Architectural Encounters with Essence and Form in Modern China

Architectural Encounters with Essence and Form in Modern China PDF Author: Peter G. Rowe
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262681513
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
A study of traditional and modernist attitudes toward architecture in China from the 1840s to the present. Built around snatches of discussion overheard in a Beijing design studio, this book explores attitudes toward architecture in China since the opening of the Treaty Ports in the 1840s. Central to the discussion are the concepts of ti and yong, or "essence" and "form," Chinese characters that are used to define the proper arrangement of what should be considered modern and essentially Chinese. Ti and yong have gone through various transformations--for example, from "Chinese learning for essential principles and Western learning for practical application" to "socialist essence and cultural form" and an almost complete reversal to "modern essence and Chinese form." The book opens with a discussion of cultural developments in China in response to the forced opening to the West in the mid-nineteenth century, efforts to reform the Qing dynasty, and the Nationalist and Communist regimes. It then considers the return of overseas-educated Chinese architects and foreign influences on Chinese architecture, four architectural orientations toward tradition and modernity in the 1920s and 1930s, and the controversy over the use of "big roofs" and other sinicizing aspects of Chinese architecture in the 1950s. The book then moves to the hard economic conditions of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, when architecture was almost abandoned, and the beginning of reform and opening up to the outside world in the late 1970s and 1980s. Finally, it looks at the present socialist market economy and Chinese architecture during the still incomplete process of modernization. It closes with a prognosis for the future.

Architectural Encounters with Essence and Form in Modern China

Architectural Encounters with Essence and Form in Modern China PDF Author: Peter G. Rowe
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262681513
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
A study of traditional and modernist attitudes toward architecture in China from the 1840s to the present. Built around snatches of discussion overheard in a Beijing design studio, this book explores attitudes toward architecture in China since the opening of the Treaty Ports in the 1840s. Central to the discussion are the concepts of ti and yong, or "essence" and "form," Chinese characters that are used to define the proper arrangement of what should be considered modern and essentially Chinese. Ti and yong have gone through various transformations--for example, from "Chinese learning for essential principles and Western learning for practical application" to "socialist essence and cultural form" and an almost complete reversal to "modern essence and Chinese form." The book opens with a discussion of cultural developments in China in response to the forced opening to the West in the mid-nineteenth century, efforts to reform the Qing dynasty, and the Nationalist and Communist regimes. It then considers the return of overseas-educated Chinese architects and foreign influences on Chinese architecture, four architectural orientations toward tradition and modernity in the 1920s and 1930s, and the controversy over the use of "big roofs" and other sinicizing aspects of Chinese architecture in the 1950s. The book then moves to the hard economic conditions of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, when architecture was almost abandoned, and the beginning of reform and opening up to the outside world in the late 1970s and 1980s. Finally, it looks at the present socialist market economy and Chinese architecture during the still incomplete process of modernization. It closes with a prognosis for the future.

Architecture of Modern China

Architecture of Modern China PDF Author: Jianfei Zhu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134720394
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
A collection of essays on architecture of modern China, arranged chronologically covering a period from 1729 to 2008, focusing mainly on the twentieth century. The distinctive feature of this book is a blending of ‘critical’ and ‘historical’ research, taking a long-range perspective transcending the current scene and the Maoist period. This is a short, elegant book that condenses the wide subject matter into key topics.

Original Copies

Original Copies PDF Author: Bianca Bosker
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824837835
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
A 108-meter high Eiffel Tower rises above Champs Elysées Square in Hangzhou. A Chengdu residential complex for 200,000 recreates Dorchester, England. An ersatz Queen’s Guard patrols Shanghai’s Thames Town, where pubs and statues of Winston Churchill abound. Gleaming replicas of the White House dot Chinese cities from Fuyang to Shenzhen. These examples are but a sampling of China’s most popular and startling architectural movement: the construction of monumental themed communities that replicate towns and cities in the West. Original Copies presents the first definitive chronicle of this remarkable phenomenon in which entire townships appear to have been airlifted from their historic and geographic foundations in Europe and the Americas, and spot-welded to Chinese cities. These copycat constructions are not theme parks but thriving communities where Chinese families raise children, cook dinners, and simulate the experiences of a pseudo-Orange County or Oxford. In recounting the untold and evolving story of China’s predilection for replicating the greatest architectural hits of the West, Bianca Bosker explores what this unprecedented experiment in “duplitecture” implies for the social, political, architectural, and commercial landscape of contemporary China. With her lively, authoritative narrative, the author shows us how, in subtle but important ways, these homes and public spaces shape the behavior of their residents, as they reflect the achievements, dreams, and anxieties of those who inhabit them, as well as those of their developers and designers. From Chinese philosophical perspectives on copying to twenty-first century market forces, Bosker details the factors giving rise to China’s new breed of building. Her analysis draws on insights from the world’s leading architects, critics and city planners, and on interviews with the residents of these developments.

Architecture of Modern China

Architecture of Modern China PDF Author: Jianfei Zhu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134720467
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
A collection of essays on architecture of modern China, arranged chronologically covering a period from 1729 to 2008, focusing mainly on the twentieth century. The distinctive feature of this book is a blending of ‘critical’ and ‘historical’ research, taking a long-range perspective transcending the current scene and the Maoist period. This is a short, elegant book that condenses the wide subject matter into key topics.

New China Architecture

New China Architecture PDF Author: Xing Ruan
Publisher: Periplus Editions (HK) Limited
ISBN: 9780794607579
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Featuring hundreds of photographs and extensive commentary, this modern architecture and design book showcases the dynamic structures of today's China. by China's booming cities are evolving at a dizzying speed, and her new wealth has created a dynamic environment for architecture and construction. New China Architecture documents the spectacular transformation modern China has undergone in recent decades as the heady push to prosperity has inspired architects from China and around the globe to produce striking new designs. Award-winning professor of architecture, Xing Ruan, covers the entire range of China's most captivating new building projects—from Shanghai skyscrapers to public buildings in Beijing and Guangzhou, and from cutting-edge private homes and gleaming new airports to theaters and universities throughout China. Over the past few decades, architects, urban planners, and design aficionados everywhere have watched China's spectacular urban transformation with awe, and New China Architecture offers them a closer look at the country's most innovative new buildings.

A Philosophy of Chinese Architecture

A Philosophy of Chinese Architecture PDF Author: David Wang
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317505670
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
A Philosophy of Chinese Architecture: Past, Present, Future examines the impact of Chinese philosophy on China’s historic structures, as well as on modern Chinese urban aesthetics and architectural forms. For architecture in China moving forward, author David Wang posits a theory, the New Virtualism, which links current trends in computational design with long-standing Chinese philosophical themes. The book also assesses twentieth-century Chinese architecture through the lenses of positivism, consciousness (phenomenology), and linguistics (structuralism and poststructuralism). Illustrated with over 70 black-and-white images, this book establishes philosophical baselines for assessing architectural developments in China, past, present and future.

Chinese Architecture

Chinese Architecture PDF Author: Yanxin Cai
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521186447
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
This book provides an illustrated introduction to Chinese architecture, a reference for modern design and a window into China's history.

Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts

Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts PDF Author: Jeffrey W. Cody
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824861019
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
In the early twentieth century, Chinese traditional architecture and the French-derived methods of the École des Beaux-Arts converged in the United States when Chinese students were given scholarships to train as architects at American universities whose design curricula were dominated by Beaux-Arts methods. Upon their return home in the 1920s and 1930s, these graduates began to practice architecture and create China’s first architectural schools, often transferring a version of what they had learned in the U.S. to Chinese situations. The resulting complex series of design-related transplantations had major implications for China between 1911 and 1949, as it simultaneously underwent cataclysmic social, economic, and political changes. After 1949 and the founding of the People’s Republic, China experienced a radically different wave of influence from the Beaux-Arts through advisors from the Soviet Union who, first under Stalin and later Khrushchev, brought Beaux-Arts ideals in the guise of socialist progress. In the early twenty-first century, China is still feeling the effects of these events. Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts examines the coalescing of the two major architectural systems, placing significant shifts in architectural theory and practice in China within relevant, contemporary, cultural, and educational contexts. Fifteen major scholars from around the world analyze and synthesize these crucial events to shed light on the dramatic architectural and urban changes occurring in China today—many of which have global ramifications. This stimulating and generously illustrated work is divided into three sections, framed by an introduction and a postscript. The first focuses on the convergence of Chinese architecture and the École des Beaux-Arts, outlining the salient aspects of each and suggesting how and why the two "met" in the U.S. The second section centers on the question of how Chinese architects were influenced by the Beaux-Arts and how Chinese architecture was changed as a result. The third takes an even closer look at the Beaux-Arts influence, addressing how innovative practices, new schools of architecture, and buildings whose designs were linked to Beaux-Arts assumptions led to distinctive new paradigms that were rooted in a changing China. By virtue of its scope, scale, and scholarship, this volume promises to become a classic in the fields of Chinese and Western architectural history. Contributors: Tony Atkin, Peter J. Carroll, Yung Ho Chang,Jeffrey W. Cody, Kerry Sizheng Fan, Fu Chao-Ching, Gu Daqing, Seng Kuan,Delin Lai, Xing Ruan, Joseph Rykwert, Nancy S. Steinhardt, David VanZanten, Rudolf Wagner, Zhang Jie, Zhao Chen.

Chinese Architecture and Metaphor

Chinese Architecture and Metaphor PDF Author: Jiren Feng
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824861167
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Investigating the historical tradition of Chinese architectural writing from antiquity to the twelfth century, Chinese Architecture and Metaphor reveals significant and fascinating social and cultural phenomena in the most important primary text for the study of the Chinese building tradition. Unlike previous scholarship, which has reviewed this imperially commissioned architectural manual largely as a technical work, this volume considers the Yingzao fashi’s unique literary value and explores the rich cultural implications in and behind its technical content. Utilizing a philological approach, the author pays particular attention to the traditional and contemporary architectural terminology presented in the Yingzao fashi. In examining the semantic meaning of the architectural terms used in the manual, he uncovers a systematic architectural metaphor wherein bracketing elements are likened to flowers, flowering branches, and foliage: Thus pillars with bracketing above are compared to blossoming trees. More importantly, this intriguing imagery was shared by different social groups, in particular craftsmen and literati, and craftsmen themselves employed literary knowledge in naming architectural elements. Relating these phenomena to the unprecedented flourishing of literature, the literati’s greater admiration of technical knowledge, and the higher intellectual capacity of craftsmen during the Song, Architecture and Metaphor demonstrates how the learned and “unlearned” cultures entangled in the construction of architectural knowledge in premodern China. It convincingly shows that technical language served as a faithful carrier of contemporary popular culture and aesthetic concepts. Chinese Architecture and Metaphor demonstrates a high level of engagement with a broad spectrum of sophisticated Chinese sources. It will become a classic work for all students and scholars of East Asian architecture.

China's Architecture in a Globalizing World: Between Socialism and the Market

China's Architecture in a Globalizing World: Between Socialism and the Market PDF Author: Jiawen Han
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351363298
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
China is currently in the midst of an unprecedented building boom and, indeed, interest in Chinese contemporary architecture has been fuelled by this huge expansion. Through a cutting-edge theoretical discussion of Chinese architecture in relation to Chinese modernity, this book examines this phenomenon in detail. In particular, it highlights how changes in the social-political system, the residual influence of Mao and the demands of the market have each shaped and determined style and form in recent years. Using key case studies of Liu Jiakun, Cui Kai, and URBANUS, it analyses the intricate details of historical pressures and practical strategies affecting Chinese architecture. In doing so, it demonstrates that Chinese architects contribute in specific ways to the international architectural discourse, since they are actively engaging with the complex societal transition of contemporary China and managing the dynamics and conflicts arising during the process. China's Architecture in a Globalizing World: Between Socialism and the Market offers a lens into the innovation and uniqueness of architectural design in China. As such, this book will be useful for students and scholars of architecture, Chinese culture and society and urban studies.