Feature: China pavilions at Venice Biennale call on architects to serve people's lives

How to serve the majority of people better was a central message in the China pavilions part of the Venice Architecture Biennale, or international architecture exhibition, which opened to the public in Venice on Saturday.

The Venice Architecture Biennale is directed this year by Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, known for his pioneering social housing projects in Latin America, and is themed "Reporting from the front" to show the complexity and diversity of the challenges currently faced by architecture.

Liang Jingyu, the curator of China's national pavilion, said he joined hands with a team of architects and designers from his country to tackle the issue of the "ignored front" of modernization, namely the "dignity, welfare and equality" of all citizens.

Themed "Daily Design, Daily Tao", the pavilion embodies over 10 projects reproducing the traditional values and way of life gone lost in today's globalized world, Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture Yang Zhijin explained at the pavilion's opening earlier this week.

In fact the exhibition is about things and designs that satisfy people not by introducing a new future to replace the past, but by polishing the past and integrating it into daily lives, contradictory to modern architecture which focuses on futuristic and spectacular projects, Yang highlighted.

Another Chinese pavilion in Venice named "Across Chinese Cities-China House Vision" explores the future of living by taking the "house" as a prism for rethinking of the larger systems of production that traverse it, from environmental and energy consumption to mobility and distribution.

The project, Italian curator Beatrice Leanza explained to Xinhua, involved a team of China-based architects including Liang, the curator of China's national pavilion, to address the wider cultural and historic implications affecting the architecture practice in today's China.

Five thematic clusters, one of which features a project dedicated to the 2016 Across Chinese Cities guest city Chengdu, present to visitors installations integrating research data, visual and material archives.

The Venice Architecture Biennale, held every two years, has a distinguished tradition, and China is among the participating countries in the event.

The ongoing 15th edition includes 65 national participants in the historic city center of the world-famous water city. Endit