Architectural Encounters with Essence and Form in Modern China - Hardcover

Rowe, Peter G.; Kuan, Seng

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 026218219X ISBN 13: 9780262182195

Publisher: Mit Pr, 2002

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Peter G. Rowe is Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he is Raymond Garbe Professor of Architecture and Urban Design.

Review

"Peter Rowe and Seng Kuan present a magnificent panorama of one and a half centuries of Chinese architecture." - Delin Lai, Ph.D., former faculty member, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, and current graduate student in art history, University of Chicago"

Edition details

• Publisher: Mit Pr
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 026218219X
• ISBN 13: 9780262182195
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 301