Digital Architecture in Dunhuang—and beyond: an interview with Dr Zhenru Zhou

In this post, I continue my exploration of digital reconstructions in Asian art historical practice. I virtually sat down for an interview with Dr Zhenru Zhou, architectural historian and Buddhist studies expert. In her work, Dr Zhou has thought deeply about the potential of digital tools in architecture, and she has also produced several reconstructions of the Dunhuang caves, northwest China. Dr Zhou is now a postdoctoral candidate at the School of Architecture of Tsinghua University, where she continues her research on medieval Buddhist art and architecture after earning her PhD in Art History at the University of Chicago. 

AC: Tell us a bit about your work and your recently completed dissertation.

ZZ: My dissertation is about the architecture of one of the largest Buddhist cave-temple complexes in China, the Mogao caves near Dunhuang. I looked at almost every aspect of architecture: the rock-cut cave, the timber-framed façade of the cave, the murals that decorate the cave’s interior and exterior, and I focused especially on the images representing architectural structures. I noticed that these visual and spatial elements were well integrated and constituted a particular kind of built environment and architectural imagery. The task I set for myself was to figure out what such an environment or imagery looked like, physically and psychologically.

AC: How did you get interested in digital reconstructions and more broadly in digital humanities?

ZZ: I was trained as an architect in my bachelor and master’s programs, so using digital modeling software for architectural design was part of my training. When I started to study images of architecture, I tended to make 2D and 3D drawings with these tools. Later, when I participated in a few research projects at the Center for the Art of East Asia, University of Chicago, I learned to 3D scan sculptures and showcase various kinds of artworks online, particularly scrolls. This experience gave me some more exposure to digital art history. At conferences I often heard panels on digital humanities too. Nowadays most people, including me, cannot avoid the digital!

AC: What has your trajectory been with regard to architecture and the use of digital tools?

ZZ: I studied architecture design at Tsinghua University in China. At that time, architecture students like me were trained to use software like Autodesk AutoCAD, SketchUp, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. to produce drawings and renderings of architecture starting from junior year. Nowadays, freshmen are trained in those programs from the start and also use industry design software that can produce complex and non-linear forms, such as Rhinoceros and MAYA. So compared with most people in the architecture industry, I am sort of old-schooled. 

AC: A lot of the architecture you investigate is “lost,” in the sense that it does not survive today. Your work offers several reconstructions: how have digital tools shaped or changed your research questions? Has your understanding of digital tools and their potential changed from the beginning of your work to now?

ZZ: My research questions primarily come from the work of architecture. For instance, when looking at the holes on the cliff that used to support timber beams of a façade, I think of how many bays that architecture would have been, its size, the construction process, and so on. I then make reconstruction designs of the lost façade displayed as a digital 3D model to verify my hypotheses. Sometimes my thought process goes beyond this technical approach. When the painting of architecture is also studied and displayed as a digital 3D model, the model prompts me to think about the virtual space in the painting and its relationship to the physical cave space. In this sense, digital tools help me sense spaces and articulate them.

AC: What softwares do you use? Do you have a favorite digital tool for reconstructions?

ZZ: I found AutoCAD and SketchUp quite useful for my architectural projects because these tools are well designed for orthogonal shapes—which most traditional Chinese buildings are. Later, doing art history, both fell out of my favor! I found my favorite interface to be PowerPoint. In the latter, one can draw, trace-copy, edit, animate, and arrange images all in one app. The simpler, the better.

AC: In your view, what are the advantages of digital tools in historical reconstructions? What are their limitations?

ZZ: Art historians are sensitive with images, and digital tools may provide some good images that are worth their examination. Sometimes they even help their users to say things without words. Images often are part of the argument. But their limitations are obvious too. Someone told me once that “digital models have no gravity,” and I totally agree with this sentiment. And, if I may add, digital models have no solids—at least those that I produced are solely constructs of lines and surfaces. 

AC: What are your main goals when approaching a reconstruction with digital tools? 

ZZ: As mentioned earlier, the main goal of using digital reconstruction is to visualize my idea of lost architecture in a more precise way than words or sketches. Perhaps because of my self-awareness as an historian, I have not yet gone beyond visualization to express a dreamy idea about the flux of space or so forth throughout my PhD program—I could never call myself a digital artist. But the somewhat boring manner I have gone about digital reconstruction in my work has paid off with an enhanced understanding of space and time in cave art. When reconstructing things of various sizes (from tiny caves to a group of colossal caves), I see how cave art is also an art of scale. When reconstructing the form of a cave group at different stages in its construction history, I see how unique the irreversible process of cave construction is.

AC: You worked for a long time at the Dunhuang Academy, which has always been at the forefront of digitization efforts. How does your work interact with those efforts, and do you foresee in the future an integration between the digitization work of what is preserved in the site with digital reconstructions?

ZZ: Quite a few departments of the Dunhuang Academy (DA) have been deeply engaged with digitization and digital tools: the archaeological department makes archaeological drawings based on 3D-scanned models of the caves; the digitization department produces digitized images of the cave art and makes exhibition with the digital replicas; the exhibition center uses 3D-printed models and online displays, and so forth. Many of my drawings and studies are also based on the images of cave art digitized by the Dunhuang Academy and their collaborators. In general, the studies of these importable works of art have been greatly benefited from the portable, reproducible, and immaterial images in the digital age. The public can access the site and history of the Mogao caves better too. A recent online game about the Dunhuang Library Cave provided by DA in collaboration with Tencent looks particularly interesting. A vast space is ahead of all of us who are interested in not only the authentic thing but also its mechanical and sometimes recreational reproduction.

AC: What do you think the future of digital reconstruction will be or should be for art history/architectural studies/museums and museum studies?

ZZ: I cannot speak for the field at large, but in particular circumstances, such as an exhibition on the images of architecture in Dunhuang murals, perhaps digital models are productive for displaying and interpreting the murals they are based on. I can also imagine digital reconstruction being counter-productive when the reconstruction is not well done or when the work of art is self-explanatory enough. Case-by-case principle should be applied.

AC: What makes a digital reconstruction successful, in your opinion?

ZZ: There are different types of “successful.” Like all kinds of art historical interpretations, a true understanding of the object is what makes a digital reconstruction successful. 

AC: Can you share a favorite project of yours?

 ZZ: A physical model of some 40 caves in Mogao! It represents the district around the northern end of the southern section of the caves. To produce this model, I collected archaeological drawings from early investigators, surveyed the caves, filled in the gaps in the drawings, and made a digital model of the cave district to ensure that the caves’ relative positions were accurate. Then, more than a dozen colleagues and volunteers at the exhibition center of the Dunhuang Academy helped me produce the cardboard model. Some exploded the model into flat surfaces, some cut and pasted the surfaces together, some had the three-story pavilion façade 3D printed, some cut the acrylic bases, some assembled the individual caves in the showcase. I think this project not only displays the shape of the caves, but it also parallels the collective authorship and community that shaped the caves themselves.