For many years, the Chinese, as proud disciples of Confucius, referred to their home as "hanshe" or the "cold and humble shack." The phrase was intended to describe an elegant and even poetic sort of virtuous living (see above photo, which I collected for inspiration long ago), but for most of the last century, China, the developing nation of the 3rd world order, exhibited many actually cold and humble shacks (see below snapshot of a coffee house from my birth city of Chongqing).
Money is hardly the barrier for many Chinese now. While the rest of the world continues to wallow in an economical slowdown that doesn't seem to shine a light at the end of the tunnel, all the major Chinese cities are seeing record spending on everything related to the home. But what is the money buying? Starved for color and glitz, many interiors of the 90s and early 2010s are a combination of both to the extreme.
Check out the gilded molding and tassels!
Even the art world had gone the way of no restraint with the development of "yangsu," meaning gaudy, as an actual art form.
(Art by: 常徐功)
Beauty is of course in the eyes of the beholder, but perhaps the beholders in this case haven't had enough opportunities to see all the beauty that is out there to judge for themselves what is truly beautiful. And that's where this blog comes in. It's a place where a group of chic commentators from various disciplines of design and all that surrounds it (e.g., architecture, interior design, brand marketing, real estate, etc.) come together to discuss what is beautiful to them personally. It is the hope of this blog that these uniquely personal perspectives on chic shacks and other elements of design would inspire its audience to develop their own perspectives.
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