The domed stadium is a product of the West. Traditional Chinese architecture produced nothing like a "Big Egg" stadium. Why? Aside from the question of economic development, Wang Chen-hwa, a well-known expert in Chinese architecture, speaks from a humanistic point of view.

Whether it be the Taoyuan stadium or the Taipei domed facility slated for future construction, the most important prerequisite one must consider is its relationship to the local people, its relationship to the natural environment, and even, in the big picture, its relationship to Chinese culture. This is the only truly fundamental assessment. In particular, there are many standards for whether architecture is good or bad. In terms of external shape, the natural environment is always beautiful, so, no matter what, a building should create an effect at least as beautiful as the natural surroundings without the structure. It should not be built with disregard for nature; otherwise, the placement of the building will destroy the natural scene.

Use and misuse

Some say that the domed stadium is a transfer from the West, and look at this type of construction from the perspective of cultural transfer. This view touches upon the issues of cultural absorption, cultural synthesis, and new culture in China over the past 100 years.

Broadly speaking, in terms of cultural absorption, China has never sought to survive by excluding outside culture. On the contrary, it has amalgamated cultures. The first time this happened was in the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, when many different peoples mixed together to form one. The second began in the Han dynasty, when Buddhism entered, producing a new culture, affecting Song and Ming thought, and continuing to have an influence up to the present day. The third time was in the Ming dynasty; this was the time when culture from outside was strongest and had the greatest impact. As for the arrival of new culture, we cannot exclude it outright. We have had no objection to absorbing new culture. But we have had objections to how new incoming culture is incorporated and arranged. China has had a fundamental problem over the past century--a feudal mindset that says in terms of cultural absorption, "Only use, but do not really do."

If you want to assimilate something like large-stadium culture, this must be built on the foundation of the extant culture. Only in this way can people open their hearts and thoroughly absorb other people's culture. By "thoroughly" I do not mean complete Westernization or following the culture of others. Rather, I mean standing firm on one's own autonomy and corpus in order to digest other people's things. Therefore, the more one understands one's own culture, the more one can absorb from outside culture. If you absolutely cannot be thorough, and can't take anything in, then no good new culture will emerge.

This millennia-old feudal mindset emphasizes making everything right for all time with a single concentrated effort. It is just like scholars who stayed in their poorly heated rooms studying for ten years--by passing the exams, they then set themselves up for life and didn't have to work hard again. The idea of setting up something eternal by a short term effort emphasizes the idea of a panacea. The most important thing emphasized is that whatever has been most recently learned is great learning, useful learning. Everything else is thrown away. But the new knowledge is not really put into effect. What I want to say is that when the "panacea" mindset exists, the result is that "one aims to use an idea as its master, but ends up being its slave." Just look back, from the early Republican period to the present, at the pollution of students who studied abroad, the disaster of students who studied abroad. Nobody reflects, they just do things without thinking.

Most overseas students who come back can only talk about what is new, not what is best. When you talk about what is best, you must include the old as well as the new. But most people have no ability to talk about these old things. Reflecting on whether or not the domed stadium is cultural transfer, there are three levels to refer to: form, method of thought, and value beliefs. Everything will be clear as soon as reflection is done.

From quantity to quality

There are several steps to completing a structure. The first is that there is some "need" in daily life; only then should this structure be built. This step is very important. In the second step, you tell me to build a domed stadium, so I go and collect information and learn from others' experiences. The third step is that design work begins, and proposals are drawn up. You cannot have just one or two designs, but must have many. You must discover the potential of this piece of land, and you must not misuse this piece of land or destroy its natural beauty, and only then can a plan be finalized. The actual construction is very important; those doing the actual work are the real unknown heroes. Finally, users feed opinions back to the managers and experience accumulates.

Right now the problem is that the question "where is the need for this structure" has been obscured from the very beginning, and also no one has been thinking about what might happen after construction is done and use begins; only the middle part of the process has been pushed.

For something as large as a domed stadium, an important issue is safety. A concept that needs to be emphasized is "from quantitative change to qualitative change." The roofs are made of a very new material; it can produce the largest span and the largest volume of space. But it also has shortcomings. For example, during typhoons, or when it rains, there is an echo problem. Modern technology has its significance; a new space has emerged. But technology cannot be fully responsible. In the "brave new world," it is often said, science can only decide whether something is possible, but cannot determine whether it is desirable. This point deserves more thought.

Here we can explore another issue. We really don't want to learn from what is newest; rather, we want to learn from what is best. In Greece, and even in England, there are many large outdoor performance theaters which conform to nature and fit the shape of the land. These have been around for hundreds of years, and people still use them. The most important thing is that the overall space is tied in with nature.

Now that we want to set ourselves against nature, and carve out a purely man-made space, in fact this will produce a whole pile of problems. Let me take an example. If you enjoy watching fish, you could go to the riverside, or go diving in the sea. But now you don't want to go out, but want to set something up in your house so you can see fish anytime you want. So you decide to "raise fish" for this purpose. First you buy a fish tank; then you buy some water plants; and when there is the wrong amount of vegetation in the water there is not enough air, so you pump air in, or have to change the water. Thus a lot of chemicals get in the water. Even worse, when you want to go away, you have to ask your friend to take care of the fish, and your friend ends up breaking the tank. Please take note of these stages, for their prerequisite is: The fish is something from nature, and must have natural conditions to satisfy it. Unless you can deny that man is an element in nature, looking at a structure like a domed stadium, if in the end what you want is things that occur in nature, like clean air and sunshine, then from the beginning why not go along with nature and cooperate with the rhythms of nature?

The nature of capitalism

Looking again at whether or not a domed stadium should be built, is there the need in the city? I'm afraid that here we cannot avoid raising the basic nature of capitalism. I often think about the way people live now. People are unable to stay well-integrated, they collapse and are a mess, living without anything interesting in life. I think the turning point was the economic take-off. The basic idea of capitalism is not bad; its nature is individualism and freedom. But when it develops to post-capitalism, or the poorly comprehended version of capitalism in the Third World, then there are many bad side- effects.

The first thing that capitalism does is to take internal things and externalize them. By nature people have consciences. But capitalism is malevolent, it externalizes internal things. From top to bottom it just wants to sell its products. Black clothing is rebellious, your glasses are the president's glasses. Your car is a Mercedes, so you have status. Your house is on the same street with a lot of famous people. After the externalization of the core corpus, out of fear of falling behind, it is necessary to buy these things. If you have a core corpus, then you are not afraid of these things. The more you lack this, the more you will be manipulated by people.

Coming back to the domed stadium, American culture has its interesting aspects, and we do not by any means oppose baseball. But we oppose people using so much of their time and energy to play baseball so intensely. This is called "drowning in a detail," or losing oneself in something that is not very significant. But life is so rich and complex, why invest so much effort in such a small part of it?

Some might say that at the ballpark people can have a thrilling experience rare in daily life. First we must understand whether or not your entire professional life and personal life are empty, so that the only way you can get a feeling of being embraced by and feeling at one with humanity is in this special time and place.

Man and nature as one

Returning to the question of Chinese architecture, from the Han to the Tang, Chinese architecture produced extremely huge, concentrated buildings. Take for example the Daming Palace in Xi'an (of which only ruins are left), or the Ahfang Palace that we know of; all of these were huge structures. After the Tang, these concentrated structures suddenly disappeared.

It was not that Chinese could not build tall buildings or enormous houses. The disappearance of such architectural traditions always has a historical reason--why did they disappear? I have not researched this question very clearly. But, taking a guess, for example in large wooden structures of this type, if a fire starts everyone would be killed right away. That is why they relied on fire-blocking gables to divide them up. But even if divided, if the structure is concentrated it would still burn easily.

Chinese architecture has always utilized the separated four-sided heyuan family compound. I think it is because man-made space could be interspersed with natural space, and everyone could live in a natural atmosphere. Once structures are concentrated, people will be cut off from outside, with only man-made space, and a great many problems will occur within. I think that we always kept the four-sided heyuan family compound layout to guarantee the quality of life of the residents.

I think the fact that China had no huge concentrated structures is definitely related to the trend in thought of a longing for nature. China also has had its high structures, but these buildings are all stretched out on a level, and are not built upward or toward great size. After all, people are a part of nature, and we must remain connected to nature, and cannot be cut off. Once you are cut off, people have so many special needs that they will inevitably pay a price.

Chinese architecture does not go for height or size, but spreads out, ma king it more "user-friendly." （photo by Hsueh）