Nicolas Godelet is a civil engineer architect graduated from the Catholic University of Louvain, 46 years old, originally from Condroz Namur and founder, in 2008, of the office “Gejian Architects & Engineers”. This versatile and humble genius of 46 years leads the only Belgian-owned architectural workshop registered in China, which recently enabled it to design Shougang’s “Big Air” ramp for the Beijing Winter Olympics!
LHCH had the pleasure of interviewing and filming Nicolas Godelet, in his studio, near Namur (south of Belgium). Fluent in Mandarin, he agreed to answer our questions in Chinese and in his native language, French. Starting from the city of Beijing, this great friend of China has thrown different bridges between Chinese and Western cultures, through certain symbolic aspects such as writing, space. It has thus made it easier for the public to project themselves into Chinese culture.
LHCH: Hello Nicolas, thank you for having us at your home in Dorinne. First, if you had to introduce Gejian Architects & Engineers in a few words?
Nicolas Godelet: Here in Belgium but also in China, in Beijing, Gejian Architects & Engineers ( NG LAB) is a multidisciplinary and international team of around twenty employees. “Gejianzhu”, in Chinese, thinks about works of architecture, landscapes, planning, civil engineering as well as interior design. Our agency places priority on a multidisciplinary methodology, the multicultural (five different nationalities in our team), the precision of the work and the accompaniment of the client until the reception of the project, through a follow-up on the construction site.
LHCH: You’ve done an amazing number of architectural and civil engineering projects in China, but let’s start with the most recent and most imaginative, Shougang’s “Big Air,” a freestyle ski ramp built for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. By itself, does it represent the multidisciplinary and multicultural aspects dear to your office?
Nicolas Godelet: First, we must recall the context around the Shougang site and the Big Air ramp. This is essential to understand our project. In 2006, the Shougang metallurgical site was moved to control air and soil pollution using new technologies. But the project was abandoned in 2008 to completely renovate this site, which covers 10 km2, 30 minutes by subway from Beijing! I had always been interested in this emblematic place, the largest in China, having myself for a long time been a blacksmith with a passion for working steel. Imagine this post-industrial beauty: furnaces 115 meters high, lakes and towers cooling, cockeries, miles of pipes running in all directions! Our office embarked for ten years, with enthusiasm, on urban renewal, the enhancement of this industrial heritage, the depollution of certain areas, including those of chemistry and, finally, the ecological integration of Shougang into the Beijing city.
LHCH: A perfect opportunity to give another function to this extraordinary site.
Nicolas Godelet: Yes, and therefore the opportunity for our multidisciplinary office NG Lab (Nicolas Godelet “Gejian Architects & Engineers”) to offer the full range of its services in landscape, architecture, renovation of industrial heritage, but also in structures and development materials serving the city of Beijing.
LHCH: How did the Big Air connect to this general project?
Nicolas Godelet: In 2016, Beijing was designated as the official city for the organization of the Winter Olympics. Most of the events had to be organized outside the city, in the mountains. But, in my opinion, the discipline of freestyle skiing “Big Air”, symbol of a young, unusual and trendy sport, had to take place in an urban environment. I therefore strongly proposed to the various official authorities that Shougang host this original event.
LHCH: A challenge?
Nicolas Godelet: In fact, part of Shougang had already been renovated, in particular the silos and certain blast furnaces. When the Ski Federation visited the site, this choice became obvious to them. At the same time, it was an opportunity to regenerate the site, to bring in urban youth, who already love this kind of site for skateboarding or more extreme sports.
LHCH: This Big Air ramp has become permanent.
Nicolas Godelet: This art of the “big jump”, Big Air, is a very young sport that has been developing slowly since the 90s. It emerged with the general public in the 2000s thanks to the fashion for snowboarding. Big air was first introduced at the Seoul Winter Olympics in 2018. The ramp consisted of a mountain track. Before Beijing 2022, jumping was always done using temporary logistics, often scaffolding. So, in effect, our Shougang Big Air is the first permanent track, with, moreover, a multi-functional use open to other board sports, swimming, or even music festivals. A site accessible by subway to all the young people of the city for 5 yuan, while the first ski resorts are 150 km from Beijing.
LHCH: What were the inputs from China in this magnificent project?
Nicolas Godelet: First, the desire to develop this sport and make it accessible to everyone. Then, at the level of the aesthetic identity of the Big Air, it was a Chinese office that was responsible for developing the Apsara, this particular veil of the structure of the ramp, aesthetic but also protecting the athletes from the wind. This is an artistic reference to the “Flying Apsara” frescoes at Dunhuang Caves in Gansu Province near the Gobi Desert. We have also worked with offices around the world for more specific and technical aspects such as snow quality or material issues. But, these foreign teams, I insist, love and practice China for a long time. Big Air is an example of multidisciplinary and cultural collaboration.
LHCH: What is impressive with your office is as much the mastery of technique, the pure work of an engineer, as the knowledge of the environmental and cultural roots in each of your projects.
Nicolas Godelet: This triple passion defines our work methodology, the choice of our teams and ensures the sustainability of our constructions. Mastering all the measurable and non-measurable factors of an environment, in the broad sense, is essential for us. We work with engineers, architects, landscape architects, designers, historians, etc.
The man behind the structure
LHCH: To manage and oversee its fabulous projects, your deep experience of China since 1995 has been and still is a plus.
Nicolas Godelet: To orchestrate this kind of project, indeed, more than 25 years of love and experience of China have helped me. I had the chance to travel through this country-continent, its mountains, its plains, its countryside, its cities, but also through learning its language, even in its oldest version, 5000 years ago. I also worked very young in the Chinese professional environment.
LHCH: Access to the Chinese “market” is known to be difficult. Your advice to new generations would be to first get to know this country?
Nicolas Godelet: I encourage our governments to get to know China better, this country which over the millennia has woven its own history, in a a more often independent. The former Middle Empire has its languages and cultures that are not ours. It is up to us to take a step towards them, before imagining going there and doing business with them. Add to that a good dose of humility to temper our Western arrogance.
LHCH: Since 1995, you must have seen different Chinas.
Nicolas Godelet: First, I would say, what hasn’t changed for 30 years. I feel like China remains for most people Terra Incognita. To really go there, to cross the country, always remains an extraordinary experience, so great is the difference between what we read, hear about China and the reality, on the spot. My first experience in the 90s showed me an open, curious, joyful China, often the opposite of our image here. All the men were obviously not dressed in a Mao collar and overalls! (laughs). Think of the new China of the 1998 Olympics in Beijing. A gigantic trigger that had to be understood as an insatiable desire to communicate with us. I then knew the China of the Builders since the presidents of that time were all engineers. Railways, transport of all kinds, social and economic infrastructures: it was necessary to develop China, to make it exist in the world.
LHCH: And China in 2022?
Nicolas Godelet: She has other priorities, I think. Both in terms of its expansion (the New Silk Roads) and its recent protectionism. It also wants to have its technological know-how, its scientific research and the lights of its ancestral culture recognized. Certainly, it is more difficult today to penetrate its market.
LHCH: What would be the new conditions for this access to the Chinese market?
Nicolas Godelet: You have to bring cutting-edge skills that are unrivaled here. But, above all, it is necessary to know how to communicate on these tools or new knowledge for them. What few businessmen or women know how to do. Communicate, negotiate, share their culture or, even simply, the rules of their know-how: all this is not acquired. I repeat, our governments must absolutely ensure the teaching of the Chinese language, Chinese culture, to open doors in the future.
LHCH: How did you enter the Chinese market at the time?
Nicolas Godelet: In 2002, I received one of the first scholarships from the Ministry of Education to study Chinese for eight months at “Beiwai”, the University of Foreign Languages in Beijing. I wanted to deepen my knowledge of Chinese, which I had been studying for 5 years. I even did detailed work on “jiaguwen”, these ancient characters engraved on cattle bones or turtle shells. It was an opportunity for a first gateway to the Chinese professional environment and the meeting of French and Belgian architects there. In particular, the architects Antony Béchu and Bernard Viry who allowed me to work in China and to position myself at a high level from the outset. I had the chance to work with Paul Andreux on the creation of the structure of the National Opera of Beijing. At the time, high-level expatriate architects were still rare in China… A small committee that was easy to meet.
LHCH: What accomplishments are you most proud of in China?
Nicolas Godelet: NG Lab has existed since 2007 in China and deals with multidisciplinary projects: design, architecture, planning, structures, etc. The projects, very different from each other, that have marked me are the Beijing National Opera; the new Shougang Bridge extending Chang’An Avenue (west gate of the city); the Shougang Industrial Renovation Project discussed at the beginning and the historic town of Ping Yao.
LHCH: Between China, a free field of expression for architects like in Dubai and the China of today, how have the collaborations evolved?
Nicolas Godelet: China in the 2000s was a double-edged sword. Indeed, on the one hand, in this immense field of experimentation, we enjoyed great freedom of expression and creation; but on the other hand, China took the opportunity to acquire a lot of scientific knowledge and technological know-how in all fields. Today, with all this baggage, China has raised the level of requirements to a degree that no longer exists in Europe. From a blank page, we have moved to an extremely competitive environment where Westerners encounter many more challenges. The only solution is to create closer collaborations between Chinese authorities, research offices and foreign actors thanks to an unfailing knowledge of local costs and regulations.
LHCH: Are we far from the opening of the past?
Nicolas Godelet: I still deeply love China but, you have to admit, it has become more aggressive, more independent. A foreign company to hope to succeed there must blend into the complex fabric of China, become Chinese.
LHCH: Isn’t the reverse true here?
Nicolas Godelet: Yes, indeed, the Chinese, having acquired a European company here, have completely reviewed their management, their marketing, their image by working with as many European partners as possible. They have learned to fit into the European landscape.
