Luohu Tiancheng was launched on the 20th. It was a Friday, and Xia Xiaolan could only head to the airport after class. She almost missed her flight this time.
On her way from school to the airport, Professor Katherine came to find her… Frank had told Katherine something, and after holding back for days, Katherine felt she should tell Xia Xiaolan. However, she didn’t know that Xia Xiaolan had already acted swiftly, finding a lawyer and filing a lawsuit against Lisa in just these few days!
Katherine was surprised, but Xia Xiaolan merely smiled:
“I thought your friend’s behavior at the party was strange. That explains it. But the day after the party, I learned about this from the GMP office. Thank you for your concern, Professor Katherine.”
“No, you’re braver than we imagined. I never thought of handling it this way. This is excellent!”
Katherine finally felt relieved.
Win or lose the lawsuit, Xia Xiaolan was fighting for fairness and justice. Frank was wrong – she wasn’t just passively accepting the situation.
What about AIA?
Xia Xiaolan was living up to her words from the finals. She was working hard to overcome various obstacles to become a female architect!
Rushing to catch her flight, Xia Xiaolan couldn’t talk with Katherine for long.
Katherine went back and told Frank.
Frank was quite surprised.
Frank had been in Beijing these days, climbing the Great Wall, exploring the Forbidden City, and discovering Chinese cuisine in streets and hutongs. As a Brit, if he could accept Lu Zhu and Chao Gan, basically no Chinese food was off-limits to him.
Frank was too enchanted with China to care about events in America.
After hearing Katherine’s news, Frank called his friend at AIA headquarters. After their discussion, Frank exclaimed dramatically:
“She nearly blew the roof off AIA! I was wrong. I underestimated this Chinese student’s influence. Katherine, she has a bright future in architecture!”
Frank paced around the room, gesturing excitedly:
“It’s hard to imagine – she was just an exchange student at Cornell for a year, yet Cornell’s architecture professors are standing up for her! I heard the AIA review panel is going crazy. The chairman even allegedly argued with Mond Dawson. Mond, that petty man, won’t admit to deliberately making things difficult for a newcomer, but the AIA review panel has lost face because of this… Ha, this is quite amusing!”
“How will AIA handle it? Xia mentioned suing that female architect Lisa. I think Lisa and Mond will try to drag out the lawsuit.”
Katherine remained concerned.
Frank couldn’t help with the lawsuit.
But mentioning AIA, Frank suddenly had an idea: “AIA is still discussing it. I guess they’ll eventually agree to Xia’s proposal and send someone from America to witness her design a new work. If she wins the lawsuit and gains AIA’s recognition, she’ll gain international fame! Even greater recognition than winning the AIA Rising Star Architect award. If those people at AIA headquarters are still clear-headed, they should not only agree but actively engage, turning a bad situation into a good one… Katherine, I have an idea – if AIA sends someone to China to witness Xia’s creation, don’t you think I’d be a suitable candidate?”
Frank grew more excited as he thought about it.
First, he was an AIA member, meeting the basic requirements.
Second, he disliked Mond Dawson and wouldn’t speak for him, making him impartial.
Third, and very importantly, he was already in China and could start work immediately. Having quit his previous job and not started a new one, he wanted to spend a long vacation in China. If he could turn his private trip into an AIA business trip, AIA would have to reimburse all his expenses.
Perfect!
But Katherine shook her head: “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’ve been in China for a while – would AIA trust you? They might think Xia has already won you over. Since it’s supervision, oh, I mean ‘witnessing,’ I doubt AIA would send just one person.”
Frank was quite disappointed.
Indeed, he hadn’t expected things to escalate like this. AIA was in a dilemma. If they truly wanted to handle this well, they wouldn’t send just one person to China to “witness.”
Frank grumbled:
“I can apply to AIA. They can send others too – one more person wouldn’t hurt, right? I’m curious about this Xia. What kind of magic does she possess to make Cornell’s Architecture School protest to AIA for her, plus all the support from China!”
This witnessing might be watching the rise of an architectural rising star.
Though Mond was never a good person, Frank acknowledged his professional eye. Frank was itching to know more about a newcomer who could make Mond so anxious to deal with.
…
Xia Xiaolan didn’t know how AIA would handle it. Ning Yanfan had already communicated with the review panel chairman, who said they needed to discuss it. Being understanding as always, she naturally gave them time to consider.
She didn’t know that after the review panel chairman called Mond to headquarters and had a huge argument with him in the office, AIA had decided to hire a professional PR firm to handle the matter.
America has many PR firms specializing in crisis management for companies and individuals.
For instance, when a company or celebrity faces a scandal, hiring a good PR firm to develop timely response strategies based on public reaction could greatly reduce the scandal’s negative impact. Even if they couldn’t completely turn the situation around, hiring one was better than not. Self-handling often leads to poor decisions in unfavorable situations, making things worse.
AIA hiring a PR firm was normal – they had no choice. They even suspected Xia Xiaolan had beaten them to it.
Although it was just a copyright lawsuit between two unknown architects, newspapers were following the story, and TV stations wanted to interview the “Rising Star Architect” review panel. AIA headquarters refused interviews, still buying time… Were they being forced to compromise quickly?
AIA, suspicious of everything, hired a PR firm to handle the situation.
The PR firm offered two suggestions:
First, refuse to apologize, regardless of the lawsuit’s outcome. Ignore all protest letters. For a huge international architects’ association like AIA, thoroughly ignore a new architect’s “publicity stunt.”
Second, before the lawsuit concludes… Set aside Lisa and Mond Dawson, and agree to the newcomer’s suggestion. AIA would send people to China. Regardless of the lawsuit’s outcome, this would demonstrate AIA’s fairness and create an image of AIA as thorough and people-oriented.
The first approach had risks. If Xia Xiaolan won the lawsuit, AIA would face ridicule from peers and pressure from all sides.
The second approach could please everyone. Whether Xia Xiaolan won the lawsuit or not, AIA’s remedial action would be beyond reproach.
Choosing the second approach would only offend Mond Dawson.
The PR firm analyzed for AIA headquarters:
“Mond Dawson is a Pritzker Architecture Prize winner and an AIA member. He’s AIA’s public face, but can he fully represent AIA?”
AIA feared being overtaken by their “little brother” Pritzker while highly valuing Pritzker Prize winners – a contradiction the PR firm found difficult to understand!