In order to commemorate the first anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake, to bring a broad range of social concern for reconstruction in the disaster affected areas, to raise awareness of disaster prevention and mitigation, and to protect of life and environment, the National Art Museum of China hosted an exhibition entitled “Crossing: Dialogues for Emergency Architecture”, which held its grand opening on the afternoon of May 12. This exhibition is organized by the United Nations Development Programme, the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China and the National Art Museum of China, and supported by the School of Architecture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. This exhibition opened on the first anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake, as well as on the first National Disaster Prevention and Relief Day, in order to highlight its significance. The exhibition will run through the 24th at the National Art Museum in Beijing.

The exhibition invited 16 domestic and internationally renounced architectural teams from Peru, Chile, France, Finland, Norway, Mexico, Iceland, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, the United States and China. Targeting different natural disasters (such as earthquakes and hurricanes) and social disasters (such as epidemic diseases and homelessness), they designed feasible, efficient, safe, beautiful and user-friendly and more humanitarian emergency shelters, forming a magnificent scene at the museum. With a global vision, their works actively addressed issues of environmental protection and humanitarian care after disaster from the perspectives of architecture, design, art, education, humanities, science and technology. 

The exhibition is divided into several sections in accordance with the time progression after the disaster, and matches each time period with appropriate designs of emergency architecture. When the viewers first enter the exhibition, they have to pass through a narrow corridor, where they are confronted with towering vertical reclining panels on both sides, which is reminiscent of the terror and grief of the collapsed buildings in Wenchuan earthquake. Entering into the first exhibition hall, the space is shown as if the ceiling, ground and four walls had all collapsed. Under the "collapsed" wall, the first work in the exhibition, three "earthquake tables" designed by Martino d’Esposito and ECAL are there to shelter the victims temporarily and to wait for the arrival of rescue soon after an earthquake has hit.  Then, the viewers enter into a second space, where emergency constructions can be built within a week’s time by local people and using local soil, sand bags, paper, bamboo and other simple local materials and resources. These emergency shelters are exemplified by designs made by Leondelima architecture firm (from Peru), architect Smiljan Radic Clarke (from Chile), Cal-Earth Institute (from USA) and A4 (from China). Along with these shelters, a design by Song Xie Wei + Han Tao + Xi Xiaojing (from China) created an economical and easy to use light source that does not rely on electricity, dealing with the situation where there is no lighting at night under the emergency measures.

Then, viewers will enter into a conceptual space, where they first see a grand plastic house designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. The ingenuity involves stretching a two-dimensional plane into three-dimensional space. Adjacent to this is the design by IK studio in the US, which is an isolation ward that is specifically designed to address global epidemic diseases. The recently occurring influenza, H1/N1, reflects the importance of such foresight. Tham & Videg?rd Hansson, PRODUCTORA and Rintala Eggertsson Architects aim to design housing that will host victims from one month to as long as many years after the disaster; this includes such things as building a long-term sustainable housing community, solving problems of the water supply, and other long-term planning.  Sichuan architect Liu Jiakun’s "renewable brick" provided building construction materials for both short-term and long-term housing needs. Later, viewers enter into the most lighthearted exhibition space of the entire exhibition, where a copy of an elementary school that has already been built in Si Chuan is constructed here by Keio University Ban and Matsubara lab. + Southwest Jiaotong University, using recycled paper tubs. Children who visit this exhibition are invited to experience this construction themselves, and sympathize with the children of their ages in the disaster regions. French architectural teams EH & GS designed a mobile home for the homeless, addressing social problems with a positive outlook and joyful manner. This is the last exhibition hall, and visitors come out of museum space, bringing with them a sense of hope. They then step onto the bridge designed and built by the School of Architecture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts under director Lu Pinjing, entitled “Crossing,” echoing the title of the exhibition, signifying the theme “crossing from the danger to safety.”  Standing on the bridge, one can see the red roof of OBRA’s emergency house, which looks like a Red Cross seen from the sky, emphasizing its purpose of emergency and life-saving. Gonzalo Puga and Osvaldo Sotomayor designed a red balloon as a public meeting place, the balloon, floating on the square, bringing our hopes for post-disaster reconstruction to a new height. By making emergency designs for each stage of the aftermath of disaster, the exhibition shows the healing process from danger to safety, from pain and grief to hope and joy.

The works in this exhibition reflect not only the practical qualities of emergency architecture—such as environmental friendly, energy saving, local materials, convenient transportation, low cost, and ease of building—but also architecture’s humanistic significance. Some of these works are designed to target particular geographical environments, such as deserts, extreme cold or earthquake prone landscapes. Others are a response to a specific natural or social disaster, as in the cases of the earthquake table designed for self-help, the isolation rooms for epidemic diseases, and the mobile “home” for homeless people. Still other designs have a more universal application, and can be applied to a wide range of situations. Many of the emergency architectural designs are "open" systems, lacking pre-defined forms in order to allow disaster victims to transform the structure to suit their specific needs—not unlike an organic ecosystem. Such architectural designs and their environments have a relationship of interdependence. According to environmental conditions and the disaster’s characteristics, the structure can be completely altered, reconstructed and transformed.

This exhibition also goes beyond signifying practical and humanitarian qualities. It seeks to highlight emergency architecture’s artistic and organic characteristics. There are many similarities shared between art and architecture, the most important of which is the spiritual experience that accompanies the best examples of works found in both fields. A successful building creates a unique atmosphere, affects people’s mood and influences their spirit. The beneficial role of art and beauty, particularly during post-disaster situations, is something that cannot be ignored. Architects can utilize the various forms of art and beauty to create happy, warm and joyful environments for post-disaster victims, which in turn help the victims to see beyond the harsh reality in which they suffer.

In order to facilitate greater interaction with the public, we invited the public to build the exhibited structures together with the architects during the opening ceremony. This collaboration further helped the public to appreciate the unique features of emergency architecture and highlighted the overall importance of architecture in our everyday world. To let more children experience emergency architecture, the Public Education Department of our museum has also organized a series of educational activities to coincide with the exhibition. One of the designs featured is an actual elementary school classroom of the kind built and used in the Sichuan disaster region. Children who visit the museum will have the opportunity to enter the classroom and experience school life in it. We have also collaborated with the LEGO group to create a special interactive exhibit that allows children to construct an ideal home from within their imagination. This exhibition is also accompanied by an international symposium which gathered national and international scholars to discuss important issues relating to environmental protection, humanitarian concerns and post-disaster reconstruction.

Director of the National Art Museum of China Mr. Fan Di’an remarked: “This exhibition aims to promote the essence of humanitarian concerns combined with creativity. It encourages the use of creativity and imagination, our greatest source of strength, to transform the most painful of human realities into a positive fight against natural disasters. We hope through this exhibition that we can reach out and gather together our fellow countrymen who continue to be affected by disasters, and help them in their crossing to a better and more beautiful future.”