The photographs presented here are an extract from my first personal project, carried out in China in 2005. Wandering the country’s major cities, I sought only a subjective urban vision that would reflect my architect’s eye. What is shown is the place of the human being in cities steadily becoming more chaotic, where the slow accumulation of tradition is being irrevocably undone by a modernity dictated by the laws of an uncontrolled free market economy. In a situation where all that remains of communism is its authoritarianism, man as a social being is losing his place. There is no longer any human scale. The person with an individual future is being lost in the urban ocean. Houses are demolished, skyscrapers go up, the ground is laced with communication networks. China is advancing, building the way France built in the 60’s: too hastily, in response to demographic pressures and rural exodus. Meanwhile, invoking a difference in lifestyles, we close our eyes to the potentially disturbing consequences of this kind of urbanisation. Setting the human scale in the eternal urban palimpsest, I looked in these cities for a poetics of fatalism, a way of dramatising a shift that seems ineluctable.
Police evacuating Tienanmen Square for an official ceremony, Beijing, China.
COC0100442 © Cyrus Cornut
Timetable in a train station in Shanghai, China.
COC0100459 © Cyrus Cornut
Bank of China building. To the right, the Bund. Shanghai, China.
COC0100456 © Cyrus Cornut
Conglomeration of apartment blocks under construction near the train station in Shanghai, China.
COC0099855 © Cyrus Cornut
River Huangphu, Shanghai. Pudong, the business district, is situated across the water.
COC0099854 © Cyrus Cornut
View of Pudong, Shanghai's business district, from the top floor of the Jin Mao Tower constructed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
COC0099857 © Cyrus Cornut
View of Pudong, Shanghai's business district, from the top floor of the Jin Mao Tower constructed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
COC0138759 © Cyrus Cornut
Escalator of the Canton metro. A girl is sitting down on the stairs.
COC0100479 © Cyrus Cornut
Newspaper seller, at dusk. Lijiang, Yunnan, China.
COC0100472 © Cyrus Cornut
Back entrance of the Peace Hotel. Shanghai, China.
COC0100468 © Cyrus Cornut
View of Pudong from the far end of the Bund. In the centre, the Pearl Telecom Tower.
COC0099852 © Cyrus Cornut
Restaurant on the Jiadaokou Nan Dajie, in Beijing, China.
COC0100448 © Cyrus Cornut
Coca cola advertisement in Beijing, China.
COC0100444 © Cyrus Cornut
View of the Bay of Hong Kong from Kowloon. To the right is the Two International Finance Center of Hong Kong, designed by the architect César Pelli. To the left, the triangular Bank of China designed by architect Lo Ming Pei. In the centre, Norman Foster's HSBC Tower.
COC0099861 © Cyrus Cornut
Going down into the metro. In the background is Jin Mao, one of the economic symbols of the city. The Grand Hyatt Hotel is located inside this tower.
COC0100452 © Cyrus Cornut
A man walks his dog in Shanghai on streets lit up with blue neon lights.
COC0100466 © Cyrus Cornut
The last remaining 'hutong' (traditional suburbs). In the background, satellite dishes belonging to a military camp. Beijing, China.
COC0100449 © Cyrus Cornut
Hostesses advertising an alcoholic beverage in the Barbarossa Bar in Shanghai, China.
COC0100457 © Cyrus Cornut
Clubbing area in Kunming, Yunnan, China.
COC0100465 © Cyrus Cornut
Blue bar in Beijing.
COC0100445 © Cyrus Cornut
A salesman dozes off for a minute in Hong Kong.
COC0100476 © Cyrus Cornut
Underground party somewhere under the streets of Shanghai: a woman appearing on an interior balcony.
COC0100450 © Cyrus Cornut
Bank of China, Shanghai Road.
COC0100470x © Cyrus Cornut
Experimental video screening during an underground event in Shanghai. Here, flowers by Takashi Murakami, a Japanese artist.
COC0100451 © Cyrus Cornut
Private scene, Shanghai.
COC0100460x © Cyrus Cornut
Victoria Peak look-out point. Apparition. Hong Kong, China.
COC0100467 © Cyrus Cornut
A pair of young Chinese tourists photograph themselves in front of the Bay of Hong Kong. In the centre is the Two International Finance Center of Hong-Kong, designed by the architect César Pelli.
COC0099860 © Cyrus Cornut