China had been dominated by political ideology and, as a result, her economy fell far behind. And now, China is dominated by a brand-new ideology. But this time, the country is experiencing rapid development. This new ideology is IT Awareness. A news item from the Beijing Times dated May 27 supports this view. The article reported that a top-end cinema would be built in Wangfujing, adopting state-of-the-art digital technology to screen the latest movies in step with the world's best practices.

Within a short period, Beijing will farewell to the conventional cinematic experience, which will give way to digital technology and satellite transmitters that receive and show the latest movies. This means that the Chinese will soon enjoy digital movies in their own homes. And Jianwai SOHO, I believe, will be the first place for digital images, since SOHO owners all have a proactive awareness of the IT game.

Open Space
Man's desire to create leads to continuous advances in science and technology. These advances in science and technology in turn lead to new value systems and aesthetics. And new aesthetics force architects to modify their creative directions. Only those architects who incorporate their designs into trends in social development can create optimum spaces that can be adapted to the new lifestyle. And those who ultimately evaluate these spaces are not the architects but the inhabitants.

Thirteen pedestrian streets connect the fourteen buildings at Jianwai SOHO. The design of the underground garage includes a sunken grass field, lending the whole area the quality of three-dimensional space. Jianwai SOHO is located in the Beijing CBD, but its streets are filled with human activity, in strong contrast to the unfortunate situation of lively daytimes but lonely evenings common to US and European CBDs. Riken explained that his design of the streets was inspired by his experience of Beijing's traditional alleyways, or hutongs. He was greatly attracted to the streets that connect the various courtyards in Beijing. In fact, in his design for the courtyard for Saitama Prefectural University, a similar technique was adopted whereby the upper and lower floors are interconnected. Thus Riken's emphasis on public space in his design of Jianwai SOHO is to some degree similar to his design of the aforementioned Japanese university.

I believe that Jianwai SOHO will, when complete, show the way for Chinese in their pursuit of a new lifestyle. It will open up the opportunity for the Chinese people to enjoy the splendor of an integrated set of contemporary buildings. I am not making groundless predictions here. You need only glance over Riken's work in recent years to sense the wonder of his completed designs. Here I would like to quote the artist Ai Weiwei's comment on the Japanese architect's work, "For me, the buildings by Riken Yamamoto are the only ones among many I've seen in Japan that were truly awe-inspiring."

White Flavor
Last year when I came back to Beijing, I read my favorite magazine Colorfulness and was deeply impressed by the special section entitled 'White Flavor'. The fact that the Chinese bourgeois seek the color white rather surprised me on an aesthetic level. But on close inspection I read it was the showroom at Jianwai SOHO that gave impetus to the topic of White Flavor.

Early this year I paid a visit to the showroom at Jianwai SOHO. Although I had learnt about it via the Internet, the experience at the site allowed me to feel it in person. Whiteness, light colors and decent furniture have formed an unprecedented fashion in interior decoration in China. No matter what Colorfulness called it, 'whiteness guided' or 'whiteness dominated', it was OK for me. Just imagine all the world-famous furniture that was common in Japan suddenly appearing in Beijing--how could one not be surprised? Anyway, today's Beijing is now rejecting red and embracing white. The trend has already begun, no matter where it came from.

Large, high French windows let the sunshine in, bathing the rooms and reflecting off the white surfaces. This technique is widely used in Japanese interior design, and Riken Yamamoto makes better use of it than anyone. In Riken's design, it's not only the interior that's gray and white but also the whole building. Just take a look at the enlarged model of Jianwai SOHO for a suitable impression of the white glass towers.

Pursuing a Dream in Beijing
On June 25, 2001, Nikkei Architecture, an authoritative building magazine sponsored by Japanese Business News, reported that Riken Yamamoto's designs were chosen as the final designs for 28 skyscrapers in Beijing. The news had a great impact on Japanese architects at a time when depression was prevailing in their professional circle. Architects of any age in any country are always seeking the ideal place to achieve their dreams. And now, China has become the place where architects can realize their dreams and ambitions.

In December 2000, the design proposed by Riken's firm defeated Isozaki from Japan and Ricco Yim from Hong Kong and was chosen to be the final design for the Jianwai SOHO project, invested in by Beijing Redstone Industrie. Thus, a comprehensive residential area was to be built on an 188,000-square-meter development with a total construction area of at least 800,000 square meters, based entirely on Yamamoto's design.

The story by Nikkei Architecture said, "Redstone Industrie was the first to put forward the SOHO housing style and SOHO way of life in Mainland China. The 1,300 high-rise apartments that went on the market last year meant plenty of exposure for Redstone. The yet-to-be-built Jianwai SOHO will be even larger, providing accommodation for 2,600 households. Each apartment will be priced at between 20 million to 25 million yen, making Jianwai SOHO one of the most exclusive residential areas in Beijing."

Riken's drawings include 28 skyscrapers altogether, among which 24 are glass towers with their four sides 27 meters in width. The lower part of the buildings is intended to be used as restaurants, shops, company offices and homes. Riken, after winning the award, had entrusted the C+A (Kondo Yasuo Design Office) and MIKAN to design for this part.

In order to eliminate interference from one building upon another, Riken shaped each structure to be slender, and angled them at 30 degrees eastward. In this way, every apartment will boast access to both moderate sunshine and privacy. This feature was highly appreciated in the bidding evaluation and might be called a minor invention--at least in Beijing. Here, where history animates the present, almost all buildings are oriented on a north-south axis and nowhere can you find any large buildings that are even slightly angled.