Chinese Vaulted Avant-Garde Architecture: Materials and Tectonics as Design Tools for the Pursuit of Monumentality

This essay aims to investigate the design reasons behind the use of vaulted systems in avant-garde architecture built in China in the past ten years. Such use is normally made for compositional and formal purposes, often beyond a structural or construction logic, and with the purpose of achieving a monumental character in terms of space definition. Iconic buildings conceived with substantially different vaulted systems, such as the Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum (made of rein- forced masonry), the UCCA Dune Art Museum (made of reinforced concrete), or the covered area of Shangcun village (made of bamboo), thus allow a systemization of particular theoretical fundamentals within the context of the contemporary architectural design, analysed in terms of the tectonics/built space relationship, and in the light of a design culture and practice founded on construction brought to the table by Chinese avant-garde architects in recent years. This analysis is also finalized to better understand and interpret the design process that leads to avant-garde architecture within the complex Chinese professional sphere, questioning and broadening the debate around the Western concept of monumentality in contemporary architecture.