Review

Reviewed Work(s): Architecture of Modern China: A Historical Critique by JIANFEI

ZHU
Review by: Duanfang Lu
Source: Journal of Architectural Education (1984-) , March 2010, Vol. 63, No. 2,
Changing Asia (March 2010), pp. 174-175
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of Collegiate Schools
of Architecture, Inc.

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/20778835

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treatment of notions of modernity and how they are
expressed in the spatial governance of Malaysia and
a contextualizing introduction to Malaysian politics
and history. These two chapters provide conceptual
tools that are applied in the second section of the
book, "On Route 2020," a north-south tour from
the KLCC to the aboriginal lands that were cleared
for the construction of KLIA's Runway 1. As in
Thompson's book, the black-and-white figures and
photos are used sparingly and mostly by way of
spatially orienting the reader.
While Thompson utilizes the conceptual tools
of the ethnographer to elucidate a very human
picture of what urbanization and urbanism can
mean for a seemingly remote rural community,
Bunnell provides us with a geographer's synoptic
understanding of Malaysia's grands projets of urban
(and nationalist) aspiration. This potential for the
conflation of urban and national trajectories in the
rapidly urbanizing societies of Asia is a curious
phenomenon that will undoubtedly provoke further
inquiry for years to come and will benefit from
multiple methodologies and multiple perspectives.
Bunnell's and Thompson's contributions, when
taken together, show how the complexities of Asian
urbanization may be insightfully viewed through the
microscope as well as the telescope.
Michael Leaf
Architecture of Modern China: A Historical
Critique
JIANFEI ZHU
Routledge, 2009
336 pages
$62.95 (paper)
The history of modern architecture outside the
Euro-American world is a relatively new and rapidly
growing area of research. Until the last three
decades, the official history of modern architecture
focused on its development in the West. Academic
inquiry about the built environment in non-Western
128.143.7.175 on Sun, 14 Jun 2020 15:15:51 UTC
Architecture of Modern China
A historical critique
JIANFEI ZHU
societies concentrated on traditional forms and little
attention was devoted to their modern architecture.
This orientation has been changed as canonical
narratives that privilege Western modes of thinking
and aesthetics are being challenged. Scholarship on
the far-reaching variability of modern architecture
has begun to grow. Jianfei Zhu's Architecture of
Modern Chino is a significant addition to this body
of literature. The book is a collection of writings and
lectures that Zhu has delivered since the late 1990s,
when China entered a period of rapid growth. With
an annual urbanization rate of 15%, the past
decade witnessed a dramatic building boom in
Chinese cities. Zhu's book contextualizes and
analyzes China's architectural developments by
concentrating on a number of crucial historical
moments between 1729 and 2008: the introduction
of Western linear perspective to China, the
construction of national buildings in republican
Nanjing, the development of Chinese architecture
during the first decade of socialist building, the rise
of new generation of architects since the late
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1990s, and Beijing's recent Olympic-driven
transformation.
The goals of the book are twofold: to offer
both a historical narrative of modern Chinese
architecture and a critical analysis of related social
issues. As such, Zhu situates his analysis within a
broad political, cultural, and ideological context. He
is completely at home when dealing with diverse
topics ranging from the relation between
architecture and authority in republican and socialist
China to recent changes brought by global
capitalism. The book convincingly reveals the strong
political and social charge of Chinese architecture in
the service of nation-building within the structure
of global modernity.
But this is not the whole story the book aims to
tell. Zhu is one of the few architectural researchers
who maintain a close observation of China's
present-day architectural practice. In Chapter 6,
"Criticality in between China and the West, 1996
2004," Zhu examines the interactions between
Chinese and Western architects and re-interprets
the notion of critical design in the global context.
An important innovation of his analysis is to
highlight Asia as the geo-politico-economic
"outside" beyond the West to assess the post
critical debate. By adopting a fresh vantage point,
Zhu overcomes earlier hegemonic assumptions
which identified the West as the sole yardstick to
measure the success and failure of theoretical
constructs. He suggests that a "symmetrical"
tendency has occurred in cross-cultural interaction
in the past few years.
Comments from a number of architects and
critics, including George Baird, Yung Ho Chang,
Peter Eisenman, Michael Speaks, Zheng Shiling and
others, as well as Zhu's response to the comments,
are included at the end of Chapter 6. Together they
present diverse positions on criticality in con
temporary design. An open letter to Zhu by Chinese
architect Liu Jiakun, for example, expresses a
different view on the current state of cultural
exchange between China and the West. Drawing
REVIEWS I BOOKS 174
from his personal experiences, Liu argues that the
situation is still very much asymmetrical due to a
"time lag" between Western knowledge about
China and Chinese reality. Liu calls for the establish
ment of a system of discourse based on the Chinese
context so Chinese architects can stage themselves
in the scene of world architecture by bringing "fresh
soil" with them instead of being treated like
"isolated carrots washed clean by others."
Zhu does exactly that in Chapter 7. Drawing
upon the work of Immanuel Wallerstein, Peter
Nolan, and Satoshi Ikeda, Zhu suggests that
Western categories such as "resistance" and "avant
garde" may not be applicable in reform-era China
where state, market, and society are related in quite
different ways. If both the state and the market
economy are "organically embedded in society,"
Zhu argues, "the entire composition of a critical
architecture will also have to be relational, organic
or embedded, rather than confrontational or
oppositional." The book closes with a chart that
diagrams major "design positions" in China since
the early twentieth century in a system of
evolutionary branches.
While the book provides a wealth of detailed
information, some parts of the discussion could go
further to reach a more critical analysis of design
work and issues raised in all of their complexity.
There is a lack of architectural plans throughout the
book, which, if added, could allow a closer reading
of buildings under study. It would also be helpful to
include Chinese proper names in the glossary. These
are minor points, however. With its broad coverage,
innovative methodology, and provocative theoretical
exploration, Architecture of Modern Chino
contributes immensely to the understanding of
contemporary architectural practice and the
emerging "star system" of Chinese architects. The
book opens up new avenues for further research
and will be of great interest to scholars, architects,
and students of architecture.
Duanfang Lu
175 REVIEWS | BOOKS
128.143.7.175 on Sun, 14 Jun 2020 15:15:51 UTC
Globalization, the City and Civil Society those same forces that shape contemporary urban
in Pacific Asia: The Social Production of change in Pacific Asia. Through theoretical
Civic Spaces reflections and empirical case studies, the
MIKE DOUGLASS, K. C. HO AND GIOK LING 001, fourteen essays in this volume create a convincing
editors narrative of Asia's urbanism and spatial politics
Routledge, 2008 during the past two decades. Civic spaces play a
293 pages, illustrated crucial role in fostering civil society and
$160 (paper) promoting political reforms in the region, even as
they are increasingly under stress from
government control and the global economy's
GLOBALIZATION, THE CITY agenda of privatization. In this respect, demands for
AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN civic spaces should be crucial components of
PACIFIC ASIA democratic urban governance.
Because of their inclusiveness and autonomy,
civic spaces have the potential to assert the voice of
civil society in the arena of public affairs. At
particular historical moments, specific urban sites
such as public squares, plazas, parks, sidewalks and
streets are transformed into "insurgent spaces" to
be used for protests and challenges to hegemonic
power. Case studies of the Kampung Baru Mosque
in Kuala Lumpur, Kwanghwamun square in Seoul,
Hotel Indonesia roundabout and Monas Square in
Jakarta, and Sanan Luang in Bangkok demonstrate
the role these civic spaces played as active agents
of social change in politically turbulent times, and
how the symbolic meaning these spaces carry made
them political venues for continuous civic
participation. But civic spaces are also "communal"
*? -Q
uU ? spaces, in which ordinary people can gather, socially
r O
interact, and participate in local governance. Case
MiRe Douglass, K.C. Ho studies of China's urban areas?public squares
and Giok Ling Ooi (guangchang), peri-urban villages, and Shanghai's
community projects?and of Hanoi's sidewalks after
This book is a collection of essays on "civic spaces'
market reform examine the emergence of new forms
in East and Southeast Asian cities. According to of civic space, although these areas are still highly
editor Mike Douglass, such spaces allow diversecontrolled and regulated by the state and local
people to "co-mingle without overt control by governments.
government, commercial or other private interests, The book does not limit itself to the social
production of diverse urban civic spaces. It also
or de facto dominance by one group over another/
As presented here, the civic realm is defined by addresses the crisis of such spaces when they are
spaces of contestation and negotiation among the
colonized through surveillance, policing, and
state, the civil society, and the global economy, exclusion. Heng Chye Kiang, for example, shows
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