Poetics of Space

How often in everyday life do we think about our experience of the buildings and structures that surround us, like the house where we live, the office where we work or the many other structures that we pass through in a day?

According to the French philosopher and author of The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), people don't actually think about the spaces in which they find themselves, at least not in the same way they think about other things like the washing up or the taste of honey, but rather respond to them at a deeper, instinctual level. This Bachelard maintains, is because people crave spaces that inspire them to daydream.

Commune By The Great Wall, a privately owned architectural exhibit of 12 buildings in the Shuiguan Valley, outside Beijing, is a place that offers just this kind of inspiration.

If you take a moment to stop and think about buildings, structures or spaces in which you feel most comfortable, it's not hard to come up with quite strong feelings, but almost invariably difficult to say why. This is because are often not conscious of our immediate surroundings as we rush about our daily business, moving swiftly from one space to another. But every now and then we long for ways to free ourselves of the things that restrict us and it's in architecture that we so frequently seek refuge, to those special places.

Commune by The Great Wall describes itself as "a private collection of contemporary architecture" and is the product of the inspired patronage of young entrepreneur and urban visionary, Zhang Xin. Part of the dynamic development duo behind SOHO China, with Pan Shiyi, Zhang Xin won the special prize at the 2002 Venice Biennale for her "bold personal initiative" in commissioning the work of 12 Asian architects in the first phase of an ongoing development project to build houses around the Shuiguan Great Wall.

Much written about, SOHO (Small Office Home Office) China gets very favourable press for being a driven and sexy urban-development organization that is so far unaligned to China's hurried rush for expansion, which commentators are apt to call "vulgar" and "post-modern". Jianwai SOHO, designed by Japanese architect, Riken Yamamoto is their latest Beijing development that opened on the 25th April to much anticipated applause. Further projects likely to catch the headlines involve collaborative projects with Zaha Hadid Architects and Peter Davidson. SOHO New Town, an urban business and housing complex, is an established part of the cityscape.

At Commune in the Shuiguan Valley, there are eleven separate four to six-bedroom houses on view and each is available for rent. There is a clubhouse that provides catering for the compound and further space for recreation that includes a 200-hundred seater restaurant, a ballroom that opens out into a swimming pool and other spaces for entertaining and relaxtion

Along with buildings, there are also ideas (and contradictions) that seem to accompany Commune By The Great Wall.  To start, there is the word "Commune". As in "to commune with nature", the word evokes heightened receptivity and intimate communication, that doesn't seem out of place.  Then there is the unmistakable but playfully ironic subtext that might include the Paris Commune of 1792, and the enormous revolutionary appeal of the brief socialist government in Paris in1871. But in what context ironic? And again, an oblique connection to the revolutionary thinking behind  20th century Modernism, a movement in the West, concerned with the opening up of traditional ideas in all the arts and explicitly associated with the 'design for living' architecture of Modernists, Le Corbusier (Villa Savoie - 1929-31) and Walter Gropius (The Bauhaus - 1925-26).  Commune though is very clearly for the well heeled and this elitism jars with the ideas its name conjures with, not representing much of mass appeal. Perhaps that's irony for you, or perhaps since its hidden away, it isn't trying to be clever in that way.  In any event it's definitely very smart. Playful, knowing, elitist, artistic and gorgeous might be words used to describe it. The name may point to grand historical gestures but there is no doubting the confident presence of the Commune By The Great Wall in the Shuiguan Valley

For someone outside the architecture profession, built space can be a puzzle to interpret even though everyone has an opinion on how a space makes them feel. Gaston Bachelard comments that everyone uses space in a different way. People use less public space to reinforce memory and enable new personal narratives by daydreaming about the possibilities of personal experience. It is, he says, a kind of poetic practice, where language imaginatively blends architectural space and personal history. One thing is for sure, Commune is a place that privileges the extent of that combined experience over all others.

Placed with passive resistance to the landscape, the houses of Commune are spaces contrived to be homes away from homes but not entirely. Specially arranged music reinforce the house's comfort zones and each offers different views, very different feelings and a range of architectural experiences. Other peoples homes perhaps.

Certainly a place to daydream, a brief meander through the project is stimulating and awe inspiring. The houses have the simple and naturalized names you would expect:  Cantilever or Red House, The Twins, Forest House, Split House, Bamboo Wall and Distorted Courtyard, Suitcase House, Furniture House, "See" and "Seen" House and Airport, and The Shared House. There are the influences you also might expect, both culturally and theoretically, with architects coming from China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, with one woman, from Thailand, amongst the group.

Expensive lifestyle radiates from these somewhat difficult and puzzling architectural forms and that is certainly part of the charm of Commune as well as another of its contradictions. Architecture that demonstrates its origins from the "design for living" function of Modernism, as some of this does, is in danger of evoking its theme.

In the light of what Bachelard maintains about space shaping experience, it is no surprise to discover that each house is described as having a personality: some strong, some contemplative, some withdrawn and so on. Each personality is also informed by a view of the Great Wall, interestingly, acting - as it does elsewhere in representation - as the presence and relationship of tradition in China. Easy to forget where you are, the Wall runs in and out of sight along the hilltops, and around the edges of the Shuiguan Valley. In late May, the area turns verdant green overnight.

Occasionally on view to organized tours and members of the public, both the compound and the houses have security that restricts unauthorized access. On a short visit it is worth experiencing and taking a look at the optical hygiene of the white bamboo Furniture House, the horizontal embrasures and solid wooden beds of The Twins and the steps and view from the Cantilever or Red House.

Each space has all the possibilities of a unique story and choosing which to rent may need some careful counsel. It is likely that the poised and beautiful Sophie Guo, General Manager of Commune By The Great Wall will be the person to give this advice. Although tight-lipped about which dignitaries and low-key rich stay there, she does say that Commune is keen to develop the clubhouse into a space promoting cultural events such as sculpture installations and book launches out on the terrace in the warmer seasons.

The Great Wall is a short distance up a dusty path, some minutes from the clubhouse, and supervised walks are available on request. But you don't need to be Manolo Blahnik to know that dust and rough terrain will easily disappoint a woman in a fashionable shoe. So, in the right attire, the walk will take you passed wonderful plum blossom, hovering just out of reach, to high above and the Great Wall.

Zhang Xin, the project's patron says that "Architecture is about poetry, and for that very reason architects are poets". Gaston Bachelard might well agree with her. He says: "The house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace."

And this is certainly true of Commune By The Great Wall.

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For further information telephone: +86 10 8118-1888 or visit the reservation page at www.commune.com.cn or www.sohochina.com.