Volume 14 - Issue 2 - 2019
Preface: Architecture in Transition
Pingping DOU
Nanjing University
Transition is certainty. If we can grasp anything thoroughly, it is to understand it in the flow of time and change. To see architecture in transition is to trace the trajectory of the discipline as it evolves. Architecture is one of the great humanist discourses through which we collectively observe and represent the human condition. Architecture gives form to self and society. It is inextricably linked to our everyday world of work, leisure, environment and well-being. Architecture has always been an inherently interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary practice, more than any others within the humanities and social sciences....
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Transition in Chinese Building Trade (1840-1937) and its Impact on Building Conservation in Present-day China
Yiting PAN
Soochow University, China
The post-colonial theorist Homi K. Bhabha describes how colonialism creates structures which are often decried as inferior but are fascinating and complex mixtures of cultural practices interwoven to form new systems, different and no less interesting than their original sources. This study demonstrates this in action, looking at the relationship between Chinese native and Western methods in the development of construction in China during 1840-1937. ...
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“Hygiene and Residence” (Juzhai weisheng lun, 1890) and
the Transition of Weisheng in Urban China
Pingping DOU, Yuan ZHANG
School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Nanjing University
This paper explores how the meaning of weisheng (hygiene) shifted away from Chinese cosmology of nurturing one’s life and moved to encompass scientific standards of collective environment and efficiency of urban infrastructure. The translated treatise “Hygiene and Residence” (Juzhai weisheng lun) interpreted by John Fryer (Fu Lanya), which elaborates spatial configuration and constructional details on optimizing built environment, marks the emergence of modern architectural and urban design principle in contemporary China....
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State? University? Market: Sixty Years’ Evolution of University-affiliated Architectural Design Institute in China
Xiahong HUA
Tongji University, China
University-affiliated Architectural Design Institute (UADI) is a unique professional organization in China. The trajectory of UADI embodies China’s political, economic, social and cultural transformation for the passing six decades, especially due to its role in the rapid urbanization. UADI was established in 1958 as a product of Education Revolution and Great Leap Forward....
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Towards a New Spatial Tactics:
O-office's Architectural Practice in the Pearl River Delta
Duan WU
Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, China
Architecture reconstructs itself in the process of the interaction of the ever-changing conditions and its own evolutionary strategy today. From the analysis of the O-office’s architectural practice in the region of Pearl River Delta, this paper reflects the social and economic conditions of China under the process of re-urbanization. It has also unveiled a pliant tactic undertook by some young Chinese architects, who attempt to reposition the ethos of architecture in order to maintain certain sense of criticality and depth in relation to the context....
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Cotton Lab Urban Lounge: A Manifesto of Interiority
Andong LU
Nanjing University, China
This article uses the case of a flagship store of a clothing manufacturer to examine the impact of digital technology on urban architecture and everyday lives. It is argued that today people explore environment in a hybrid manner of digitally augmented interaction and immersion, which has transformed the fundamentals of architectural design. The increasing significance of the identifiability of place has to be understood against the indexical space and the interior space. In this regard, the design of interiority is more than an issue of form, but an exploration into the new ontology and methodology of architecture. ...
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