尊敬的陈建阳主任、德国亚洲博物馆鲁克思馆长、女士们，先生们：
　　晚上好！非常感谢大家今天从德国各地赶来参加我的画展开幕式。感谢中华人民共和国驻德国使馆文化参赞陈平先生；英国索尔福德大学艺术与传媒学院院长艾伦·沃克教授和副院长拉兹·巴菲尔德先生；英国皇家美术学院副院长纳仁·巴菲尔德教授；英国泰特美术馆研究部主任丘文宝博士；英国格拉斯哥美术学院北京办事处王小爱主任等嘉宾，专程来参加这个开幕式。感谢柏林中国文化中心的王莹老师、许晓敏女士以及为此次画展付出努力的朋友们。
　　这个题为《江南叙事》画展的16幅参展作品，内容都是表现江南水乡民居的。江南水乡是一个典型的历史地理概念，江南本意指长江以南的中下游南岸苏州、杭州等区域，在古代，江南亦代表着繁荣发达的经济、文化教育和美丽富庶，因此有“上有天堂、下有苏杭”的说法。自东晋中原士族衣冠南渡、中华政权定都金陵起，江南地区便取代了中原地区成为中国经济文化最发达的核心地带，这种经济和文化上的优势一直保留至今，也成为中国人定义美好生活模本的代名词之一。
　　江南素以文化教育繁盛著称。这里文人辈出，尤其在民国以前，中国的名人学者以及政治上的精英人士多出自于这一地区。从古至今，咏颂江南的大量文学作品和绘画作品，构筑了中国人心中的“江南”。
　　从交通上来说，江南是水网地区，河道纵横，人们又开挖了大量的运河，使城镇之间的交通都以河道相通。在过去，这一地区的人们出行及运输的主要方式都是依靠船，陆路出行则为为次要选择。而为了保证步行者的交通便利，江南的小镇，多在河道形成的若干个十字相交的交汇口上架桥。
　　道路往往是与河道平行的。但是道路与河道之间通常都隔着民居，这样，就形成民居背依河道，而民居的前面则是街道的村镇布局模式。这种生活模式便于水的利用，人们往往在临河的一侧设置台阶，形成自家的私用码头，乘船出行都非常方便。旧时菜农卖菜等，也都是在船上沿河道吆喝售卖。
　　在城镇中，民居往往是前店后坊的形式。沿街道的一侧是店面，方便接待顾客；沿河道的一侧是作坊，方便原材料的运送。而茶馆、餐厅等，则把沿河适宜观景的位置作为客人的活动空间，以吸引顾客。
　　桥梁是联络道路使之跨越河道的重要交通纽带，但是桥梁的设置，容易阻挡船只的通行。为了保证较大船只的正常通行，在主要河道上都是营造拱桥，只有没有行船的次要河道上才会设置平桥。为了保证大船的通行，许多拱桥的拱券既高又大，这样拱桥就自然很高。从景观上看，拱桥很美丽，而且是一个城镇中的制高点，可以俯视周边景色。尤其是在清晨有雾或下雨等特殊天气下，更是别有一番韵致。只是路人过桥时要爬很高的坡，对行人不及平桥方便。
　　江南民居造型多变，就拿防火用的马头墙来说，就有很多种曲线形式。白墙黑瓦是江南水乡民居的主要特征，鳞次栉比的屋顶和简洁的白墙形成鲜明的视觉对比效果。正是由于这种对比，才形成了中国人所崇尚的大疏大密的审美效果。
　　江南地区人多地少，因此人们十分重视住宅用地的充分利用。建筑沿街沿河的部分都不宽大，有些也就一个开间的宽度。这样就保证更多的人家都能享受到住宅前面沿街、后面沿河的便利。为了使建筑内部有更大的空间，建筑的进深都比较大。另外，进深增大的同时，房屋大都是三层的高度，这样就保证了有足够的内部空间供人们使用。
　　为了扩大住宅用地，人们还往往在河道上打主意。常用的方法是将沿河的建筑部分出挑出去，这样就可以从河道的上空获得更大的空间。受建筑材料的限制，出挑的部分不可能很大。因此有的人家干脆在河里立几根柱子，承托延伸到河面上的建筑，这就形成了水上吊脚楼。
　　在建筑立面的处理上，人们也会注重变化。腰檐是常用的一种民居造型手段。人们在设置一楼屋顶的腰檐时，往往会把腰檐向上设置，一直延伸到二楼窗子的下面。尽管建筑的地面层和二层的室内空间高度是一致的，但是在建筑的外观上，会形成一楼高二楼低的错觉，建筑感觉上更加稳定。
　　沿河的部分，人们也往往会设置类似于阳台一样的半封闭半开敞的灰色空间。在沿河的一侧，设置美人靠式的栏杆，人们可以坐在这种半开敞的空间中，享受水边的美景。
　　骑楼是一种在街道上空构筑建筑空间的形式。沿街或者沿河的楼房，把地面层留出来一部分作为公共道路使用，在公共道路的上空建住宅。可以充分利用住宅用地，使之发挥到最大的效益。由于道路的上方有了建筑的遮挡，可以遮阳避雨，也为路人提供了方便。由于骑楼适宜路人驻脚停歇，因此一般骑楼边上的建筑常作为商铺使用。
　　这些民居建筑的巧妙设计既节约的住宅用地，又争取到了更大的室内空间。还能够方便取水用水、以及交通出行。在建筑的外观上形式多变，构成街景与河景丰富变化的视觉效果。江南民居的这些优点是先民在长期的生活实践中总结和创造出来的，是一笔优秀的文化遗产。
　　1974年至1977年我在南京艺术学院美术系学习，从那时起，我就画了大量的江南传统民居的速写，作为我自己画连环画时的场景使用。1987年至1990年我在重庆建筑工程学院建筑系攻读硕士学位，专业是建筑设计与理论，因此我对于民居建筑的了解不仅仅只关注造型的美，还注意到了其设计的合理性。
　　之后，我出版了一些民居研究方面的书籍，并荣获一些奖项。1993年我进入清华大学建筑学院攻读建筑历史与理论专业的博士学位，之后，我对于中国传统民居的理解，又增加了更多文化层面的认知。我的介绍中国民居方面的一些学术书籍，己经被翻译成德、日、法、英版，我用英文写的《中国建筑》已经在纽约出版。此次呈献给观众的油画，应该说是建筑师和艺术家对于民居理解的综合反映。
　　我希望此次展览能使更多的德国朋友了解中国，喜爱中国文化。
　　谢谢大家！

2014年2月26日于德国柏林中国文化中心

　　WANG QIJUN'S LECTURE ABOUT TRADITIONAL CHINESE DWELLINGS
　　Respected director Chen Jian-yang, curator Klaas Ruitenbeek, ladies and gentlemen,
　　Good evening! Thank you all for coming from all corners of Germany to attend the opening ceremony of my exhibition. I would like to extend my gratitude to Mr. Chen Ping, the counselor of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Federal Republic of Germany; Professor Allen Walker, dean of School of Arts and Mr. Raz Barfield, the associate dean of School of Arts, from University of Salford in the UK; Professor Naren Barfield, the associate dean of Royal College of Art; Dr. Voon Pow Bartlett, project manager of Tate Research Centre: Asia-Pacific; Ms. Wang Xiao-ai, head of the representative office in Beijing of the Glasgow School of Art, and all other guests, for making a special trip to attend the opening ceremony. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Ms. Wang Ying and Ms. Xu Xiao-min from China Culture Center in Berlin, and all other friends who have contributed to this exhibition.
　　All the 16 paintings in this exhibition are to depict the residential buildings from water-towns in Jiangnan, China. Initially Jiangnan refers to the regions in the medium and lower reaches of the south of Yangtze River, including Suzhou and Hangzhou. In ancient times, Jiangnan also means the prosperous and developed economy, culture and education, and beauty, richness and populous. Therefore, there is a saying that goes 'up above there is heaven; down below there are Suzhou and Hangzhou.' Since the spectacular escaping of gentries from China Central Plain to the south of China in the East Jin Dynasty (AD317-420) and later the establishment of the capital of Chinese authority in Jin-ling, currently the city of Nanjing, Jiangnan Region has superseded China Central Plain as the most developed core region of China's economy and culture, which advantage has lasted till now. Therefore, Jiangnan is also a synonym for good life style to Chinese people.
　　Jiangnan is well-known for its prosperous culture and education. Generations of literati were born here. Especially during the time before the Republic of China, many of the Chinese celebrities, scholars and political elites were from Jiangnan. From ancient time till now, quantitative literary works and paintings praising Jiang have built what Chinese perceive as the image of 'Jiangnan'.
　　From the perspective of transportation, Jiangnan is characterized by water network, where rivers and streams interconnect with each other, combined with quantitative artificial canals, making the transportation among towns and villages literally water-born traffic. In the past, the primary transportation vehicles were boats and therefore road traffic is actually a secondary option for locals. To guarantee the convenience of the transportation for pedestrians, bridges have been constructed on most crossings of rivers in Jiangnan towns.
　　Roads usually run parallel with the trends of rivers. But the roads and rivers are usually separated by residential buildings, forming a layout mode of town that residential buildings are backed by rivers while facing roads. Such a living mode is very convenient for water utilization, which means that residents usually set stages on one side of the rivers to build self-use private wharfs, which make boat trips very easy. Even the selling of vegetables in the past was carried out on boats in rivers.
　　In cities and towns, residential buildings are typically in a format of front shop and back workshop. The side adjacent to the road lies the shop, which is convenient for customer reception while the side adjacent to the river lies the workshop, which is convenient for raw material transportation. Similarly, teahouses and restaurants and others utilize the position along the rivers suitable for viewing as the guest area to attract clients.
　　Bridges are important transportation links connecting roads which can therefore go over river courses. But the set of bridges can also function as obstacles for passing-by water vehicles. To guarantee the normal transportation of larger boats and ships, arched bridges are usually applied for major rivers and canals while only secondary river courses without water-born traffic adopt flat bridges. As a result, to guarantee the transportation for larger boats, the arches are both high and big, making the bridges very high. From the perspective of landscape, arched bridges are very beautiful and become the commanding elevations for towns, and allow an overview of surrounding scenery. Especially in foggy dawns or rainy days or under other special weather conditions, the arched bridges can express a unique charm and grace. The only disadvantage of arched bridges is that pedestrians have to climb up a high slope to go across which is not as pleasant as passing on flat bridges.
　　Residential buildings in Jiangnan possess multiple models. For example, the horse-head walls which function as a fire-proof structure can be of many different curve formats. Jiangnan water-town residential buildings are characterized by white walls and black tiles. Tightly packed rows of roofs made of black tiles and concise white walls together make a distinct visual contrast. Exactly due to such contrast, Chinese people have advocated and admired the aesthetic effect of a mixture of extreme scattering and concentration.
　　Being populous with less land, people in Jiannan region highly value the full use of residential land. The parts of buildings along roads or rivers are mostly not wide; some of them are only of the standard width of a room in an old-style house. Such arrangement can make sure that more family members can enjoy the convenience of roads in front and rivers at back. To allow larger internal space, depths of building are relatively large. Besides, while improving the lengths, most houses are three storeys high, which guarantees enough internal space for people to utilize.
　　To expand residential land area, people tend to turn to river courses. A commonly referred to method is to set part of the buildings toward rivers built on stilts so that more space is gained from above the rivers. However, limited by construction materials, the parts built on stilts cannot be very large. For this reason, some households even build several stilts in the river, and the bearings of such stilts extend to the construction on the river and therefore form stilted buildings above rivers.
　　As for the treatment of elevations of buildings, locals also value variation. Waist eaves are a commonly adopted modeling method. While setting the waist eaves for the roofs of the ground floor, they are usually set upwards and extend below the windows of the first floor. Though the ground floor and the first floor are the same in height, the exteriors of the buildings give an illusion of higher first floor and lower second floor, which as a result make the buildings seemingly stable.
　　The parts of the buildings along rivers are usually set with semi-open grey space which is similar to balconies. The sides along rivers are set with a specific kind of handrail which is called 'handrail leaned on by beauties' in Chinese architecture, by which structure people can sit in the semi-open space and lean to enjoy the beautiful scenery around the water.
　　Sotto portico is a format to construct architectural space hanging over the streets. Part of the ground floor of buildings of two or more storeys along roads or rivers are reserved to serve as public roads and therefore the residential buildings overhang the public roads. Such an idea could fully exploit residential land and realize maximum efficiency. Also, due to shelters formed by the buildings above the roads, strong sunshine and rain are blocked out, with which the pedestrians are pleased. Since sotto portico is suitable for pedestrians to have a short rest, usually the buildings beside it are developed as shops.
　　In all, such residential architecture is so sophisticatedly designed that residential land is saved while larger indoor space is gained. It is convenient for residents to get and utilize water and is convenient for transportation, too. The exterior of the architecture is versatile in format and produces a visual effect of rich variation of road scenery and river scenery. All these merits of Jiangnan residential buildings are created and concluded by local ancestors from long term life practice and is an excellent cultural heritage.
　　From the time when I was studying in the Department of Fine Arts in Nanjing Academy of Arts during 1974 to 1977, I have painted a large amount of sketches on traditional Jiangnan residential buildings, which have been used as the settings for my comic books. During 1987 and 1990 when I was a postgraduate in the department of architecture in Chongqing Institute of Architecture and Engineering, I majored in architectural design and theory, which made me not only focus on the beauty of modeling, but also be aware of the rationality of the design.
　　Later I published such books on residential building research and was granted some awards. In 1993, I was admitted to pursue a doctorate degree in architecture history and theory in the department of architecture in Qinghua University. After that, my understanding of traditional Chinese residential buildings was expanded on a cultural level. Some of my academic books introducing Chinese residential buildings have been translated and published in German, Japanese, French and English. My English book Chinese Architecture has been published in New York. The oil paintings presented to guests in this exhibition can be interpreted as a comprehensive reflection of the understandings of residential buildings by architects and artists.
　　I sincerely hope that this exhibition can be a window for more German friends to get familiar with China and fall in love with Chinese culture.
　　I thank you all!