Journal #17

"asian"

Edited by Constance C. Lai & Andrew Miller

Contents:

Akiko Takenaka
Pan-Asianism vs. Changeless, Timeless Japan:
the construction of a wartime national identity.

San San Kwan
Made by Chinese: Shanghai Tang and the Development of Contemporary Chinese Couture

Andrew I-kang Li
Descriptions, shape grammar, and a 12th-century Chinese Building Manual

Bundit Kanisthakhon
Sustaining Tradition: Design for a Contemporary Thai House in Northern Bangkok

Eric Howeler
Sites of Interface: Cultural Identity and the Asian Skyscraper

Kerry S. Fan
Socialist Ideology and Architecture: A Study of the Chinese Architectural Journal

Ritu Bhatt & Alka Patel
How Buildings Divide and Unite Us: The Case of Mandal (Gujarat, India)

Toshihiro Komatsu
Inverted Office

Stephen Cairns
Archipelago Aesthetics: The evidence of architecture in Southeast Asia

Constance Lai
Interview with Tunney Lee
Interview with Charles Correa

Nilay Oza & T. Luke Young
Nek Chand's Garden: Chandigargh, India

Cherie Wendelken
Commentary on Journal #17

from Journal #17 call for submissions:
What is Asian Visual Culture? Asian Architecture? Asian Art? Asian Aesthetics? What are the cultural implications of consolidating styles under an overarching category like "Asian"? or "Asian- American" ? "Asian-European"? Who does it include? Who does it exclude? What is the role of geographical distinctions?

Huge swaths of Beijing are being cleared by real-estate developers to make way for high-rise apartments, office buildings and shopping centers. The familiar syndrome of urban renewal is drastically changing the face of an ancient city within a few years. Within a few years around 90 percent of the old neighborhoods will be cleared.
- from The New York Times March 1, 1998.

"International - what a guileless, friendly word. As a kid in the sixties, I remember drinking up everything international ... House of Pancakes! "Come in!" international people always seemed to be saying. "We don't care where the hell you're from. Have some flapjacks!" Then, as internationalism waned in the self-centered seventies, a new aesthetic called multiculturalism washed up on the dreary beaches of academe. Unlike internationalism, which viewed the world through the rose-colored lens of global brotherhood, multiculturalism was concerned about making sure everyone got a piece of the pie. Unlike international people, multicultural people seemed to spend much of their time hurling things at each other and fighting over gristly little bits of grant money."
– from "Depth Takes a Holiday" by Sandra Tsing Loh.

To order this journal contact:

thresholds
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Architecture
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Room 7-337
Cambridge MA 02139
phone 617.258.8439 fax 617.258.9455
thresh@mit.edu