The Postcolonial Condition of Architecture in Asia: A Lead from Display-ness

This book provides a bidirectional investigation of Asia’s spatiotemporality by asking how Asia is located and how localities are Asianized. Historical and theoretical inquiries into architecture and urbanism in order to trace a notional “common divisor” are integrated with readings of this Asian imagery. Such a common divisor is conditioned to Asia’s phenomenal postcolonial subjectivation and showcases Asia’s unique character. This book contends that the postcolonial condition of architecture in Asia suggests a potential and critical bridge to better understanding of the region. Theoretically, “display-ness” is a strategic and allegoric carrier that is in the focus of this book in order to emphasize the quality of display in a broader sense of time and space. Asia’s architectural and urban spectacle thus is meaningly magnified and intensified with this notion of display-ness to ground the cohesive abstraction among ideological discourse production, innovative theorizations, and empirical phenomena in contemporary scholarship.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: “Display-ness” as an Intersubjective Container Part I: The Located Asia 1. The Muséal Display: Sir, Do Not Touch the Glass 2. The Philosophy of History: Asia’s Formalistic Quotation 3. Built Heritage Conservation Theories: From Sleeping Beauty to Men in Black Part II: The Asian Location 4. Colony Architecture Revisited: Who Does Who and Who Is Who? 5. Un-Writing Asian Urbanism: Unexpectedness and Under-Theorization Reversed 6. Musealization of the Asian Built Environment: Contained Iconology and Iconomy Conclusion: Decontextualisation and Recontextualisation of Asian Architectural Theory Bibliography Index About the Author

About the Author :
Francis Chia-Hui Lin is assistant professor at National Taiwan University.

Review :
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. 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. With this third book, Lin is a voice to be heard in global architecture theory and criticism. This book is a refreshing and personal exposé 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. 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. 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.