6TH EDITION ★ 28 FEBRUARY - 30 MARCH 2025
★ GHENT ★
Talks & Live Podcast
The Image of China in Chinese Architecture
Tahoe Qingyun Town / Shanghai Tianhua architectural design. Image Courtesy of Schran Image.
"China is developing at unprecedented speed. The country has to cope with rapid social cultural change, huge economic expectations and a political system that has to adept accordingly. Architecture is a major discipline that is actively involved in the shaping of these changes."
Talks
Mieke Matthyssen “China in a Nutshell: Society, Language, and Culture, and its Influence on Architecture.”
Martijn de Geus “The Image of Chinese thinking in Chinese Architecture - past and present.”
Roundtable
Live recording VRT podcast China voorbij de muur
Host-journalists Veerle De Vos & Tom Van de Weghe dive deeper in the talks of Mieke Matthyssen and Martijn de Geus, and exchange different perspectives with cultural anthropologist Ching Lin Pang & Belgian architect Frederiek Ampe followed by a Q&A with the audience.
Minard
Sunday 30 March
15:30
In Dutch
Tickets on sale
Monday 3 February
€ 20 / € 9 (students) / UiTPAS kansentarief
Who's Who
Mieke Matthyssen
Mieke Matthyssen is lecturer in Modern Chinese at the Department of Chinese Language and Culture at Ghent University. After having studied and worked in China for many years, her research deals with Chinese health strategies, wisdoms of life, and the interaction between tradition and modernity, while adopting a multidisciplinary approach in linguistic anthropology, intellectual history, philosophy and Chinese indigenous psychology. Her starting point is always language, drawing on Chinese literature, interviews, life stories, but also official discourse and social media. Her current research focuses on how dealing with (Chinese) fate contributes to mental and physical wellbeing, what role traditional wisdom from the Chinese Classics plays in alleviating moral and psychological problems, and how traditional views on aging relate to social, economic and political changes in modern China, and how older people experience these changes.
Martijn de Geus
Martijn de Geus is an award-winning architect, living and working in Bejing since 2010. He is a tenure-track associate professor and doctoral supervisor at Tsinghua University's School of Architecture, deputy director of the ENglish Master of Architecture Program (EPMA), and the 2022 Dutch Young Architect of the Year. As co-founder of maison H/汉荷设计, Marijn combines his academic work with real-life projects.
Martijn finished his PhD and Master's degree under Chinese master architect Li Xiaodong at Tsinghua University, after being trained as an architect at TU Delft in the Netherlands. He built his first building at age 19, after winning the 'who comes after Rem Koolhaas' competition in 2005. His recent representative projects include the Tsinghua University Student Service Center Regeneration (2021), the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Museum design (2018), Food Forest at Apenheul Primate Park (2020), Zhangjiakou Village regeneration (2019), Courtyard Renovation at Baitasi (2018).
Ching Lin Pang
Prof. Dr. Ching Lin Pang is trained in multiple disciplines, including Oriental Philology, Asian Studies, and Anthropology, across various continents (Belgium, Hong Kong, China, and UC Berkeley, US). She is currently the coordinator of the Chinese language group and the academic director of the Asia-Europe Cultural Curatorship Studies Program in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Antwerp. Additionally, she teaches the course "China and Global Politics" at KU Leuven.
Over time, she has developed into an interdisciplinary anthropologist working at the intersection of anthropology, cultural studies, material culture, and curating studies. Beyond her full-time academic role, she is actively involved in curating practices for public museums and private galleries. Her goal is to connect academic research with museums, art and cultural organizations, and art galleries through collaborations and publications.
Ching Lin Pang is currently curator of the expo 'Familiegeluk: a history of the Chinese Community' in Antwerp.
Frederiek Ampe
Frederiek Ampe is an Ir. Architect, working alongside Lies Trybou, manager at ampe.trybou architects. Frederiek first traveled to China in 2013 to visit a friend and explore the architecture of amateur studios. The experience was surprisingly positive and deeply impactful. Since then, he has made several trips to China, most recently in 2024, as a supervisor of an architectural trip for Archipelago vzw, sharing his love for the country and its culture.
Veerle De Vos
Veerle De Vos is a journalist at VRT NWS. China has fascinated her since the 1990s, when she lived there for 2 years and worked as an English teacher at a university in Wuhan. About that period she wrote the book 'In elke rivier schijnt een maan' together with a Chinese friend. In 2023 she published ‘Alles onder de hemel. Ferdinand Verbiest en de ontdekking van China’, about the first meeting between China and the West.
Tom Van de Weghe
Tom Van de Weghe is a VRT journalist specializing in China and Asia. He learned Chinese and in 2007 founded the first correspondent bureau from Beijing. For five years he reported for VRT on the most important events and developments in the region. Van de Weghe became America correspondent and bureau chief in Washington DC until 2016. In recent years, as a research fellow at Stanford University, he has investigated the impact of technology on geopolitical relations between China, Europe and the US.
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