East Asia: Experiments in Architecture and Urbanism

Over the past fifty years, large cities and small villages in East Asia have attracted a caravan of internationally acclaimed architects, planners and thinkers rushing to claim their share of one of the most impressive construction booms that the world has ever seen. As the world geo-political landscape shifts and turns, East Asia continues to jockey into an increasingly prominent socioeconomic position. Architecture and urbanism is at the core of this development. The architectural and urban discourse in East Asia is both sophisticated and na'lve -it is certainly no longer a uniform pursuit of profit, expediency, or prestige. Multinational pressures and local vernaculars are colliding in an unprecedented way creating detachments from history, a redefinition of identity, bureaucratic interventions, and hyper-transformations. This symposium questions the architectural and urban experiments that have been and continue to re-shape East Asia. A focus also will be placed on a discussion of the historical factors that have defined the architecture of East Asia, and how those factors are being shaped by current economic an~ social forces. Papers presented at the symposium will address the complex interplay of forces beYGnd global capitalism, political systems, historic preservation, revivalism, ecological concerns, and cultural differences as they relate to the future of East Asian cities and villages.