Jacopo Reale, Head of Architecture at the Shanghai headquarters of Pininfarina, a long-established renowned company of strong Italian heritage operating internationally in the automotive and A&D field, has brought us inside the Chinese market. 

The first Italian Design House having established an office in China, Pininfarina has been a true

forerunner in this sense. Huge and moving extremely fast, the Asian A&D market presents several difficulties that Jacopo Reale knows very well, having participated in the opening of Pininfarina's new architecture branch in Shanghai. From interfacing with consultants and suppliers, to timing and administration issues, here is all you need to know if you wish to expand in the Chinese market.

The drive that has guided us in the opening of the Shanghai architecture office was certainly the international competition in which we participated for the master plan of a new city in the Yangtze River Delta area, near Shanghai. Our project – Blue Loop, named after the system of waterways surrounding the site – won the first prize,  giving us the decisive push to develop an idea that was already in the pipeline.

Working remotely on Chinese projects poses both cultural and legislative problems and it is therefore necessary to have a local support team in interfacing with consultants and suppliers. Another aspect to consider is that Chinese customers do care about the direct contact with who they have entrusted themselves to. At the moment, however, the situation is complicated by the various travelling issues due to the pandemic situation, which is still an emergency in China. For this reason, having a contact person on site is today even more fundamental.

Another challenge is timing. The Chinese market, despite being huge, is also fast, and from Italy it is practically impossible to meet local needs and adapt our standards to those of China. Finally, a perhaps less well-known aspect is that, due to the current climate of closure and the impossibility of moving, it seems an unprofitable period to open a studio in China. However, since I returned to China a few months ago, I have seen that competition is much lower than previously. Hence, for those who wish to enter the Chinese market, it might be an advantageous moment – clearly I speak of a high international target and not of local brands with respect to which, in terms of prices and timing, we are out of the market.

Many Italian and international studies, indeed, have decided to leave the country. It is therefore a difficult and flourishing moment at the same time precisely because of the lack of international strong personalities and studios. While previously Shanghai was a nerve and highly competitive center of our industry, today the city is going through a complex phase.

A tip that I would surely give to Italian companies that want to open a branch in China is to focus on quality. Sometimes, especially when following projects not locally, it is problematic to control their development. Consequently, the general tendency is that of starting from a beautiful concept that gets lost in the construction phase. Thus, having a local office with a local team helps to control the project from beginning to end and to realize the concept with a quality result, which is not obvious at all, especially when working in the Asian market.

What we always do as an architecture practice is starting from the Italian design DNA. Pininfarina Architecture has an extra gear in China for its Mediterranean heritage, which in Asia is much appreciated. There is in particular a segment of medium-high customers that constantly requires it as a feature for their projects. Having a local office also serves to adapt the DNA of Italian design to a different culture. Indeed, what we always try to do is adjust our language according to the culture we work with, bringing a sort of hybridization between Italian design culture and local culture.

For instance, speaking of the Blue Loop masterplan, the initial idea was to create a city inspired by Italian lifestyle, specifically by Venice. The concept, however, did not consist in making a copy and paste of the examples we have in Italy, but rather in incorporating the characteristic elements of Italian cities to the local context, which in this case was that of Chinese water towns. Studying and understanding the environment is something we really believe in as part of our philosophy.

The Chinese bureaucratic apparatus is similar to the Italian one. As I said, it is very important to have a local team that informs us about the constraints to be overcome, because in the construction phase we often tend to simplify to speed up the process and the approval phase to meet the Chinese standards. What we are doing now for the Blue Loop masterplan is trying to adapt our concept to the Chinese construction standards.

In this case, for example, we have a certain percentage to devote to education and hospital facilities. While for interior projects there is less bureaucracy, for urban scale projects we are "colliding" with greater difficulties. However, it is good that there are parameters to be respected for projects, otherwise one could be allowed to make a clean sweep of any architecture.