Publications

---

Racial Discrimination in Tibet (2000)

Discrimination in Housing

"Nationalities Characteristic" Construction

Architecture has for centuries been one of the prime factors bearing witness to cultural pride and expression in societies all around the world. It is the means by which individual creativity may be realized, and a powerful symbol of national identity. Proposed construction of any kind should therefore take this cultural aspect into account, as the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has specified:

"The way housing is constructed, the building materials used and the policies supporting these must appropriately enable the expression of cultural identity and diversity of housing. Activities geared towards development or modernisation in the housing sphere should ensure that the cultural dimensions of housing are not sacrificed."

China continues to insist that it is obeying these guidelines in Tibet, and even asserted to the UN that "In city planning the national traditions and local characteristics of the autonomous regions were preserved." In practice, this "commitment" amounts to the construction of a minimal, token number of Chinese-built "Tibetan-style" dwellings, which are usually nothing more than normal buildings with cheap imitative facades. As the Alliance for Research in Tibet survey found,

"One important design variant for new construction is "nationalities characteristics". These are immediately apparent, marked by faux-Tibetan or hybridized Sino-Tibetan flourishes applied to an otherwise modern building" Such facades are often blatantly superficial. The building surface facing the street is frequently the only one decorated; the rest of the building, as well as its interior, is indistinguishable from any other Chinese building."

These "hollow" houses with "Tibetan-style" facades have also been found to be of far inferior quality to the originals. The Chinese do not use traditional Tibetan thick-walled construction methods, and the resulting poor insulation leads to cold, damp and uncomfortable rooms unsuited to the climate. They are often built in such haste as to also make them structurally unsound, and unlikely to survive for any significant amount of time.

The vast majority of construction in Tibet is anyway exclusively Chinese, and, according to one Tibetan scholar, "demonstrates some of the worst of Chinese modernism and authoritarianism". In Lhasa, long geometric rows of uniform concrete blocks line wide streets dominated by cavernous department stores. Commercial buildings use mirror glass to strive for grand facades, but look alien and completely out of place in the mountainous grandeur of Tibet. Communist propaganda is everywhere, from the flags and banners that criss-cross the shop windows to the inappropriately named "Beijing Road" that acts as the main thoroughfare. The timeless character of Tibetan architecture and heritage is, according to one scholar, ""now being progressively replaced by faceless, monotonous modern structures, which are high cost and deteriorate rapidly in the extreme climate." Indeed, sinicisation is so overwhelming in urban areas that even Chinese commentators have expressed concern:

"While we are pleased with the new achievements, we also have a feeling that the design of new urban areas leaves much to be desired. Except for an occasional glance of the Potala in the distance, we feel as if we are in any medium-sized northern [Chinese] city. Since the Tibetan people have a tradition of building multi-storey houses and a rich history of design and decoration, it should not be too difficult to incorporate their ideas into the design of modern multi-purpose buildings. There is only one Lhasa in this world."