Dong Yugan is a associate professor in architectural research center in peking university. Publications include a book and many articles. Representative of experimental architects in 1990s. Now he’s researching Chinese culture.

domus: Why are you so interested in gardens?
Dong Yugan: Because of cultural consciousness. My research focuses on the globalization of culture, not about culture in its global form. Assuming the differences betwen cultures as diversity, not culture gap, is a necessary and conscious attitude of my research; only rigid control of the minute cultural differences can lead to in-depth solutions to problems and a permanent confrontation against cultural globalization. I concentrate on the research of gardens in order to avoid the hollowness of culturally rooted discussions, hoping the kindred relationship between gardens and architecture can also tie in the schema of Chinese culture and Chinese architecture.

domus: What attracts you most in your research on gardens?
Dong Yugan: The “otherness” between cultures. The evaluation standards for Chinese gardens could be traced back to the very beginning of Chinese landscape theory, where there existed a critical system as profound and remote to up as Western architecture is today. The “cultural otherness” implied in them still exists in our daily life. There, the mixing of tradition and modernity is not as impenetrable an issue as people maintain. So, the critical system still has its direct instruction and theoretical relevance to the practice of contemporary architecture.

domus: You once concentrated your studies on Western architectural theory, but now are focusing on Chinese culture and gardens. How do these two experences affect each other?
Dong Yugan: They mutually reflect one another and are not contrary to each other.

domus: Tell me about your recent plans for research, design and teaching, etc.
Dong Yugan: I’m teaching a course called “Appreciation of Modern and Contemporary Architecture” at Peking University and trying to start another course on Chinese garden research in accord with the protection project of the Mingxiu Garden in Guangxi. In addition to this, I’m trying to publish my doctoral dissertation.

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