ABOUT XING RUAN
Xing RUAN 阮昕, PhD, is Dean and Guangqi Chair Professor of Architecture at School of Design, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He is a member of Shanghai Jiao Tong University Academic Committee. Xing joined Sydney’s University of New South Wales (UNSW) as Professor of Architecture in 2004. He was Associate Dean at the Faculty of the Built Environment (2015-2018), Director of Architecture (2014-16), Chair of Architecture Discipline and Director of Master of Architecture from (2005-09). Prior to his appointment to UNSW, he was Head of School of Architecture at the University of Technology Sydney (2002-04).
He is Curator of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia – China Pavilion; and Architectural Curator of the 2019 Shanghai Urban Space Art Season Biennale.
Xing Ruan’s scholarly interests lie in the study of physical laws of architectural forms, as well as their ‘social life’ in a broad historical and cultural context. More specifically, his work, while concerning legible relations between humans and their built world, searches for pattern and meaning through the study of building configurations and types. His research topics include: comparative study of Western and East Asia’s architectural history, a cultural history of housing, housing design and way of living, vernacular architecture and cultural anthropology, architectural education, resilient architecture and design approach, urban renewal, and the study of Asia’s architecture and urbanization against the background of Western discourse.
BOOKS
Confucius’ Courtyard: Architecture, Philosophy and the Good Life in China
London: Bloomsbury Publishing
For more than three thousand years, Chinese life – from the city and the imperial palace, to the temple, the market and the family home – was configured around the courtyard. So too were the accomplishments of China's artistic, philosophical and institutional classes. Confucius' Courtyard tells the story of how the courtyard – that most singular and persistent architectural form – holds the key to understanding, even today, much of Chinese society and culture.
浮生·建筑
北京：商务印书馆
《浮生·建筑》于2020年由北京商务印书馆出版。这部专著以建筑为载体，透视人生的问题：人渴望定居，又总是向往游牧般的自由生活。建筑则一直被用来摆平人类内心安居与浮生的矛盾。阮昕以十余年来的八篇学术散文札记为基础，围绕建筑中“天”的含义、建筑内部构成与外部世界及居者内心的关系、作为人学的建筑历史、建筑的人文之本、民间建筑中的人类学、“现代性”在建筑和人生活中的疑问等主题，对古今中外建筑中的物、人、事进行梳理比较，引领读者思考以上人生哲理，体现了“文虽浅近，其意则深”的学术追求。
Allegorical Architecture: Living Myth and Architectonics in Southern ChinaHonolulu: University of Hawaii Press
Allegorical Architecture offers the first detailed architectural analysis of built forms and building types of the minority groups in southern China and of the Dong nationality in particular. Allegorical Architecture is a work of refreshing originality and compelling significance. It will provide timely lessons for those concerned with the meaning and social sustainability of the built world and will appeal to architects, planners, cultural geographers, anthropologists, historians, and students of these disciplines.
New China ArchitectureBoston and Singapore: Tuttle/Periplus
New China Architecture seizes this moment in time. It documents both the stunning designs of famed architects and the emergence of a whole new generation of Chinese architects. The selected projects cover a broad range of residential homes, public buildings, office towers and the adaptive reuse of older city precincts. The buildings featured include skyscrapers in Shanghai, the dazzling new designs for the Beijing Olympic Games venues, innovative private houses such as those at the Commune by the Great Wall and the now mandatory gleaming new airports and city landmarks.
Hand & Mind:Conversations on architecture and the built world
Sydney: University of New South Wales Press
In Hand & Mind architects and designers reflect on the parts of their practice that are often hidden—their inspiration, the genesis of projects, and problems encountered.This image-rich and strikingly designed book profiles a series of projects from UNSW alumni, staff, and students, from Glen Murcutt and Sam Marshall to Felicity Stewart and Matthias Hollenstein.Through dialogues, interviews, creative reflections and essays, Hand & Mind brings together projects and critical writing to provide a fascinating insight into the study of architecture.
Topophilia and Topophobia: Reflections on Human Habitat in the Twentieth CenturyLondon and New York: Routledge
This book is about the love and hate relations that humans establish with their habitat, which have been coined by discerning modern thinkers as topophilia and topophobia. Whilst such affiliations with the topos, our manmade as well as natural habitat, have been traced back to antiquity, a wide range of twentieth-century cases are studied here and reflected upon by dwelling on this framework. The book provides a timely reminder that the qualitative aspects of the topos, sensual as well as intellectual, should not be disregarded in the face of rapid technological development and the mass of building that has occurred since the turn of the millennium.
Shanghai Jiao Tong School of Design
The Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Design Building is a remodeling of an existing building complex. Relying on the symmetrical plan of the original building, a new interior courtyard was created, forming a spatial sequence from a Chinese “Court and Hall” to a Roman peristyle. The central courtyard is a civic space for academic exchange between students and faculty. It is covered by an engineered timber truss derived from the traditional Chinese “lever arch bridge” structure, forming a hybrid space-frame of large spans. This particular approach attempts to find a way to gradually substitute unsustainable reinforced concrete structures.
Curator of the 2019 Shanghai Urban Space Art Season
The Shanghai Urban Space Art Season in 2019 revolved around “waterfront space, and creating a better life.” It presented the cultural connotations and public significance behind the concepts of the “good life” and the “enigma of water.” In addition, it told stories with multi-dimensional displays through the curation of four aspects consisting of historical dimension, academic rigor, cutting-edge technology, and public participation.
