ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the social, economic, institutional, professional, and ideological transformations at the beginning of the reform and opening-up period, in particular the conditions and practices of state-owned design institutes. It focuses on design institutes’ critical practices in the 1970s in cities such as Guangzhou. The chapter analyzes the reform of architectural production and design institutes during the 1980s. Architects from state-owned design institutes in cities such as Guangzhou experimented with a wide range of dynamic forms and spaces. In doing so, they articulated a progressive agenda in aesthetics, ideology, and ultimately in politics. Design institutes, like many other government-funded enterprises, set out to reform their management and structure. The earliest gesture toward shedding the influence of the central planning mode in design institutes occurred in 1979, with the promulgation of the Notice on the Implementation of Charging Fees by Piloting State-Owned Design Institutes.
