The Postcolonial Condition of Architecture in Asia

Reviews / Votes

Provocative, perceptive, and timely, The Postcolonial Condition of Architecture in Asia is a must-read for scholars concerned with the challenges and specificities of history and theory when defining and discussing architecture and urbanism in contemporary Asia. Francis Chia-Hui Lin takes readers across a series of urban sites, buildings, and landscapes and asks that we re-think the Asian city on its own terms-historic, political, social, environmental, and aesthetic. With stunning precision and sweeping geographic range, he reframes our theoretical lens through deep insights into Asia's postcolonial inheritance and the tendency toward strategies of display. This is a book that demands that we look with fresh eyes at what are today the world's most vital urban settings. -- Philip Goad, University of Melbourne Architectural design is heading toward a new, post-COVID-19 era. It will be one in which human beings are freed from closed boxes, released from concrete, and return to nature. Lin's book contains many tips to embrace the new age ahead of us. -- Kengo Kuma, University of Tokyo With this third book, Lin is a voice to be heard in global architecture theory and criticism. This book is a refreshing and personal expose on the state of architectural thinking in the fluid and pressured context of Asian cities. At a time when we are returning to a shared urban and civic experience, this book provides meaningful and tangible insights of value to students, designers, and urban dwellers alike. -- Hannah Lewi, University of Melbourne By examining the postcolonial configuration of display-ness and musealization, this book exhibits the hybrid architecture and urbanism of East Asia and contributes to our understanding of the constitution and dynamics of Asian-ness. The author weaves a variety of cases including iconic architectural design, museums as nation-building projects, quotidian urban landscapes, discourses for heritage conservation, and the architectural representation of indigenousness. Lin puts forward a reflexive theorization worthy of attention. -- Chih-hung Wang, National Taiwan University This is a book written by an ambitious author who develops a perspective of the historiography and theorizations of Asian architecture and urbanism and to unfold the process of Asianization from a bidirectional analysis of the spatiotemporality through history, theory, and criticism. The theoretical discussion focuses on how Asia is located and how specific localities are Asianized. -- Chih-ming Shih, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology