Personal ethics and aesthetics
Self-cultivation and tactile expression
Recently, interest in this patterned pavements has been renewed in the Jiangnan region. The rapid urban development of the region has resulted in the 'release' of many old building materials and fragments of carvings or engravings. These have then been re-used by architects and designers in public and domestic settings to suggest past taste, though often with a more dramatic degree of contrast. The genre has also been re-explored with fresh materials. In the small canal town of Jinze, not far from Shanghai, HU Xiangcheng has addressed the problem of how to use patterned paving along a large-scale – and monotonous – public pavement. While hard modern soles now limit this to a visual matter rather than a tactile one, Hu’s approach is integrated with the experience of strolling. Echoing our wandering, Hu’s work is episodic, creating striking and varied moments between several meters of plain paving. In this way he balances a sense of interest with moderation in application. His resolution of particular moments is imaginative – such as the integration of the cast metal of a telephone conduit cover, to the extent that its industrial surface pattern almost seems necessary and inevitable. |   |   | |
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| Jinze, near Shanghai Designs by HU Xiangcheng 2001 |