In a second-floor office in the archi-tecture department of the mainland's most prestigious university, Professor Xu Weiguo sits contemplating the changes that have occurred since he enrolled here, in the first year that classes were resumed following the Cultural Revolution.
'Architecture and design stopped from 1966 to 1978,' explains the head of Tsinghua University's School of Architecture. 'The first professors back were educated in the UK, the USA and Russia. They brought knowledge of postmodernism, deconstructionism and other new styles.'
The school has expanded significantly - 1,100 students study here today - yet the mainland's reputation as an incubator of young, talented architects has barely grown over the past few decades; the country is still seen as being strong on engineers but weak on creative designers.
'As the quantity of architecture work increased from the end of the 1980s, many problems occurred in terms of designers not striving for higher quality,' says Xu. 'As long as it could be built, it was. But the situation is changing. Chinese architects are developing and maturing and good young architects are coming through.'
Not everyone is as optimistic.
'There is a reason why there are just a few domestically trained Chinese architects in the top ranks in China,' says Liu Xiaodu, principal architect at Shenzhen-headquartered architectural firm Urbanus. 'Tsinghua is great for solid technical training, but the best students must then go out to be exposed to Western styles and training.'
