Rise of the Red Dragon

RAISE THE RED LANTERN (大红灯笼高高挂) is a 1991 film directed by Zhang Yimou, whose career as director started with the extraordinary Red Sorghum (1987). As part of the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers he is responsible of the rise of Chinese film industry to world awareness. After various “misunderstandings” with the political authorities of the country he is devoted since the last decade or so to gigantic budget movies to fuel the nationalistic needs of China. That means either elevate the old Hong Kong B-movies to mainstream expression of Chinese identity or weeping for how bad they were thrashed by the Japanese in WWII. If you thought Hollywood movies were chauvinistic, think again.

But there is still a place for uniqueness, and there is where this film is transporting us. Raise the Red Lantern is the story of a wife caged in a wealthy man’s house. And by house we have to understand the real old style home for a family and servants; some 300 rooms. With this plot, we are forcibly confined through the seasons inside the architecture of this household, which is a remarkable example of traditional Chinese courtyard. Yimou makes use of the scenery to show how different activities were carried in the house; whether private, inside; public, in the courtyard; sneaky, around the borders and rooftops. The semiology of the gate, also omnipresent in Chinese architecture, has also its rites.

One of the courtyards at Qiao's compound where the film was shot.

The film was shot on location inside Qiao Family compound. The courtyard layout, the most developed strategy for a house, is well spread in China. The hutongs of Beijing were on the verge of extinction but now they are becoming sought for. But the compound (in Chinese daiyuan, “grand courtyard”) is of a different category. It is the amalgam of dozens and even hundreds of courtyards and buildings, to house and entire extended family (up to cousins in several degrees with their own families), employees, goods and visits. Qiao’s compound is located in the province of Shanxi, and is a part of many others in this region. They were situated at the entrance of China, where the Silk Road ended, and where these families make fortune. After the war and the Cultural Revolution the families were dispossessed and they disbanded. Some of them meet on a regular basis.

Qiao’s compound is now a museum. Another close by example is the huge Wang family compound. A wall enclosed village just for this family. All compounds are more or less close by the ancient city of Pingyao, a magnificent well preserved city.

Old street in Pingyao.

So because of this film, instead of going to Xi’an, to look at terracotta figurines I can see anywhere, I hired a van (with driver) in Beijing, drove west for a ridiculous price, visiting Wutaishan, one of the most sacred Buddhist sites (where I slept) and then arriving the next day at Pigyao. Crossing through the gates of Pingyao was one of the most mesmerizing experiences, mainly because after all the socialist architecture outside I didn’t expect that degree of preservation. I stayed at the Yide hotel, where I met Europeans that come back almost yearly. You sleep on a traditional bed, in a room giving to a courtyard… with red lanterns. The food in the hotel and the city are wonderful. You are not treated as a cash dispenser like in Beijing or Shanghai; you are almost an attraction. Unfortunately in higher season is overcrowded and that is getting the city damaged. Chinese tourists move as they are, in millions. From Pingyao you can schedule visits to the compounds you like, with local guides speaking English. One of the best experiences that you can have discovering architecture, especially making the trip on the road, not the highway, so you can see the fields, the mines, the cities and what is life outside the touristic places.

Further information:

Robert Ebert article in the Chicago Sun Times

Qiao Family compound

Wang Family compound

Pingyao city

Yide hotel, Pingyao



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On phenomenology …deconstruction …architecture.

-Or what is this all about.-

For each of the above terms a philosopher, an architect and any other person, each may have their particular interpretation of them. With the isolation of the disciplines, to a certain degree, the development of particular technobabble will hinder or prevent mutual understanding, especially for the non-initiated. Having in mind that well-versed scholars may find the following discourse as absolutely preposterous, I excuse myself on the grounds of, firstly, needing a plain lexicon for the ordinary reader and, secondly, my keeping the strength of my ratio to more specific topics.

Phenomenology, from ancient Greek φαινόμενoν (phainómenon, “that which appears") and λόγος (logos, “study”), is thus roughly the study of the structure of experience. Although long present as a philosophical term, it was redefined as a method and movement in itself by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). In Husserl’s conception, phenomenology is the systematic reflection and study of the structures of consciousness and the phenomena that appear (are experienced). The main point of this idea is the understanding of a world as related to a point of origin of all experience -oneself. Thus, as opposed to a Cartesian interpretation of the world, space for instance is not an infinite and abstract frame but rather an experience of our being, built since the first grasping of a newborn; limited, with different empathic values according to differently experienced places.

This connotation has gained popularity in architecture, roughly opposing the hypothetical conception of a Cartesian building, responding to given, abstract ideals of beauty, answering only to its own logic, to a phenomenological one, in which a building is experienced from the point of view of a human being and its materials, form and dispositions are anticipated as experienced from this observer.

As a philosophical term it was adopted and transformed, especially by Heidegger, who converted it into a methodology in charge of redefining the essence of being. The main goal of phenomenology is to overcome traditions. The whole human culture is based on learned behavior, with a reason to exist. In time we forgot those reasons and if they are still applicable. Heidegger calls for the ‘Destruktion’ of these constrains so we reach the essence; for that, we have to go back in history step by step, in a process of ‘de-building’ (Abau) with which we can see the essence of what we study according to each moment in history and today.

Derrida took the concept of ‘Abau’ and translated it into French ‘déconstruction’, which was loosely adopted by an architectural discourse in crisis and hungry for ideals to seize. Unfortunatelly, this Abau is often applied to architectural objects, not to the essence of architecture, which seems still veiled.

About Space Frames

Space Frames is a cross-platform transdisciplinary exercise intending a phenomenological deconstruction (Abau) of our perception of space, comprehended as the existential support of our being-in-the-world, our dwelling.

Throughout the successive assemblage (Verbindung) of disjointed representations of life and built environment in different media, the notion of dwelling will be disclosed by itself so as to permit its better understanding.

Cinema will initially have a prominent, nearly ubiquitous place here, as it can be considered one of the most truthful renditions of architecture into media, just second to corporeal experience.

Besides the critical analysis of architectural and anthropological depictions in films, other human expressions such as sounds and music, dances, books and written pieces (thoughts), sports and the arts and crafts in general, will be illuminated under the frame of its spatial gist.

Blockbuster movies and buildings are not into consideration in this space.  The frame ought to be used to look through it, not just to be displayed alone, devoid of meaning.

Although this is a mostly personal project, its open presentation might be of interest for the public development of transdisciplinarity between the humanities and may eventually become open to different collaborations and approaches.