Self Iterating of Mountain City
by Tianhu Yuan
portfolio special mention call 'Urbanautica Institute Awards 2025', 2025
Category: Representations of Space, Architecture, and Conflicts
Chongqing, distinguished by its formidable mountainous topography, presents a distinct paradigm of urbanization.
A traditional neighbourhood is demolished to make way for bustling shopping districts. People are digging tunnels and building bridges to build railways, leaving behind the mountains and rivers that once defined the city's character. Citizens cope with the extremes of summer in the city known as the Turnace of China. It is a city of tradition, but it is also a city looking to the future. In choosing to develop, human beings leave something behind and gain something new. People believe in moving towards a better future at the moment of choice.
It is a portrait of a city where humanity and the expanding urban machine are locked in a fragile, yet enduring, symbiosis.