Chinese Vaulted Avant-Garde Architecture: Materials and Tectonics as Design Tools for the Pursuit of Monumentality

This essay aims to investigate the design reasons behind the use of vaulted systems in avant-garde architecture built in China in the past ten years. Such use is normally made for compositional and formal purposes, often beyond a structural or construction logic, and with the purpose of achieving a monumental character in terms of space definition. Iconic buildings conceived with substantially different vaulted systems, such as the Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum (made of reinforced masonry), the UCCA Dune Art Museum (made of reinforced concrete), or the covered area of Shangcun village (made of bamboo), thus allow a systemization of particular theoretical fundamentals within the context of the contemporary architectural design, analysed in terms of the tectonics/built space relationship, and in the light of a design culture and practice founded on construction brought to the table by Chinese avant-garde architects in recent years. This analysis is also finalized to better understand and interpret the design process that leads to avant-garde architecture within the complex Chinese professional sphere, questioning and broadening the debate around the Western concept of monumentality in contemporary architecture.