Blues In The Blood

As China’s cities explode, its built heritage is often neglected. Hangzhou-based Bluetown Architects aims to redress that balance through its striking but functional work

- Diana Hubbell

When it comes to architecture, few countries are as wildly dynamic right now as China. Travel + Leisure once dubbed the nation’s flurry of development as the “biggest building boom in human history, surpassing the creation of the Pyramids and the Great Wall.”

Over the last decade, the blistering pace of development has seldom slowed, as vertiginous skyscrapers rise across mega-cities like Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai, while second-tier cities race to catch up. For many older people, the skylines of today bear virtually no resemblance to the ones of their childhoods.

All the rush for progress and hyper-modernization, however, has not been without its growing pains. As its cities have swelled, China’s divide between urban and rural lifestyles has widened to a chasm. Into this void, the country risks losing ties to cultural traditions and design styles with thousands of years of history behind them.

Bluetown Architects, based in the serene lakeside city of Hangzhou, has proven itself an advocate for forging China’s future while maintaining an eye on its past. Founded in 2014 by Song Weiping, the firm has a more holistic approach to architecture than many of its contemporaries. While most architecture firms are eager to secure their legacies with flashy, attention-grabbing edifices in metropolitan areas, Weiping prefers to create spaces that are genuinely comfortable for the people who call them home.