From Crisis to Crisis: Debates on Why Architecture Criticsm Matters Today

From Crisis to Crisis examines how reading, writing and criticism can address the urgent issues faced by architecture today, including: the role of the architect in the era of specialization; the function of criticism in diverse political, economic and cultural contexts; and, the possibility of architectural education to take on history, theory, civic engagement and political participation. Drawn from an international public symposium organized in the spring of 2017 by the University of Hong Kong (HKU) Department of Architecture, the book is comprised in equal parts of focused essays and transcripts of the wide-ranging discussions. From Crisis to Crisis reflects Hong Kong’s ongoing transformation from a gateway between China and the world, to a regional hub opening up a new milieu for the cultural, economic, and intellectual resources of Asia. The HKU Department of Architecture is part of this ongoing transformation, attracting thinkers from Asia, North America, Australia and Europe to engage in critical, relevant dialogues. The publication reflects this diversity and is characterized by its flexibility, contingency, vitality, and open-endedness. From Crisis to Crisis includes contributions from architects, writers and critics from around the world: Anthony Acciavati (USA), Founder & editor of Manifest; Columbia University Chris Brisbin (Australia), University of South Australia Françoise Fromonot (France), Chief editor of Criticat; ENSA Paris-Belleville Seng Kuan (USA), Harvard University Graduate School of Design Jonathan Massey (USA), University of Michigan Graham Mckay (UAE), University of Sharjah Kamran Afshar Naderi (Iran), Founder & editor of Memar Angelika Schnell (Austria), The Academy of Fine Arts-Vienna Zhi Wenjun (China), Founder & editor of Time + Architecture; Tongji University

After studying at the Architectural Association and practising in London, Seraji moved to Paris in 1989 to establish her studio where architecture is treated as both a cultural debate and a practice. Since then, she has pursued a path constantly enriched by her simultaneous engagement in architectural practice, teaching, and research. She has lectured and exhibited her work widely in Europe and North America, as well as China and South East Asia. Between 1993 and 2001, Seraji taught at Columbia University in New York, at the Architectural Association in London as Diploma Unit Master, and Princeton University as Visiting Professor. Seraji was Professor and Chair of the Department of Architecture at Cornell University from 2001 to 2005. In 2006, she returned to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna where she held the position of Professor of Ecology, Sustainability and Conservation, as well as Head of the Institute for Art and Architecture through until 2012. She was Dean of the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris-Malaquais for ten years (formerly the École des Beaux-Arts) between 2006-2016. She was appointed centennial visiting professor of design at Hong Kong University in January 2014 She is currently Professor of the department of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong. Architect of the award-winning Temporary American Centre in Paris, Seraji has completed several notable buildings and projects, including apartment buildings in Vienna, student housing in Paris and an extension to the School of Architecture in Lille, the latter were both nominated for the Mies Van der Rohe Prize. She continues to participate in competitions of varying types and complexities, ranging from urban design master plans and institutional buildings to small houses and installations. Current projects in progress include a building complex in Paris for the Paris Transportation Authority comprised of 213 housing units and a bus depot will be inaugurated in November; competitions for student housing and affordable housing as well as large-scale urban plans in the French cities of le Rheu, and Pau. A recent housing project brought the prestigious prize of Mention de l’Équerre d’Argent to her practice this year. Seraji first received the medal for Chevalier des Arts et desLetters from the Minister of Culture in France in 2006 for her role as an architect contributing to excellence in art and humanities. In 2008, she was awarded the medal of Chevalier dans l’OrdreNational du Mérite by Presidential decree. In the same year she was also awarded the Medaille d’Argent by the French Academy of Architecture for her contribution to academic endeavours in architecture. Most recently, in July 2011, she received the Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur, one of the highest degrees of honour in France. She was promoted to the rank of Officier de l’Ordre Nationale du Mérite, by the President of the French Republic in May 2016.

Sony Devabhaktuni joined the architecture faculty in January 2016 and has taught design studios and elective seminars in the undergraduate and graduate programs. He also teaches an introduction to architectural representation for 1st and 2nd year students from across the university as part of the Common Core program. His research uses drawing to describe how architecture is situated within the world–understood both as a set of ecological relations and a site for human exchange. Three, ongoing research projects reflect this interest. With John Lin, supported with a grant from the General Research Fund of the Hong Kong government, he is studying informal, self-built adaptations to four important vernacular house typologies in rural China. The project uses axonometric drawing and interviews to describe innovative strategies for adapting traditional dwellings that render them responsive to contemporary ways of living. Drawings from the research were part of the Architectural Ethnography exhibition in the Japan Pavilion of the 2018 Venice Biennial. A second ongoing project, Curb-scale Studies, uses film, photography and measured, architectural scale drawings to describe the negotiated, ad-hoc complexity of the street in Hong Kong, arguing that these contentious sites are critical to addressing accessibility, mobility, the environment and collective life. The drawings make this complexity legible while also opening a space for architectural attention in a domain that has largely been ceded to techno-bureaucratic administration. Finally, work on the planning and development of Amaravati, the new capital of Andhra Pradesh state in India, constructs drawings from close readings of digital satellite images to track the ongoing transformations taking place there. This work is supported by a grant from the University of Hong Kong and will be the subject of a master’s design studio in the fall of 2019. Between 2017-2019, he taught a series of fourth year studios that looked at the status of the ground in Hong Kong. Common/Central/Ground addressed the historical, economic and political origins of Central district on Hong Kong Island. Hong Kong Nation asked students to speculate on Hong Kong’s territorial configuration in 2046 when it loses its status as a special administrative region. And finally, in two related studios on the street in Hong Kong, students studied the relationship between infrastructure and civic life using close observation and description of the street to propose prototypes and projects for its development. He is the co-editor, with Nasrin Seraji and Xiaoxuan Lu, of From Crisis to Crisis: Debates on why architecture criticism matters today (Actar) and co-author, with Min K. Lee, of the essay “Collaboration: Unresolved Forms of Working Together in Contemporary Architectural Practice” which appears in The Routledge Companion to Critical Approaches to Contemporary Architecture (Swati Chattopadhyay and Jeremy White, eds). With John Lin, he is currently working on a book documenting their research in rural China, to be published by ORO Editions in the fall of 2020.

Xiaoxuan Lu is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Landscape Architecture, where she teaches landscape history and theory, and design studios. She has practiced in the fields of architecture and landscape architecture at Turenscape in Beijing, West 8 in Rotterdam, Bjarke Ingels Group in Copenhagen, and SWA in Los Angeles. For Turenscape, she recently worked as the project manager for Zaryadye Park International Competition, which envisions Zaryadye Park as an urban ecosystem that provides multiple eco-services to the city and people. Her research focuses on the cultural landscape and geography of conflict, particularly in transboundary regions. Applying analytical cartography, photography and video in her research, Xiaoxuan aims to reveal the hidden layers of landscape where multiple tensions converge. In her MLA thesis, “Mining as Demining,” she focused on the remediation of post-war landscape in Laos PDR, which won her an Award of Excellence from the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2012. Her doctoral dissertation, “Reconceptulizing China’s Northwestern Frontiers: Arid Land, The Corps, and Public Water Works,” examines the relationship between water and power in China’s militia-stationed northwestern frontier, and how discourses of ecology have influenced and problematized notions of “State” and “wasteland.” Her writing and research has been published in LEAP (2016.3), Calvert Journal (2015.11), ON SITE Review (2015.9), Journal of Natural Resources(2014.11), Human Geography (2014.8), The Traveler (2014.9), and Acta Ecologica Sinica (2014.3). Her research and design work has been exhibited internationally in “Crossing Kazakhstan: The Monumentality of Linear Landscape” at Harvard University in Cambridge (2016.4-10), “Dialogues on Urbanization Exhibition” at IIT in Chicago (2015.3-5), and 22nd International Garden Festival at Chaumont-sur-Loire, France (2013.5-11). Xiaoxuan has served as an editor and columnist for Landscape Architecture Frontiers since 2012, which won an Honor Award in the Communications category of 2015 ASLA professional awards. Her “Experiments and Processes” column showcases a range of speculative design project. It functions as a platform for exploring narratives behind experimental methodologies, representations and results, while projecting a future for landscape architecture that is positioned between research, storytelling, and design. Xiaoxuan received her Bachelor of Architecture from Southern California Institute of Architecture, and Master in Landscape Architecture from Harvard University. She was a PhD Fellow at Harvard University during the academic years of 2014-2016, and received her PhD in Human Geography from Peking University in early 2017.