The emergence of state-owned design institutes

In 1957, Chen Zhanxiang, a British-trained urban planner and deputy chief architect of the Beijing Institute of Architectural Design, published a dazibao (a handwritten, wall-mounted poster using large-sized Chinese characters) during the Hundred Flowers Campaign, claiming that the bureaucratic system of state-owned design institutes reduced architectural design to noncreative, manual work. Chen argued that architectural production in design institutes was subjugated to quotas, codes, and standardized details and approaches. Even if these requirements were used to improve production efficiency, the intervention and scrutiny from various sectors and officials constrained architects’ autonomy and creativity. This was an unusually out-spoken criticism of design institutes, which unfortunately resulted in disaster for his professional career. Later he was labeled a “rightist” and sent to a labor camp for thought-reform.