On October 15, the 2021 Bologna, Italy Building Materials Exhibition Trend Viewing Meeting was grandly held at the Ceramic Theater of China Ceramics Headquarters. Five important guests, Yin Hong, Zhu Wei, Chen Gaozhao, Huang Yongcai, and Hanberto, together with more than 300 ceramic people on site, and about 100 colleagues in two sub-venues, Taoqu Live Room and China (Zibo) Ceramics Headquarters, discussed the latest industries in the industry. Gain insight into cutting-edge trends, and further understand the forward-looking layout and innovation of the building ceramics industry under the development trend of diversification, segmentation, and specialization.
The following is a record shared by Huang Yongcai, founder and creative director of RMA Republic City
Let me introduce myself first. My name is Huang Yongcai. I have been immersed in the design industry for 21 years. I have fully entered the design industry for about 6 or 7 years. In fact, design and building materials are closely related, but they seem to be in different dimensions in terms of thinking. What’s interesting today is that as a designer, I’m here to talk about building materials, my own review, and many years of thinking. The topic I share today is: "Apocalypse of the Ages". The word "era" is very important. I focus on what is happening in this era, including consumption, commerce, architecture, art, etc., and some of my personal thoughts.
#01
Architecture
I discuss it in three dimensions. The first one: architecture. I don’t know if you have discovered that the texture of every city is related to the city. The changes in urban texture over the years have a common thread, and the changes in this thread are mainly attributed to everyone here, every ceramics person. Because the urban texture, to put it bluntly, is the surface decoration of buildings.
Mies van der Rohe was the first to propose curtain wall structures. Curtain wall structures are now very common, and many urban building surfaces have this structure. But Mies van der Rohe proposed it at the time, which was of great epochal significance. Through the exploration of steel frame structures and the use of glass in architecture, a style with classical balance and extreme simplicity was developed. A neat and skeletal appearance, a flexible and fluid space, and simple yet exquisitely crafted details are integrated into each other. There is a special beauty that was born out of Bauhaus and stands out from Bauhaus.
With the development of current technology, computer technology, new materials, etc., people's aesthetic trends are also constantly developing. People nowadays hope that design can become a super symbol, like a logo. I hope that I can be recognized and remembered at a glance. The same goes for architectural design. We were also discussing just now, recentlyOver the past few years, many building materials brands have come to us for cooperation, hoping that we can choose their slates. To be honest, as a designer, I don’t have much time to slowly understand which rock slab is good and which rock slab is bad. When I do design, my consistent criterion for selecting products is: they must be recognizable. Let me think of its suitability at the beginning of the design; let me discover it is irreplaceable during the design; let me reflect on its more possibilities after the design.
In addition to the fact that designers themselves require materials to be recognizable, I wonder if you have noticed that more and more buildings themselves are also very recognizable. As long as we mention the name, everyone will definitely think of the recognition and memory. When seeing some current buildings, they will remember it, such as the "Big Pants" designed by Rem Koolhaas. You see, you may not even know who Koolhaas is, but you must know "Big Pants". What Gao Zhao said just now left a deep impression on me: Very few people care about the craftsmanship of the product. More often, consumers care about the personality of the brand, so being recognized is the desire of the times for architecture.
My first case in the industry: "Gangyi", the entire project is 108 meters long and 21 meters deep. The materials used in the exterior are different from those in previous exhibition halls. It is a composite material of stainless steel and electrolysis. There is no concept of "layers" in this project. It is more about folding floors. People can appreciate the products from different dimensions and visions. So you can see that the entire building is a very personalized project, both from the exterior and interior.
#02
Consumption and Cross-border
I opened a restaurant in Guangzhou three years ago, and this restaurant has won Michelin for three consecutive years. But that’s not the reason I want to talk about it, but because this restaurant is the only one that displays not only the dishes but the space on the Michelin website. We always thought that in catering, as long as the dishes are good enough, the business will be fine. But with the addition of young consumers, it is not necessarily the case in this era that everything will be fine if the dishes are good. Nowadays, to operate a product well, good quality is just the basics. We still need to do a lot of things.
Andy Warhol once said: How can you say can painting is not art? Commodities cross borders and become works of art. Daily commodities pass through artists, breaking the boundaries of art. Consumers who use this brand become the protagonist. We must accept a new system and think in a new environment.
Trendy toys and luxury goods, two seemingly unrelated things, have also crossed borders in recent years.Cross-border breakthroughs break the inherent thinking and impact the inherent models of these two categories, but at the same time it also gives birth to more new products, new classes and new users. This is the difference between designers and ordinary consumers. Ordinary consumers may focus on appearance, price, and how to buy. In my opinion, as a designer, this is more often a revelation, a revelation about consumption and cross-border.
For example, if today’s bookstores only sell books, I believe it will be unsustainable. Therefore, more and more libraries are becoming more diverse and more daring to cross boundaries. Selling coffee, flower arrangements, giving lectures, turning it into a comprehensive event venue, etc. Thinking about it from another angle, can ceramics and building materials have similar crossovers? I don’t dare to draw a conclusion, but I hope to raise this issue and discuss it with everyone here. I think crossover is a kind of subversion and revolution. It breaks down classes and redefines one's own colors. It may feel vague and ambiguous, but at the same time it is full of new life and power.
A project I did in 2016 was called "Song·Sichuan Cuisine". The owner hopes to create a cultural restaurant. When I heard it at the time, I thought the idea was very cross-border. At that time, it was also my first time to do catering. How to do this? Take, for example, the facade of this project. In the original plan for the facade, we wanted to use a transparent sphere for the design, but we always felt that it lacked some charm. In the end, we decided to change to glazed feathers, and made a total of 400,000 pieces. These feathers were all completed by ourselves from the beginning of the design and creation. The production process is very complicated, and a variety of materials are used, including glass, colored glaze, ceramics, stone, etc.
We also made 100,000 curved stainless steel bricks. The stainless steel bricks were spray-painted to create a stainless steel with a different feel than before. Many people come in and think it is plywood, but it is not. The hyperboloid surface of stainless steel is stronger. The entire space contains many such unique, cross-border and charming materials.
#03
The starting point of Eastern and Western art
What is the starting point of Eastern and Western art? Or what is the difference between the core values of Eastern and Western art? Westerners pursue logic in "The Last Supper"; "Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains" painted by Easterners emphasizes aesthetic imagination and freehand brushwork.
Back to space, all projects hope to intersperse all moving lines into one event. This requires us to create emotions in the space. But in today's era, everyone's emotions are actually very easy to be mobilized. There is a large amount of forced input of information every day, which can easily cause emotional fatigue. So in this era, we need new thinking. Instead of being like the past, our design strategy should be based on the times and ourselves.
