Chapter 8

Conclusion: The Intermediate Criticality

What is crucial about any critical activity is whether it is based on a concrete sketch (strategic plan) that has its own
logic and its own integrity. This is missing almost universally nowadays, because political and critical strategies
coincide only in the most outstanding cases. Nevertheless, such a coincidence should be the ultimate goal.1
Walter Benjamin

This book has explored how the Tongji University-based journal Time + Architecture has engaged with
critical architecture within the Chinese architectural community, tracing a period of intellectual transition
from the 1990s to the 2010s, addressing a range of topics such as architectural design, publication, criticism
and exhibition. My investigation on the theme of criticality in contemporary Chinese architecture has
consistently moved back and forth between two fundamentally significant areas: journal publication and
critical architecture itself. The key component of this discussion, however, focused on the way in which the
journal has endeavoured both to present and to produce critical discourses and projects within the Chinese
architectural publishing scene.
The particular challenge of this study resides indeed in its dialectical approach to interpretation, building
an understanding of the journal Time + Architecture as a central vehicle in relation to the broader condition of
architectural practice, and in comparison with the publication of other architectural periodicals. The holistic
character of this dialectic thinking has enabled me to consider the particularities of the object in relation
to the general condition of totality, to take into consideration both form or content and its hidden social,
political, economic, cultural and ideological contexts, and to contemplate both disciplinary issues and socio-
political dimensions.
Over the past few decades, the Chinese Communist Party attempted to maintain the political status
quo (preserving its monopoly over both political system and society) by changing the economic status
quo (stimulating economic growth). One would wonder in the process of social transformation what the
architectural periodical’s role is in altering the status quo, socially, culturally and politically. Indeed, Time
+ Architecture has created a public sphere by providing an opportunity for architects, academics, officials,
company managers and others to discuss disciplinary, professional, social and cultural issues. As a discursive
site, the journal helped architectural intellectuals to enter into dialogue and even to contribute to understanding
contemporary Chinese architecture. The journal integrated thematic debates, projects, criticisms and historical
reviews into a heterogeneous and interconnected project that had strong ideological orientation. The journal’s
own development since 1984 can be considered as an ongoing response to the changing climate of society,
politics, economy and the architectural profession.
The documentation of discourses and projects in the pages of Time + Architecture can be read as the
editors’ and contributors’ critical reflections on the architectural history of the immediate present in the
Chinese cultural context. The journal’s publication, to some extent, demonstrated the anxieties, struggles,
conflicts, possibilities and limitations of architectural practice, crystallising alternative modes of ideological
perception and embodying a way of seeing and depicting the world. It is hardly surprising that their ideology
of contemporary architecture was by no means shared completely by other practitioners (for example,
architects based in state-owned design institutes and other commercial design firms.). However, the journal’s
commitment to presenting the two fundamental aspects of critical architecture – formal experimentation
and socio-political engagement – displayed its resistant nature in the current context of publishing practice
in which the works of well-established figures often became the eagerly sought-after objects while being
presented in a neutral way. In other words, the critical spirit of this publication primarily lies in its active
selection of themes, projects, writers, photographs and other features that would tend to be differential to the
dominant approach.
202 Constructing a Place of Critical Architecture in China

The selection and reception of critical architecture and architectural criticism in Time + Architecture
subtly reflected the editors’ right to talk about the work and critics’ judgments of it. This process of production
and circulation of critical ideas also implied their own position within the field of architectural production. As
Steve Parnell has recently put it, there is a constant struggle for power in the field, with magazine editors and
contributors fighting for the privilege of defining the field and its taste.2 The presentation of critical projects
and writings in the pages of the journal, for architects and critics, is a crucial way to express their voices and to
expand their influence. In this regard, what is at stake is the editors’ authority to determine whose work would
be published in a specific issue. This presupposition inevitably influenced the reputation of both contributors
and the journal itself.
Situating the presented themes with respect to critical architecture in the journal’s overall content of
publication, we can find that the professional issues occupied a predominant position. While the journal’s
preoccupation with academic discourses represented its immanent scholarly commitment, the special editions
on a wide range of practical issues reminded us of its professional nature. Contributed by the emerging writers
working as architects or educators or curators in the official system and architects based in private design
firms and state-owned design institutes, the journal became a pivotal site linking both theory and practice,
both academia and profession, both the official and the private and both individual and institution.
When one examines the published projects and criticisms in recent years and the distribution of their
authors, it is immediately striking that architects based in private design firms and critics from universities
were the main protagonists of critical architecture. What is worth noting is that, aside from this, a large
number of published projects were produced by state-owned design institutes, particularly the journal’s three
significant sponsors – the East China Architectural Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd., the Shanghai
Institute of Architectural Design and Research Co., Ltd., and the Architectural Design and Research Institute
of Tongji University. The constitution of content in this aspect explicitly illuminated the journal’s position-
taking in the Chinese architectural publishing scene; more specifically, maintaining a kind of academic
independence and taking into account the interests of the patrons.
In a precarious situation in which architectural practice in the broadest sense was primarily driven by the
immediate profit, the purely academic publication would be both constrained by the inadequate production
of scholarship and the limited support of funding and confined to a few people within academia. As Time +
Architecture was based in the school of architecture within the public institution, being utterly professional did
not seem to meet various internal and external expectations while remaining consistent with its initial editorial
agenda. In the final analysis, it is the combination of the editors’ cultural commitment and the sponsors’
financial support that played a deterministic role in shaping its dual nature.
It has been argued that Chinese experimental architecture presented in the pages of Time + Architecture
in the early twentieth first century demonstrated an aesthetic protest against the predominant architectural
practice, intertwined in a complicated manner with the Beaux-Arts tradition and various modern and
postmodern architectural fashions. This internal critique, omitting a socio-political concern, ideologically
compensated for the lack of modern movement in the Chinese cultural context. However, when architectural
practice was embroiled in the astonishing urban process, the then marginal pure abstract formal language
was transformed into a significant part of the dominant ideology. In order to respond to the problematic
urban conditions, a number of architects exerted themselves to construct a public realm in architecture while
struggling to address various challenges, including low budget, backward technology of construction, short
design circle, gigantic volume and unstable functional requirements. Their intention to produce an alternative
mode of form and space with aesthetic and socio-political implications disclosed a critique of the reproduction
of the existing spatial logic with alienation. Notwithstanding, the quality of those public spaces was confined
in varying degrees due to the aforementioned factors. At the same time, the fact that many public spaces often
lead to a limited and ineffectual public discourse also revealed the limitation of a critical architecture, whose
socio-political engagement needs the support of various parties, including architects, clients, the agents of the
state, the sectors of management, the public and other stakeholders.
If the articulation of criticality in building was restricted in one way or another, then what was the
situation of architectural criticism? According to Michael Hays, if critical architectural design is resistant
and oppositional, then architectural criticism – as activity and knowledge – should be openly contentious
and oppositional, as well.3 The problematic reality in China driven by the rapid and yet highly uneven
 Conclusion: The Intermediate Criticality 203

development of society offered a good deal of opportunities and challenges for architects to search for formal
experimentation and socio-political engagement. Since the emerging architects were inextricably associated
with inconspicuous, civic projects, their socio-political commitment, even if not emphatically endorsed by
various forces, was not likely to be hampered by the authorities, precisely because such activities did not
directly undermine the Communist Party’s authority; on the contrary, these activities could, rhetorically,
consolidate and enhance the legitimacy of the socialist state. Nevertheless, this is not the case for architectural
criticism, inasmuch as critical writing would tend to reveal the shortcomings of reality, criticise the status quo,
and challenge some people’s interests and dominance.
In an increasingly expanding market of architectural publication and practice, architectural criticism,
largely dominated by uncritical writings and published in only a few architectural periodicals, may still be rare
in number. Its a-critical nature made itself manifest in the way in which architectural criticism suffered from an
excess of subjectivism and a lack of rigorous analysis. The majority of the published criticism tended to focus
on the isolated building, to omit comparison and contrast, to have more praise in tone, and to lose a certain
level of negativity. Aside from the influence of the current political circumstance, the impoverished condition
of architectural criticism, or criticism in a broader spectrum, has been bound up with a variety of factors,
including tradition, culture and the degree of social development. In addition, the presented photography
within the pieces of criticism tended to intentionally detach the building from the context in which it was
constructed and to ignore its connection with people who inhabited it with their own lifestyles.
Given the absence of a revolutionary practice of critical architecture and architectural criticism, in
what sense can there be a revolutionary practice of architectural publication?4 This absence to some extent
resonates with the current anti-revolutionary vision of socialism with Chinese characteristics, yet repudiating
the revolutionary legacy of Chinese society that is still crucially relevant to the present condition.5 Time
+ Architecture’s editors and contributors, as the authors in Walter Benjamin’s word, were primarily the
producers who transformed the given raw materials into a new social product, an in-depth project.6 This
transformation was effected by a determinate human labour, using determinate means (of production).7 In
this regard, the journal, as a cultural commodity, assumed two contradictory characters: consumption and
production. As an institution, the journal was capable of bring men together in the field of architecture. Its
current strategy of interventionist editing (jiji bianji), to be more precise, initially selecting a specific theme
and then inviting recognised writers to produce essays and, presumably, offering some feedback to the
authors, analogous to Bertolt Brecht’s Epic Theatre, attempted to turn various contributors into collaborators
and to avoid the tendency of specialisation in the process of cultural production.8 In this sense, the journal as
a medium or a drama stage was collectively constructed by the editors (directors), contributors (actors) and
readers (spectators) and at the same time creatively constructing a representation of social reality, the purpose
of which was to alter the reality, both aesthetically and socio-politically.
It is crucial to point out that the journal’s publication on a wide range of topics with respect to social issues
clearly revealed its attitude to the relation of production. In other words, its political position made itself
manifest in the way in which it tried to critically intervene in architectural practice and to play a transformative
role in changing the complicated reality by reflecting on a series of characteristic architectural and urban
phenomena. Obeying the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership and maintaining political correctness, Time
+ Architecture was obligated to focus on the predicaments, anxieties and contradictions of architectural
practice in the urban process. It can be therefore argued that the journal was a progressive, incremental
reformer of architectural production rather than a radical critic or a revolutionary rebel.
Time + Architecture’s devotion to presenting critical architecture and architectural criticism and to
producing critical discourses showed an exceptional mode of publication in the Chinese architectural
publishing scene. As a cultural commodity, the journal was struggling to address a wide range of factors,
including cultural ambition, commercial pressure and political climate; as a social product, its quality was
influenced by both raw materials (texts, buildings and photographs) and the way of processing, or say, editing.
As the journal’s editors and contributors oscillated between intellectual engagement and socio-political and
economic reality, the revealed criticality was arguably assumed to be somewhat intermediate.
This intermediate position should be understood in the current social, political, economic and cultural
context in which architectural publication, like any other cultural practice, operated. It might be instructive
to note that Time + Architecture was launched in a period in which the country was characterised by singular
204 Constructing a Place of Critical Architecture in China

reforms in the social, political, economic, ideological and cultural spheres. However, it is precisely the
market forces in recent decades that dramatically transformed the journal into what it is today. As the political
and market forces penetrated so deeply into the process of cultural production in general and architectural
publication in particular, any critical activity needed to resourcefully cope with these dominant influences.
The critical practice of architectural publication attempted to resist the domination of the capitalist mode of
production in the field of architecture; while its realisation was dependent on the patronage of individuals and
institutions, or the agents of capital and state. This immanent contradiction requires practitioners to not only
subtly challenge the hegemony of commodification and the domination of power but to ingeniously use the
force of capital and power within the system to transform the existing reality. Here, David Harvey’s argument
has the merits of observing this issue very sharply:

By seeking to trade on values of authenticity, locality, history, culture, collective memories and tradition, they
open a space for political thought and action within which alternatives can be both devised and pursued. That
space deserves intense exploration and cultivation by oppositional movements. It is one of the key spaces of
hope for construction of an alternative kind of globalization. One in which the progressive forces of culture
appropriate those of capital rather than the other way round.9

Comparably, the search for and appropriation of such space is also crucially important for the critical practice
of architecture. For Time + Architecture, its close association with commercial design firms (both state-owned
design institutes and private design firms) demonstrated its intention to employ their financial supports to
run this publication, while its engagement with critical discourses and projects also suggested its cultural
commitment; its operation under the leadership of the official institution and the control of the Party revealed
its political position to satisfy the government censorship requirements, while its consistent reflection on the
problematic reality of architecture and the city was by no means a purely flattering praise or endorsement of
the status quo. It is in such a contradictory situation that the journal’s editors, like other critical practitioners,
including architects and critics, strove to walk a fine line.
In a condition of globalised capitalism Time + Architecture offered a range of outlets, through presenting
theoretical debates, projects, criticisms, and by publishing photographs and historical reviews, to document
the critical discourses and projects. What stands out in terms of the journal’s particular agency for promoting
critical architecture and architectural criticism is that it provided a place to present innovative and exploratory
projects produced by emerging architects and published many pieces of critical writing, even more so in recent
years. The journal’s thematic approach enabled its editors to focus on specific theoretical themes in each issue,
presenting projects related to the particular topic and expanding the horizon of architectural knowledge. In
its subtle combination of critical architecture and architectural criticism – within the limits of possibility
available in the current political conditions – it could be said that the journal not only presented but actively
helped to produce a new form of critical practice.
Critical architecture, analogous to the architectural journal, is not only a cultural object but also a
commodity produced in the market. As an exceptional practice within the process of architectural production,
the emergence of critical architecture was essentially driven by the desire of architects, clients, builders and
others to make a difference, both culturally and economically. Critical architecture tends to challenge the
dominant ideology of architecture and to rebel against the dominance of capital and power. It should be
admitted, however, that the existence of capital and power is by no means a monolithic entity. Within the
structure of the predominant forces, the inherent competition or struggle for interests still allows practitioners
to produce differentiation. In such conditions critical architecture might be deployed as a vehicle by various
agents for capital accumulation.
The way that experimental architecture, as an aesthetic difference in the Chinese cultural context at
the turn of the millennium, was patronised by the emerging capitalists manifested in the sense that critical
architecture can be treated as an embodiment of cultural capital, which, in certain conditions, could be
transformed into economical capital. In order to construct an alternative image of a project, the progressive
forces of capital and power would tend to provide a chance for architects to explore the new possibilities of
architecture. This shared belief to produce difference among designers, builders, clients and others would
enable them to collaborate closely in the process of production, in such a way as to establish the respective
 Conclusion: The Intermediate Criticality 205

competitiveness in their own fields. The erection of critical architecture can just be viewed as one of what
urban designer Ian Bentley classified three processes of urban transformation in the capital accumulation
cycle: the transformation from land, labour and materials into saleable commodities (buildings or images).10
The exploration of alternatives, detaching themselves from the prevalent mode of practice and assuming a
kind of critique of the status quo, for clients, was only one of many steps to produce capital or profits. As the
income of investment on critical architecture is a long-term and comprehensive run, it is not surprising that
in the ubiquitous atmosphere of market-oriented production today, most investors tend to pursue immediate
returns, while only a very few clients would spend a great deal of money on, and pay attention to, the durability
of cultural object. My discussion on critical architecture in the previous chapters suggested that its realisation
depended to a great extent on clients’ patronage and trust; however, support from patrons only is not enough.
If we rethink the construction process of Wang Shu’s Xiangshan Campus, we should acknowledge that the
cheap labour of thousands of builders significantly contributed to its completion in a short period of time.
Insofar as the social contract was not well established in China and architects’ design ideas were often not
strictly implemented by constructors during the process of construction, the pursuit of better quality of
construction or the realisation of refined form of architecture – for builders and designers – amounts to more
labour and investment.11 Likewise, without the emphatic endorsement of local authorities, the constellation
of individual projects designed by a group of emerging architects, such as, for example, the so-called group
design projects published in the journal, regardless of their deeper motivation, would unlikely be realised.
While the creation of critical architecture demands collaboration between diverse actors, its performance
(both social and environmental) on the world cannot function properly without appropriate management.12
For instance, due to the tight control and surveillance on many well-designed public spaces by the agents of
property or local states, the spatial agency of architecture was largely restrained and limited.13 This frustrating
reality reminds us of the intrinsic limitation of critical architecture with respect to social transformation.
Nevertheless, the endeavour to create meaningful places for inhabitation and interaction and the struggle
to freely use those spaces would still be indispensable. Together with the struggle for the right to clean
air, safe food, mobility, equal education, equal healthcare and democratic participation in decision making,
those ‘grassroots movements’ expressed alternative voices which can be regarded as an opposition to the
omnipresent dominance of capital and power.14 The obligation of architects, editors, critics, publishers,
clients, builders and users to contribute to this struggle for right, or what Henri Lefebvre called the right to the
city, is mainly embodied in their joint effort to transform the built environment for the better.15
It is worth noting that critical architecture, like any other protest movements (for instance, qunti shijian
or mass incidents) taking place in China, tended to underline the praxis of everyday resistance, inasmuch as
the critical forces were still too weak to establish a dominant position. Those critical activities did not directly
attack the current single-party political system. On the contrary, they attempted to express their discontent with
the dominance of local authorities and the exploitation of powerful capitalists, while literally and figuratively
supporting the authority of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. It is in such a subtle position
that many critical practitioners in various fields endeavoured to challenge the status quo, pushing the ruling class
into accepting a certain part of their expressed demands. In this sense, the intermediate criticality, as a product of
concrete historical condition, was an incarnation of what the Italian Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci termed
‘passive revolution’, a gradual, molecular change initiated by ‘the bottom’ and yet controlled from ‘the top’.16
I term the criticality shown in the pages of Time + Architecture as an intermediate one, precisely because
it was neither thorough nor radical but moderate and appropriate. This critical position, characterised by a
degree of internal aesthetic and external socio-political critique, was located in an intermediate zone of what
can be labelled individual aesthetic resistance and mass ideological revolution. This category opens a broad
area of critical activity for investigation and debate and yet without smothering inquiry under static categories
or singular definitions.17 As a peculiar ‘critical mode’ appearing in the Chinese cultural, economic and socio-
political circumstances, it was acceptable for the agents of capital and power and simultaneously inclined
to challenge their domination and oppression in a subtle way. This kind of critical action, as an incremental
reform or critique in a balanced way, can be viewed as a reconciliation of what Chinese intellectual, Qian
Liqun advanced as ‘thorough critique in ideology’ and ‘certain compromise in practice’.18 The publishing
practice of Time + Architecture that was embroiled with the state, market and society explicitly exemplified
this critical strategy (Figure 8.1).
206 Constructing a Place of Critical Architecture in China

Figure 8.1 Time + Architecture’s relation to the state, market and society in China

Supported by its patronages and readers through market operation, the journal was struggling to both
satisfy their requirements and to maintain the editors’ cultural commitment. Scrutinised by the state, it also
attempted to both comply with certain publishing rules and to express the contributors’ concern on the
problematic architectural and urban issues that can be regarded as an embodiment of the exploitation of power
and capital in the field. What was happening in society became the source of topics for the journal whose
thematic publication was, in many ways, a direct response to and reflection of this social situation. In this
sense, the journal played a pivotal role in bridging the three significant sectors – the state, market and society.
As a mediator in this complex, fragile and interdependent ecosystem, the journal rarely assumed a directly
confrontational stance to the state and the market. Although it did not negate their legitimacy, its presentation
of critical discourses and projects nonetheless implicitly articulated its discontent with the status quo.
This alternative was neither a radically individual expression or critique nor an unconditional capitulation
to the will of capital and power, but can be described as a sophisticated combination of aesthetic resistance
and socio-political commitment, a balance between construction and critique, and a compromise between
individual cultural ambition and social, economic, political and professional reality – in other words an
‘intermediate criticality’ that was manifest most clearly within the pages of the Time + Architecture journal.
The journal’s consistent dedication to critical architecture and architectural criticism demonstrated
a ‘dual critique or resistance’ – an oppositional attitude to the prevalent tendency of commodification in
 Conclusion: The Intermediate Criticality 207

architectural practice and a resistance to the general condition of architectural publication that tended to omit
active intervention in the publishing process. By presenting projects and criticisms, the journal’s engagement
with critical architecture to some extent integrated two kinds of criticality with different expression (built
and written) into a new critical activity. Given that journal’s interventionist editing was largely confined to
thematic selection and purely visual combination and that its graphic presentation lacked a deeper social
consideration and political implication, however, this publishing practice did not substantially augment
criticality to a great degree or push the critical potential further. This incomplete criticality was marked by
a lack of thoroughness and therefore appeared intermediate, partly because the protagonists did not want to
be thorough or did not have a consciousness of thoroughness, and partly because the current social, political,
cultural and professional circumstances restrained the articulation of a thorough critique.
Particular stress should be placed on the fact that the appearance of the dual critique and intermediate
criticality was an emerging cultural phenomenon in contemporary China. The historical significance of this
phenomenon resided in the fact that an architectural journal with a grounded editorial agenda could construct
a place for the articulation of critical ideas. The place created by the journal’s editors and contributors,
including architects, critics, academics, clients and officials, among others, had the potential to transform
critical voices into the motivating force of praxis. The presentation and production of critical architecture in
Time + Architecture explicitly demonstrated the increasingly enhanced and dynamic activities of architecture.
In the Chinese architectural field, the modernist tradition was weak. In the socio-political circumstance,
critical thinking in the broadest sense was not encouraged, even restrained. Situating the emerging tendency
of intermediate criticality in this context, it appeared to be historically progressive. 
The intermediate criticality was manifested as a constructive criticism or a roundabout critique rather
than a direct confrontation. As a hybrid of cultural interpretation and socio-political critique, it was a result
influenced by both subjective ability and objective circumstance.19 To argue this intermediate criticality is to
acknowledge the gap between the actual and the expected performance of critique in a specific context at a
given time.20 This acknowledgement, however, does not imply that the intermediate criticality should be the
ultimate goal in architectural creation. What should be pursued is a free articulation of formal experimentation
and socio-political engagement or a thorough combination of internal and external critique. To transform the
intermediate criticality into a thorough one, the protagonists need to tackle the predicament of architectural
culture and the socio-political system. It is precisely the struggle with the two formidable challenges that
fundamentally shaped, shapes and will shape the critical potential of architectural practice in the Chinese
cultural context. In this sense, Benjamin’s emphasis on the coincidence of political and critical strategies
quoted at the beginning of this chapter is a salutary reminder.

Notes

1 Walter Benjamin, ‘Program for Literary Criticism’, in Selected Writings, volume 2: 1927–1934, eds Michael
W. Jennings, et al. (Cambridge, Mass.; London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), 289–296.
2 Steve Parnell, Architectural Design, 1954–1972: The Architectural Magazine’s Contribution to the Writing of
Architectural History (PhD Thesis, The University of Sheffield, 2011), 356.
3 Michael Hays, ‘Critical Architecture: Between Culture and Form’, Perspecta 21, (1984), 15–29.
4 See Teary Eagleton, Walter Benjamin, or Towards a Revolutionary Criticism (London: NLB, 1981), 97.
5 See Arif Dirlik, ‘Back to the Future: Contemporary China in the Perspective of Its Past, Circa 1980’, in China and
New Left Visions: Political and Cultural Interventions, eds Ban Wang and Jie Lu (Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto,
Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2012), 3–42.
6 Walter Benjamin, ‘The Author as Producer’, in Selected Writings, volume 2: 1927–1934, eds Michael W. Jennings,
et al. (Cambridge, MA; London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), 768–782.
7 See Louis Althusser, For Marx, translated by Ben Brewster (London: Verso, 2005).
8 See Peter Brooker, ‘Key Words in Brecht’s Theory and Practice of Theatre’, in The Cambridge Companion to
Brecht, eds Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 185–200.
9 David Harvey, ‘The Art of Rent: Globalization and the Commodification of Culture’, in Spaces of Capital (New
York: Routledge, 2001), 394–411.
208 Constructing a Place of Critical Architecture in China

10 Ian Bentley, Urban Transformation: Power, People and Urban Design (London: Routledge, 1999).
11 About Chinese architects’ predicament in controlling their projects in reality, see Jiang Yong, ‘Profession and
Professional Practice of Architect in China and Overseas’, Time + Architecture, no. 2 (2007), 6–15.
12 For useful information on the difference between dialogue and collaboration, see Darren Deane, ‘The Recovery
of Dialogue’, South African Journal of Art History 25, no. 3 (2010), 129–140.
13 About spatial agency, see Nishat Awan, Tatjana Schneider, and Jeremy Till, Spatial Agency: Other Ways of Doing
Architecture (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011).
14 See Peter Marcuse, ‘Whose Right(s) to What City’, in Cities for People, Not for Profits: Critical Urban Theory and
the Right to the City, eds Neil Brenner, Peter Marcuse, and Margit Mayer (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), 24–41.
15 Henri Lefebvre, ‘The Right to the City’, in Writings on Cities, translated by Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 147–159.
16 Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, ed. and translated by Quintin Hoare
and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971), 109. Here, Gramsci wrote that ‘one may apply to
the concept of passive revolution (documenting it from the Italian Risorgimento) the interpretative criterion of molecular
changes which in fact progressively modify the pre-existing composition of forces, and hence become the matrix of new
changes’. Also see Carlos Nelson Coutinho, Gramsci’s Political Thought, translated by Pedro Sette-Camara (London and
Boston: Brill, 2012).
17 Richard G. Fox and Orin Starn, ‘Introduction’, in Between Resistance and Revolution: Cultural Politics and
Social Protes, eds Richard G. Fox and Orin Starn (New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press,
1997), 1–16.
18 Qian Liqun, My Retrospection and Reflection (Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2007).
19 Compared with appropriate technology (intermediate technology) intermediate criticality is not an ideological
goal but an actual result. Although both appropriate technology and intermediate criticality are conditioned by objective
circumstances including the level of social, economic and technological development, the subjective factor might seem
to play a central role in shaping the quality of criticality in architectural practice. In many ways, the so-called appropriate
technology in China considerably contributed to the formation of intermediate criticality. For example, many low-tech,
labour-intensive, locally controlled construction techniques and energy-efficient materials were widely adopted by a
number of emerging Chinese architects in their practice. However, using these appropriate technologies cannot directly
guarantee the appearance of intermediate criticality, not to mention a thorough criticality.
20 The difference between the reality of what the project is and what the public expect from the project is similar
to the so-called ‘expectation gap’ in the auditing field. Like audits, architects of critical practice serve clients through
providing a better environment while considering the interests of the public and society. The degree to which architectural
practice is critical can be gauged from the way that it balances the requirements of various parties.