Tradition, Transition and Translation

Frank Lloyd Wright was known for having gained inspiration from Japanese architecture. Yet, Japanese architecture was profoundly influenced by traditional Chinese architecture. Werner Blaser in his book, West Meets East- Mies van der Rohe, investigated the correspondences between Mies’ buildings, and traditional Chinese and Japanese architecture. What qualities in the traditional Far East Asian architecture have fascinated these masters? How this architecture were constructed and how did its characteristics continue to convert and translate into our modern architectural practice in Asia? Bearing those questions in mind, this seminar intends to take the students to explore the qualities associated with traditional Chinese and Japanese architecture, such as structural systems, tectonics and concepts of space. How the tectonics and the spatial perception of traditional buildings are abandoned, communicated or translated into modernity will also be discussed. Critical themes affecting contemporary Asian architectural practice are elaborated including critical regionalism, vernacular architecture. The notions of modernity and how traditions can fit into transformed cultural context with a new identity will be analyzed. The planned teaching therefore encourages students first to rethink the contemporary architectural practice by looking into the highly developed traditional technologies; and second, to gain insight into western architectural culture by exploring the other eastern architectural tradition.