Structural Expressionism of a Tall Building as a Metaphor of National Identity: China as a Case Study

Abstract

In the 1960's the spread of expressionless architecture of tedious uniformity was restrained by emerging movements that encouraged a wide variety of expressions. Derived from contrasting movements, two of these expressions are especially compelling — structural expressionism and metaphors of national identity. Since an architectural concept combining this pair of expressions is nonexistent among the world's one hundred tallest buildings, the aim of this paper is to demonstrate that in the architectural concept of a tall building structural expressionism can be double-coded as a metaphor of national identity. With China as a case study, the qualitative method to test this premise was the development of a vision of a tall building merging these two means of expression. The results suggest that architectural concepts of tall buildings combining structural expressionism with metaphors of national identity can express the world's contrasting cultures with a variety of visually vivid structures.