PEOPLE: Future of Finnish design lies with China

Chinese architect Fang Hai lives in Finland and has written more than 20 books about Finnish design and architecture

Fang Hai

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By Hannu Pöppönen
     
      Sixteen years ago Fang Hai boarded a train in China. The train travelled all the way across Siberia and ended up in Helsinki, Finland.
      One of the reasons that brought Fang Hai to Helsinki was Yrjö Kukkapuro, the designer of the iconic Karuselli lounge chair.
      Fang had worked as an architect in China and was employed as a researcher.
      He familiarised himself with the works of the Finnish architects Alvar Aalto and Eliel Saarinen and in the process he also discovered Kukkapuro.
      In Finland, at the first opportunity, Fang walked into a company called Avarte, which manufacturers the furniture designed by Kukkapuro.
      “I said that I was from China and that I wanted to meet Yrjö Kukkapuro. The director was unfazed and said that that could be arranged. I duly met Kukkapuro and we became good friends.”
      Fang asked Kukkapuro if he would like to penetrate into the Chinese market. The answer was yes. Since then the duo has been working for example on a bamboo furniture range for the Chinese market.
     
In recent years Fang, 48, has worked both in China and in Finland.
      In China he has helped local universities to develop their design programmes. While doing so he has written more than 20 books about Finnish design and architecture for the Chinese market. Apart from Kukkapuro, his books have introduced for example Eero Aarnio (creator among other things of the famous acrylic-framed "ball chair") to Chinese readers.
      Fang has also helped Finnish architects to find employment in China. He has acted as a consultant for example for Pekka Salminen, whose architectural office PES Architects has designed the Grand Theater for the Wuxi Opera [a.k.a. the Xiwen Opera], soon to be completed in Wuxi, a city of 6 million in the southeast of China.
      “Fang Hai’s importance as the forger of these Chinese links cannot be overemphasised. I believe that without him Finnish design and architecture would still be virtually unknown in China”, Salminen praises his friend in an email to Helsingin Sanomat.
      Fang also has a joint office in Beijing with Vesa Honkonen, who acted as the project architect for Kiasma, Helsinki’s Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by the American Stephen Holl.
      Honkonen has designed a church which is currently being built in China.
      According to Finnish architects, Fang is very respected in China because of his international connections.
     
In Fang, Finnish design and architecture have a visible spokesman in China, but things could have gone very differently.
      Originally Fang was supposed to go to the United States but his visa application was turned down.
      During the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, Fang was teaching at the Nanjing University. Together with his students, Fang took part in the demonstrations and was subsequently blacklisted.
      “Partly it was a misunderstanding, partly it was just stupid Chinese politics”, Fang explains.
      “Many of us teachers supported the students. A good friend of mine, who was politically active, asked me if I could hold his flag for a second. I took it and I was soon transported to the police station. The authorities jumped to the conclusion that I was one of the rebel leaders.”
      Travel restrictions were imposed on Fang for the next five years, and it was precisely during this time that he familiarised himself with Finnish design.
     
Fang has big plans for the cooperation between Finnish and Chinese designers and industries.
      At the beginning of September he will start as a rector of the Guangdong University of Technology in Guangzhou, which is one of the largest cities in China. Nokia also has a large production plant in the area.
      The university has around 50,000 students enrolled, and Fang will start heading its School of Arts Design. Fang has already hired Vesa Honkonen as a professor for the university. He plans to bring in Finnish designers as teachers and to create an exchange programme for students.
     
More than a hundred people applied for the Guangzhou job, but none of them were good enough for the university. Instead, the decision-makers started to coax Fang into accepting the job, but it took them six months to turn his head.
      He is currently on the research staff of the Aalto University's School of Art and Design.
      Fang's daughter goes to an upper-level comprehensive school in Helsinki, and his wife has a job at the Chinese Embassy in Finland. They do not wish to move to China.
      Fang reckons that in the future he will be spending half of each year in each country.
      In Fang’s view, Finnish design has a bright future in China.
      “I am almost certain that Finland has very good chances, if the work is commenced immediately. Finnish design already has a good reputation over there.”
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 28.8.2011


Links:
  PES-Architects
  Vesa Honkonen Architects
  Guangdong University of Technology
  Studio Kukkapuro
  Avarte
  Eero Aarnio (Wikipedia)

HANNU PÖPPÖNEN / Helsingin Sanomat
hannu.popponen@hs.fi