This coming Thursday, 4 May, KLICSTUDIO boards a plane to China once again. We were there last October on a trade mission alongside Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos, Planho Consultores and Francisco Torres Arquitectos. It ran under the Extenda programme of Andalusia’s regional export agency (Agencia Andaluza de Promoción Exterior), an initiative to promote Spanish architecture in China — specifically the contemporary work being built in the south of Spain.
On that first trip, Juan Goñi Uriarte travelled representing both Klicstudio and Bm2 Arquitectos, as specialists in sports architecture. Over nine days we took part in lectures, interviews and round tables at universities in Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing. We also saw the work of several local architects at first hand, notably Atelier Liu Yuyang and Zhang Lei. Both give a fair measure of how high the standard of the profession runs there. We listened to our fellow travellers too, and presented our own work to staff and students at those universities.
This next trip lasts ten days. Juan Goñi returns to Nanjing as a visiting professor on a workshop at the Nanjing School of Architecture and Urban Planning, swapping ideas with its students and teaching staff.
We are setting off with plenty of energy, and we hope this trip proves as productive as the last one. That mixture of contrasts in Chinese culture rewards paying attention, and we intend to.
As ever, you can follow the trip through Klicstudio’s Twitter account, @_klicstudio.
