BaO Architects

BaO was invited by the Beijing Design Week to design and build an installation for the 2014 Dashilar BJDW pop-up forum space hosting a series of talks and lectures on the topic of "crafts". In an effort to question the nostalgia that too often accompany the debates on craftsmanship and the associated assumption of a David vs Goliath clash between the traditional and the contemporary, we decided to propose an object that advocates a playful and enthusiastic view on current cultural production: a flashy pink tower.

The “Fly Tower” is a direct response to the debate on craftsmanship and/or/vs mass production. A tower, the contemporary icon par excellence, is jammed right in the middle of a turn-of-century Guild House in historic Dashilar district. What has become the beacon of the industrial global society is here hovering above a space dedicated to a series of events and debates on the notion of crafts in the 21st century. The tension between the contemporary tower and its “art deco’ setting promotes a progressive, optimistic, and uninhibited cross-fertilization between the contemporary and the traditional, craftsmanship and industrialization, preservation and development. The tower rejects nostalgia and embraces the global and metropolitan conditions of heterogeneity as a valid starting point for the discussions on crafts, design, urbanization, and cultural development. The bright pink color of the artifact is a clin d’oeil to pop culture, an invite to the playful subversion of the symbols of mass-production. Pink is pop, pink is funky, pink is kinky!