Bio:
Goldchild is an international, personal brand owned by young Chinese architect Jian XU. Goldchild is a design brand that specializes in architecture and set design adventures. While some architects have a signature style, Jian Xu seeks to apply coherent ideas to extraordinarily different projects. His projects impress as much for their individual impact as for their diversity of architecture, art and set design.
Jian XU rose to international prominence with his first book GOLDCHILD in New York 2019, since then, Jian has continued to craft many set design projects, including Magnificent second series New York, Nocturnal Light, and Urban Landscape project. Inspired by, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said that "I call architecture frozen music". From my perspective, if architectural design is the sculpting of frozen music, then set design is the creation of flowing music. Frozen music inhabits the world with a certained morphology and functionality coined to it, whereas the flowing music is a flash in the pan, astounding the audiences with a dynamic form before it vanishes and . It can only stay in people’s minds, experiences, and photographs.
Therefore, from Jian’s view, set design is a branch of architectural design. If architectural design is a tree, set design is a floral and fruitful branch thereof; the flowers might come and go, and the tree will support it and nurture it with endless nutrition. Set designs are like short fairy tales or films, bringing the audience into an alternative world in as short as an hour; behind this hour, is months of hard-work and design, planning and producing, architects, structural engineers, lighting designers, and fashion designers all work together, making each shows into fantasies and dreams rising from the ordinary life.
Conversation:
Why is the book named GOLDCHILD?
Goldchild is an independent studio I established in 2017, specializing in architectural and set design, and have participated in several display and set designs for various brands in the New York Fashion Week and Paris Fashion Week. Since entering the architecture industry, I have been applying my architectural expertise and knowledge in the design and critic of sets. Therefore, in this book "GOLDCHILD", I carefully selected 15 most significant and representative fashion shows presented by eminent brands in the past 20 years which were renowned in fashion and design business, dissected and analyzed the story behind each design for the readers with an eye of an architect. In addition, I included a selection of shows that I have participated in the design of. Therefore, this book is named after my own studio, and it is the first book published by the studio.
How long does it take you to write this book?
It was a childhood dream of publishing my own book, therefore I treated it quite seriously. The project was initially conceived six years ago, and is now finally published after years of research, exposition, sampling, and finalizing edits with the publisher.
How long have you been in this field?
It has been 13 years since I started my career in the field of architectural design in 2007, and I have been doing set design for 5 years.
What was your most significant takeaway from the process of putting this book together?
The charisma and spirit behind each brand is unique, and they brought along distinct stories. Each time as a new brand commission a new design from us, we will have to start the process with substantial initial research, grasping the essence they are trying to convey and the story they are trying to deliver. From the view of an architect we could incorporate the story into the design of the set, such as the site selection, scenery, lighting, music, even model selection and arrangement of the show.
For example, during the Christian Dior Spring/Summer 2016 show at Louvre, Paris, the designer built a hillside with 300,000 stems of delphiniums inside the Louvre, every guest will enter the space through an entrance at the foot of the delphinium mountain. Delphinium was one of Mr. Dior’s favorite flowers; he helped in taking care of the garden for his mother from a young age, and therefore had a special affection for flowers. Floral was also the inspiration for his ingenious debut, “New Look”, in which he wanted all the females to be able to demonstrate and showcase their own beauties like flowers. In shows by Christian Dior, floral has always been a common element, preserving and extending the spirit of the brand.
When putting this book together, I studied, analyzed, examined, and expanded the story and charisma behind each brand, and that is the most precious acquisition of mine through this process. I will integrate what I have learned and devise a charisma for me to employ on my own designs.
How would you draw the connection between set design and architectural design?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said that "I call architecture frozen music". From my perspective, if architectural design is the sculpting of frozen music, then set design is the creation of flowing music. Frozen music inhabits the world with a certained morphology and functionality coined to it, whereas the flowing music is a flash in the pan, astounding the audiences with a dynamic form before it vanishes and . It can only stay in people’s minds, experiences, and photographs. Therefore, from my own view, set design is a branch of architectural design. If architectural design is a tree, set design is a floral and fruitful branch thereof; the flowers might come and go, and the tree will support it and nurture it with endless nutrition. Set designs are like short fairy tales or films, bringing the audience into an alternative world in as short as an hour; behind this hour, is months of hard-work and design, planning and producing, architects, structural engineers, lighting designers, and fashion designers all work together, making each shows into fantasies and dreams rising from the ordinary life.
What’s your initiative in starting this brand?
It all started in the winter of 2017, which was the fourth year that I came to the states, studying and living all by myself away from home. As my daily life was overwhelmed by pressure from life and work, I granted myself a month of vacation and visited my parents back in Shanghai. Just like other parents, my mom threw me a feast. After enjoying the dinner with family, she showed me a photo album that she has kept for over 40 years. When going through it together, I was astounded by a photo of myself when I was only a month old. There was a bright and careless smile on the face of that baby, which I have not seen on my face ever since I left home. That smile was incredibly precious and unique. I wanted to preserve that treasure, reminding myself that no matter where I am and what I am designing, no matter how much time I spend in the business of architectural design and far I travel, I should not forget my ideology and faith as a novice, embracing each and every design of mine with the most sincere heart and mind, remembering what I loved architectural design for in the first place.
What is a typical process of set design?
The workflow of set design is alike architectural design; both consist of Schematic Design, Design Development, Construction Document, and Construction Administration. However, the nuance is that architectural design emphasizes design development and construction document; whereas the core of set design is schematic design. For a typical set design, over 80% of time spent will be for preliminary research and discussion of scheme and concept, after which the team could work with respective specialists to further develop the idea and construction.
Taking Marc Jacobs's show in the New York Fashion Week 2017 as an example. Marc is an American designer making his debut in New York City, his experience studying and working in Parsons is vital for his design, and he strives to incorporate the element of the city into his shows. In this show, the designer built the set into an alley after rain in front of a bar in New York at 3 am, projecting the voluptuous nightlife of the city. The cream of the top in this show is the 15,000 light bulbs hanging on the ceiling of the stage, portraying the street lamp and starlight at night in the city.
Therefore, the state-of-the-art routine of set design starts from schematic design and brainstorm of the concept, to deployment of the construction, to the preparation of show props, concluding with the recycling and reusing of the stage material.
Based on your research and exposition, what do you think is the trend of fashion shows in the future?
Technology will play an increasingly significant role in the business. Recalling the history of set design, the prototypical fashion shows emerged in the 1880s, where designers would draw an illustration of their newest designs on the signboard of their boutique to attract customers; in the early 1900s, some designers with sharp business acumen started to invite a group of loyal customers to the boutique when new designs came out, and they would ask the shop attendings to wear the newly designed clothes, which is the earliest of formal fashion shows. Along the growth of the fashion business and the expanding of investment, fashion shows became more flavorful and versatile due to the evolution of the sets and forms. Nowadays, social media heavily influences both fashion and design business, more designers angle their designs with a view towards social media, presenting their designs through social media and online platforms.
In addition, more shows started to incorporate cutting edge technologies, such as VR and holographic projection, in the design of the show, empowering the audiences a new dimension of experience, and granting the designers a larger room to play with and to realize their reveries and fantasies. Moreover, new technologies such as environmentally friendly materials will also be of significance to future set designs, the technology of reutilizing resources would substantially influence the current scheme of fabric material, stage material, constructional material, set props, and energy conservation.