Architecture's Yu has poetry in her designs

By Liam Otten

May 18, 2001

Jin-Ling Yu arrived at the School of Architecture in 1999 with a resume of built work that most master's students can only dream of. A graduate of Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University, Yu had spent the last six years practicing in her native city of Zhuhai, China, where she developed an impressive range of industrial, commercial and residential projects for the government-backed Zhuhai Architectural Design Institute.

 

Jin-Ling Yu spent six years practicing architecture in her home city of Zhuhai, China, before coming to the University. Yu's master's fdegree project is a speculative plan for a Chinese-American community center in downtown St. Louis, drawing inspiration from the collective history of the city's Chinese population.

Yet despite her many accomplishments --the 13,000 square-meter Nanping Post Building; the 30,000 square-meter Jiuchang Plaza; the 11,000 square-meter Pit Building for the Zhuhai International Circuit auto raceway --Yu initially was nervous about graduate study in the United States.

"I was not very confident when I got here," she admits with a shy smile. "When my professors would ask me 'what's your idea' for a project, I didn't feel I could give them very good answers. Nothing other than utilitarian function."

Carl Safe, professor of architecture and Yu's adviser, respectfully disagrees.

"There is poetry in her work," he explained, pointing out that Yu recently received architecture's Widmann Prize, a $2,000 stipend awarded by faculty to one outstanding graduate student each year. "The school can nurture that sense of poetry, and maybe allow her to accept it, but we can't manufacture it. That's inside of her."

And, increasingly, in her buildings. For example, Yu's degree project, a speculative plan for a Chinese-American community center in downtown St. Louis, draws inspiration from the collective history of the city's Chinese population, and draws resonance from a subtle merging of eastern and western forms. Nestled under the shadow of Highway 40, the center includes studios, classrooms, an exhibition hall and a 300-seat theater --all brought together in a dynamic, zigzagging design.

"Basically, I did lots of research into the memory of the Chinese in St. Louis," Yu said.

What she discovered was a tale of displacement. Founded in the late 19th century, St. Louis' original Chinatown was uprooted in 1960 by the construction of Busch Stadium, while the next settlement --along Delmar Boulevard between 15th and 17th streets --was replaced in 1978 with an industrial park. The community then moved to the South Grand neighborhood and, more recently, to a section of Olive Boulevard in University City.

Charted on a map, these four sites form a rough Z-shape, which Yu adopted as her project's central organizing motif.

"The building follows this idea of the movement," she explained, noting the three distinct elevations, which stair-step down from just beneath the highway to the edge of Choeteau's Pond on the south. "The idea is to continue the image of the highway, to touch the ground and then to go to the water.

"The building must be engaged with the site and must be very well integrated with the culture and background," Yu continued. "It cannot be a building just by itself. That's the difference between architecture and sculpture."

"Jin-Ling has really come into her own as a strong personality at the school, particularly this year," said Paul Donnelly, the Rebecca and John Voyles Professor of Architecture, who directed the degree project studio with Professor Adrian Luchini. "As humble and gentle as she is, she has great conviction about her work --conviction that is rooted in a very rich understanding of history, site and tradition. She's tremendous in critiques because she can stake out her positions and defend them with great eloquence."

After graduation, Yu hopes to earn her U.S. license and practice here for a time before returning to China.

"In China, young architects have so many opportunities because we are a developing country," she said. "But I think that you can be more free if you're not just a Chinese architect or an American architect, but can do some kind of international architecture.

"That's a long-term plan," Yu added softly. "I don't know whether I can achieve it or not, but I think I have a good beginning."