what's in the name B.A.S.E.

B.A.S.E., Beijing Architecture Studio Enterprise
base (english)
ji di (mandarin)
ji = /base/foundation/basic/radical
di = /earth/ground/field/place/land/

The name for B.A.S.E. came about at a first meeting with Ai Weiwei. Having been introduced by Robert Bernell, we were at Ai Weiwei’s house/studio/design office/workshop/storage yard/garden courtyard for a conversation about an upcoming proposal for a book on China (with an undercurrent of architecture) to be the subject.

Later, over green tea in big wooden chairs around a solid wooden table inside the cool concrete walls, we described the ideas and ambitions of what then had the temporary and insufficient name of ‘Center for Architecture’, when out of Ai Weiwei’s mouth and Robert Bernell’s response came ‘ji di’ or base. The resonance the word has, in both Chinese and English, of foundation, roots, radicalism, and revolution, and its foothold in both the deepest past and the most idealistic future, sunk in and stuck.

As our conversation meandered, we also spoke of a traditional chinese thermos bottle that seemed to embody a particular culture, invention, and ecology. It is a brilliant mirrored double wall glass bulb insulator wrapped with a light screen of punched painted metal.

It is intended that while B.A.S.E. at the moment can be spelled out as “Beijing Architecture Studio Enterprise”, or as “Beijing Art, Sleep, Eat”, that it will take on other meanings as the life of the place and the people and designers associated with it form, reform, inform, and deform it.