Contemplating a New Danwei Urbanism

Market-driven Capitalist urbanization is no longer a viable option for China as it has produced increasingly monotonous and segregated cities that deny culture, history, ecology, and human connection. Cultural efficiencies generated from the interconnection and proximity of distinct entities found in traditional and Socialist-Era Chinese urbanisms have been overlooked in favor of market-oriented efficiencies from Western urbanization patterns. The thesis argues that China needs to develop a post-Capitalist Socialist urbanism in which efficiency is based on a shift in orientation from formulaic compositional systems to open-ended layered systems that encompass the dialectical complexity of the city. Socialist- Era Danwei Urbanism is revisited for its potential to facilitate efficiencies from the sharing of resources between various parts of daily life existing in the same urban block. The danwei (work unit) is a walled community containing the workplace, subsidized employee housing, and social amenities within an urban block. Many danwei, however, have moved some housing and amenities into areas far from the workplace rather than densifying the existing site. A New Danwei Urbanism builds density in a process of disintegration and formation, gives presence to absent ecologies, and establishes collectivity with a network of covered spaces while respecting autonomy at the local level. It embraces a dialectical reading of the city as a unity of contradictory yet interdependent systems. These layers present an alternative approach in which the danwei facilitates informal social and intellectual exchanges in the urban block

Landscape design strategies for urban stormwater management in northern China : an analysis and comparative study of six Chinese stormwater management projects

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Renovation of vernacular architecture in rural China

With the rapid progress of urbanization in China, a lot of villages face serious brain-drain. A serious problem of culture deterioration arises except in a few traditional villages. Most newly built rural homes are weak and unsafe due to a lack of professional support and building codes. Many large-scale rural reconstruction projects initiated by the government fail because of corruption and irresponsibility. The rural residents suffer from the lack of infrastructure and the quality of their homes. Presently, there are a few grassroots, activists, architects, architectural critics, media and NGOs working for the renovation of Chinese vernacular architecture and rural settlement. Their works include architectural writing, installation artworks and projects in rural areas. This paper is an attempt to propose sustainable approaches and alternative patterns to settle grounds for Chinese contemporary rural construction, regarding architecture, decorative arts, construction systems and user's organization for promotion, by investigating, analyzing and comparing theories and some represented samples of traditional villages, renovation projects and installation artworks from the standpoints of technology, sociology, politics, art, philosophy, history and sustainability.Con el rápido progreso de la urbanización en China, muchas aldeas se enfrentan a una seria fuga de cerebros. Existe un grave problema de deterioro de la cultura, excepto en algunas aldeas tradicionales. La mayoría de los hogares rurales de nueva construcción son frágiles e inseguros debido a la falta de apoyo profesional y códigos de construcción. Muchos proyectos de reconstrucción rural a gran escala iniciados por el gobierno fracasan debido a la corrupción y a la irresponsabilidad. Los residentes rurales sufren de la falta de infraestructuras y la baja calidad de sus hogares. En la actualidad, hay unas pocas personas de base, activistas, arquitectos, críticos arquitectónicos, medios de comunicación y ONGs que trabajan para la renovación de la arquitectura vernácula china y los asentamientos rurales. Sus obras incluyen teoría y crítica arquitectónica, instalaciones artísticas y proyectos en zonas rurales. Este trabajo es un intento de proponer enfoques sostenibles y modelos alternativos para sentar las bases de la construcción rural contemporánea china, con respecto a la arquitectura, las artes decorativas, los sistemas constructivos y la organización de los usuarios para la promoción. La investigación analiza y compara teorías y muestras representativas de aldeas tradicionales, Proyectos de renovación e instalaciones artísticas desde los puntos de vista de la tecnología, la sociología, la política, el arte, la filosofía, la historia y la sostenibilidad.Postprint (published version

Moving Spaces. Enacting Dance, Performance, and the Digital in the Museum

This collection of essays investigates some of the theories and concepts related to the burgeoning presence of dance and performance in the museum. This surge has led to significant revisions of the roles and functions that museums currently play in society. The authors provide key analyses on why and how museums are changing by looking into participatory practices and decolonisation processes, the shifting relationship with the visitor/spectator, the introduction of digital practices in collection making and museum curation, and the creation of increasingly complex documentation practices. The tasks designed by artists who are involved in the European project Dancing Museums. The Democracy of Beings (2018-21) respond to the essays by suggesting a series of body-mind practices that readers could perform between the various chapters to experience how theory may affect their bodies

Regulation and the roles of art museum education in China and Taiwan

PhD ThesisThis thesis examines the current educational roles of art museums in China and Taiwan under diverse political regimes and social regulation. It is based on case studies of five art museums at both the national and local levels in these two locations. The selection of the case study museums under different levels of governance is aimed at not only identifying the museums’ educational roles, but also understanding how the diverse external influences have shaped the roles of museum education. The data collected through the case studies derives from interviews with the Museum Director and Head of education of each institution, together with non-participatory observations of the educational activities conducted at the case study museums. The thesis is underpinned by the theoretical foundations primarily of Tony Bennett, Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. The thesis begins with the adoption of Bennett’s concept on the instrumentality of culture. It takes on Bennett’s view on culture as a constituted field of government, and examines the government policy related to museum education to demonstrate the distinctiveness of culture as a produced surface of social regulation. In this regard, governmental programmes which aim to transform the conduct of the target groups are inscribed into specific cultural institutions. Following this is an investigation into the power-relations of the case study museums based on the concept of governmentality of Foucault. In this approach, the case study museums are viewed as social apparatuses for social management. The practices of the museums are adjusted according to their relationship with their governing bodies and other cultural institutions and organisations involved in these power-relations. The study argues that museums’ educational roles are not only regulated by the ‘top-down’ power from the government, but also the actors who are involved in the field of museum education. To claim this, the analysis chapters investigate the adjustments to the educational roles at the bottom level of the educational practices of the case study museums, based on Bourdieu’s concepts of field, capital and habitus. Finally, the thesis concludes with a comparison of the roles performed by the selected museums at different levels of governance and under diverse political regimes. The study argues that different theoretical frameworks are better suited to understanding one historical period and set of circumstances than another. The Gramscian framework helps us to understand Chinese and Taiwanese cultural policy and practice respectively under past regimes (e.g. under Mao, or under Martial Law), while the Foucauldian and Bourdieuean frameworks allow for a more articulated understanding of the contemporary situation

Buddhist Architecture in East Asia

This issue focuses on the Buddhist architecture in East Asia. Over the last 2000 years, Buddhism had transformed not only the intellectual and practical lives but also the built environments of East Asia. The articles in this issue aim to capture the scope and diversity of East Asian Buddhist architecture and delineate the front lines of research in the field. In this collection, without bypassing the significant topics of famous temples, influential monasteries, and monumental landmarks, we try to restore a more balanced picture of Buddhist practice and the built environment by incorporating buildings and planning from the overlooked regions and aspects of Buddhism. Studies here feature shrines and temples in small villages as well as those in sacred mountains, forms reshaped by contemporary life as well as those of historical events, and practices in the domestic realm as well as those with pilgrimage significance. We want to go beyond the well-established scholarships on stylistic changes, technical development, and the typological studies of halls and pagodas in China, Japan, and Korea. There are in-depth discussions of examples from regions and cultures of religious hybridity, analyzing the way architecture is built for and shaped by the practices of a given community, integrated into the spiritual and material lives, and share themes and concepts to foster a comprehensive culture that sustains life and identity of a place. These are significant issues not only for the scholarship on architectural history, but also meaningful for the contemporary building of our own life and faith

中国瀋陽市の都市景観における画像分析を用いた視覚的印象評価に関する研究

This study constructed an urban landscape visual quality evaluation method based on Image analysis. Taking Shenyang, China, as an example, the visual quality of urban landscape was evaluated at three levels: macro, meso and micro. It explains the correlation between the visual quality of urban landscape and public visual perception characteristics from different perspectives. The study proposes effective strategies on optimizing the urban landscape environment, and provide reliable theoretical references for the urban landscape and planning.北九州市立大