china 中国

25 November - 11 December 2019

Based on last year’s itinerary, this 17 days 'grand tour' will give a comprehensive overview of architecture and culture in the Northern and Eastern part of China. There will be a lot of walking and public transport use. A certain basic level of fitness is required and it is best suited for students, graduates and independent travellers.

We will start in the quintessentially Chinese capital, Beijing 北京 and her port city Tianjin 天津 with its foreign concessions, We will ascend the mystical HuangShan Mountain 黄山 and visit the UNESCO World Heritage listed ancient villages of Anhui Province 安徽. From there we will visit the cities in Zhejiang Province 浙江, Hangzhou 杭州 and Ningo 宁波, as well as the Nanjing 南京 and Suzhou 苏州 in Jiangsu Province 江苏 before finishing the tour in Shanghai 上海.

*destinations currently subject to change

From local heroes such as Amateur Architecture Studio 业余建筑工作室 (Wang Shu 王澍), ZAO/standardarchitecture 标准营造, Vector Architects 直向建筑, AZL Architects 张雷联合建筑事务所, Atelier Deshaus 大舍建筑, Neri&Hu 如恩设计, Studio Pei-Zhu 朱锫建筑 etc 
…to international stars such as Zaha Hadid, Alvaro Siza, OMA, Steven Holl, Herzog & de Meuron, MVRDV, Kengo Kuma, Foster & Partners, Paul Andreu, I.M.Pei 贝聿铭, Arata Isozaki etc.

All photos are my own from last year’s Archimarathon China.

Cost: AUD$1650* per person

Price does not include flights, accommodation, food, transport or admissions.

Accommodations and inter-city transports will be booked by Archimarathon on your behalf. Prices will be transparent, based on the best value for money and our itinerary.

Beijing 北京

The tour will start in the capital city. Set up and built by Kublai Khan in its current location in the 13th Century and has been the capital city for the whole of China most of the time through different dynasties and era. It is an important artistic, intellectual, political and cultural centre as part of understanding China and traditional Chinese design. We will be exploring the historical and the contemporary, from Imperial scale to fine grain projects in the Hutong laneways where we will be staying. There will be also be a day trip to visit the Great Wall of China as well as a handful of contemporary houses at Commune By The Great Wall.

Tianjin 天津

With the aid of the super efficient high speed trains, this day trip from Beijing covers over 700km+ of travel distance with a focus around 3 libraries. We will be visiting Tianjin and walking the streets of some of its European concessions as well as visiting some of the newer areas with their new civic buildings. We will also visit the dramatic showpiece ‘library’ by MVRDV before heading to Beidaihe area to a remote beach where we would find the Seashore Library and Seashore Chapel by Vector Architects .

Huangshan 黄山

Revered for its beautiful scenery and the subject of art and poetry since the ancient times, Huangshan or, “Yellow Mountain”, is an important destination in the understanding of Chinese gardens. Situated in the south of Anhui Province, it is surrounded by a few UNESCO World Heritage listed ancient villages with their own unique housing typology.

Zhejiang 浙江

With more than 2200 years of history, not counting the recently discovered neolithic Liangzhu Culture which dates back 5000 years. Famed for the beautiful scenery of West Lake, it was also the capital of Southern Song Dynasty, a culturally rich and sophisticated age for China. It saw great advancements in the visual arts, music, literature, and philosophy. Hangzhou is also a buzzing metropolis with rapid change and development, home to some of China’s biggest technology companies and digital urban innovations. It is in this context that we find the seminal works of China’s only Pritzker Prize Laureate Wang Shu. In his architecturally playful China Academy of Art campus, we will also find works by Alvaro Siza and Kengo Kuma. We will also take a short day trip to Ningbo to visit Wang Shu’s Ningbo Museum.

Jiangsu 江苏

The Yangtze River Delta region may be the largest concentration of adjacent metropolitan areas in the world with more than 1/10th the population of China. We will be visiting Nanjing and Suzhou, exploring both the urban contexts and the architectural gems that are within the urban parks and gardens, from an art park with works from architects around the world to the spatially intricate Classical Chinese gardens of Suzhou.

Shanghai 上海

Our final destination, Shanghai has always been China’s most Westernized city and the most cosmopolitan. Look beyond all the sleek skyscrapers, luxury goods shops, trendy restaurants and bars, you will find its unique Lilong housing typology and lifestyle is still present. We will be exploring the abundance of projects that are dealing with former industrial sites around the city as well as some of the celebrated new buildings.