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This book is the first overall and detailed discussion of contemporary Asia's architectural theorisations and phenomena based on its heteroglossic and decolonisation character. Lin presents a theoretical journey of transdisciplinary reflection upon contemporary Asia's pragmatic phenomena which is methodologically achieved by means of elaborations of how tangible Asian architecture can be philosophically theorised and how interchangeable architectural theory is practically 'Asianised'. Discussions in the book are critically integrated with comparative studies focused on Japan, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. These empirical examinations are highlights of phenomenal localities, architecture, cities and cultures which reference the historicity of the Asia Pacific, Asia's contemporary architectural situations, and their subtle relationship with the 'West'. The schematisation of intended 'fuzziness' for Asia and its architecture is framed asthe notion polychronotypic jetztzeit to represent a present time-place context of contemporary Asian architecture and urbanism. This book will be of great interest to scholars of Asian Studies, Architectural Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Urban Studies and Cultural Studies.
List of contents
1. Introduction: Writing and Un-writing Asian Architecture.- Part One: Theorised Asia.- 2. The Past in the Present: The Immediate Historicity of Asia.- 3. Trans-boundary Methodologies: Cultural Appropriation and Heteroglossia.- 4. Bracketing Before Framing: The Grounding of Colony Architecture.- Part Two: Asianised Theory.- 5. The Tenryuubito and the Resistance to it: Exemplifying Cultural-political Enclaves.- 6. Non-native Natives and Insular Urbanism: The Matter of Communitarian Localities in Asia.- 7. Exhibitions without Exhibits: Musealising History and Architecture.- 8. Conclusion: The Entanglement or the Différend?.
About the author
Francis Chia-Hui Lin is assistant professor at the Department of Architecture and Urban Design, Chinese Culture University, Taiwan. He is an architectural historian, theorist and curator by training with a specialist focus on the postcoloniality of the Asia Pacific region. He is the author of
Heteroglossic Asia (2015).
Summary
Mediates between theorised Asia and Asianised theory
Provides an in-depth elaboration amongst various ‘alternatives’ that build up a subtle relationship with dominant discourses produced within the box of the Western intellectualism
Presents both useful theorisations and innovative empirical evidence that explain Asia’s architectural phenomena emerging in a contemporary global context
