Commentary by Lam Kong Chuen*
Place, Culture, Time – Design for High-quality Development in China, Selected Architectural Works by He Jingtang and his team
From July 15 to August 16, 2026, the A2 Gallery of Albergue SCM in Macau hosted the exhibition “Place, Culture, Time - Design for High-quality Development in China, Selected Architectural Works by He Jingtang** and his team”.
This marked the first time that the representative works of Academician He Jingtang’s team were collectively presented in Macau, and also the first time the team was invited to exhibit in the city. At Albergue SCM – a cultural space steeped in the architectural memory of Macau’s historic quarter –the exhibited works unfolded through models, images, and graphic panels: from the Guangzhou Branch of the China National Archives of Publications and Culture to the Bai’etan Greater Bay Area Art Center, from the Haixin Bridge to the Nanyue King Museum, from the China Pavilion at Expo 2010 Shanghai to the Wenchuan Earthquake Epicenter Memorial Hall. Together, they compose a visual epic of contemporary Chinese architecture.
The choice of venue itself constitutes a significant dialogue. Albergue SCM, as a landmark cultural space in Macau’s St. Lazarus District, carries an architectural memory woven from Portuguese and Lingnan influences. The works of He Jingtang’s team, in turn, are defined by the harmonious integration of regionality, culture, and contemporaneity. Their encounter feels like a trans-temporal inquiry into the very essence of architecture.
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He Jingtang has distilled from extensive architectural practice the theory of Two Concepts and Three Features (兩觀三性): architectural design must establish a holistic view and a sustainable development view, while embodying the harmonious unity of regionality, culture, and contemporaneity. Regionality is the foundation upon which architecture subsists; culture determines the content and quality of architecture; and contemporaneity manifests the spirit and evolution of architecture.
This theory appears succinct yet carries profound Eastern philosophical underpinnings. The holistic view resonates with the traditional Chinese cosmological concept of “Tian Ren He Yi” (“Unity of Heaven and Humanity”) – architecture is not an isolated object, but an organism shaped by environment, climate, and human culture. The sustainable development view transcends the modernist dogma of “form follows function” by situating architecture within the continuum of time, contemplating its relationship with the future. The dialectical synthesis of the three characteristics offers a distinctly Chinese response to the global question of how architecture can maintain its cultural identity amid the tides of globalisation.
He Jingtang once remarked: “Architecture must be grounded. A good building is one that can simultaneously integrate place, culture, and time.” This emphasis on being grounded precisely highlights the fundamental difference between his theory and Western architectural discourse – it is not a top-down philosophical deduction, but a bottom-up crystallisation of practice.
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Every work in the exhibition materialises the theory of Two Concepts and Three Features.
The China Pavilion at Expo 2010 Shanghai is undoubtedly the most dazzling chapter. Conceived as the Crown of the East, its layered “dougong” (interlocking wooden brackets; literally: “cap and arch”) symbolise the granary of the world, showcasing the grandeur of a great nation. Yet its deeper value extends far beyond visual impact – the elevated, layered dougong structure provides shade for queuing visitors in summer while allowing sunlight to filter in during winter; the three-metre elevated void enables natural ventilation, making the building remarkably energy-efficient. Regionality (the cultural symbol of Chinese dougong), culture (the historical metaphor of the “granary of the world”), and contemporaneity (the integration of modern energy-saving technologies) are fused into a seamless whole.
The Guangzhou Branch of the China National Archives of Publications and Culture offers another interpretation of the Two Concepts and Three Features in cultural architecture. Located at the foot of Fenghuang Mountain in Conghua, a northern district of Guangzhou, it synthesises Chinese canonical forms with Lingnan characteristics, translating traditional Lingnan construction techniques into a modern idiom from perspectives of ritual-music spatial order, national grandeur, and regional climate response. The building deftly handles the spatial narrative of the traditional Chinese central axis while addressing the ventilation and shading demands of Lingnan’s humid and hot climate – here, regionality is no longer a stylistic appropriation but a deep engagement with spatial logic.
The Haixin (“Heart of the Sea”) Bridge in Guangzhou – the world’s longest and widest curved-beam, inclined-arch pedestrian bridge –responds to the call of contemporaneity through extreme engineering exploration. Meanwhile, the Nanyue King Museum demonstrates the reverence for time inherent in the sustainable development view through its respectful preservation of a historic archaeological site. From the Shenzhen Science Museum at the forefront of China’s reform and opening-up to the new University of Macau (UM) Hengqin campus; from the National Archives safeguarding the seeds of Chinese civilisation to the Bai’etan Greater Bay Area Art Centre hailed as a “cultural giant ship” – these works together trace a clear intellectual trajectory: He Jingtang’s team does not merely design buildings; they grow them –growing from the soil of place, from the roots of culture, and from the conditions of the times.
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Placing He Jingtang within the global coordinate system of architectural theory renders his unique value more distinct.
Álvaro Siza’s Modern Regionalism pursues an architectural grammar grounded in environment, climate, and human culture, while opposing a culture of decorative image-reproduction. Together with Eduardo Souto de Moura, Siza emphasizes the integration of human history, landscape, and architectural form. This resonates profoundly with He Jingtang’s principle that “regionality is the foundation upon which architecture subsists” – both reject reducing region to a stylistic label, instead understanding it as a deep relational network. Yet the differences are equally notable: Siza’s regionalism tends to manifest as a poetic, individualized response to the site, whereas He Jingtang’s regionalism carries a stronger collective narrative dimension – his architecture not only belongs to a place but also tells the story of that place, carrying collective memory and national identity.
Rem Koolhaas represents another extreme. His concern has never been regionalism, but globalization. Koolhaas uses the concept of the Generic City to describe an urban landscape that is increasingly losing its identity and becoming homogenized. In his view, regionalism tends to emerge for personal reasons and lacks durability. He Jingtang and Koolhaas form an intriguing counterpoint – the former believes that region, culture, and time can be harmoniously unified, while the latter contends that globalization is erasing these differences. Yet He Jingtang’s practice proves precisely that, in an age of irreversible globalization, regionality need not passively retreat, but can become an active, creative strategy of response. The Guangzhou Branch of the China National Archives of Publications and Culture deploys the most modern construction technologies while being deeply rooted in the land and cultural context of Lingnan – this stands as a powerful rebuttal to Koolhaas’s Generic City thesis.
Herzog & de Meuron open yet another path. They eschew complex meanings and return to the ontological essence of architecture, focusing on material and tectonics. Rooted in European tradition while integrating contemporary technologies, their return-to-essence approach contrasts sharply with He Jingtang’s emphasis on cultural symbolism and historical narrative. If Herzog & de Meuron’s architecture is a subtraction – stripping away meaning to let material and construction speak for themselves – then He Jingtang’s architecture is an addition – allowing multiple layers of regional, cultural, and contemporary significance to superimpose, interweave, and resonate within the building. Neither is superior; they represent two distinct value orientations within the discipline.
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An architectural exhibition can itself be a spatialization of theory. This exhibition, in its own right, constituted a performative enactment of architectural theory. In its curatorial approach, 3D-printed models were juxtaposed with photographs and drawings, presenting not only the object dimension of architecture (form, space, material) but also the intellectual dimension (design process, theoretical reasoning).
Albergue SCM, with its richly textured historical setting, formed a homologous relationship with He Jingtang’s works that respond to history and context – the exhibition space itself became a metaphor for the Two Concepts and Three Features: region (Macau’s historic quarter), culture (the cultural memory of Albergue SCM), and contemporaneity (the curatorial language of a contemporary exhibition) converged here.
He Jingtang once said: “When one’s personal development keeps pace with the times, and when one persists with relentless effort, success will follow.” This statement is not only a summary of his own fate, but also a portrait of Chinese architecture over the past four decades.
The Two Concepts and Three Features is not a closed theoretical system, but an open mode of thinking. It invites architects to engage with the specific conditions of each project – studying local history, customs, climate, and developmental circumstances – and to tailor designs to local conditions, guided by the situation, and “custom-made” to suit diverse design contexts and backgrounds. In the context of China’s pursuit of high-quality development, the value of this theory lies not only in its guidance of a body of outstanding architectural works, but also in its provision of a possibility for architecture to simultaneously respond to land, culture, and time.
From Guangzhou to Macau, from Yuexiu Park in Guangzhou to Albergue SCM, the exhibition of He Jingtang’s team crossed geographic boundaries and cultural frontiers alike. It allowed the Macau audience – residents of this city where East and West meet – to witness up close how a Chinese master architect uses stone and concrete to inscribe the spirit of a nation’s time. This is perhaps architecture’s most fundamental power: it is not about stylistic debates, not about technological competitions, but about how humanity dwells poetically upon this Earth.
*Lam Kong Chuen, born in 1985 in Guangdong, is a contemporary artist, architect, art critic, film director, writer and poet. He currently serves as Partner at L&C Architecture. - Albergue SCM
** He Jingtang (born 1938, Dongguan, Guangdong) is a highly influential architect and a Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He serves as the Honorary Dean of the School of Architecture at the South China University of Technology. His most famous works include the China Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, the expansion of the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre, and venues for the 2008 Beijing Olympic. – DeepSeek
N.B. Article edited and footnotes added by the Post
P.S. The Post published an article on the exhibition on July 16, 2026, headlined New Albergue SCM exhibition spotlights He Jingtang & team -
https://www.macaupostdaily.com/news/28799
Architect and academician He Jingtang (centre) introduces one of the exhibits ahead of the opening ceremony of his exhibition “Place, Culture, Time – Design for High-quality Development in China, Selected Architectural Works by He Jingtang and his team” at Algergue SCM on July 15. – Photo: Rui Pastorin
