POSTPONED Engaging Chinese Architecture: A Centennial Conversation

This symposium aims to examine the continuing dialogues that are shaping contemporary Chinese architecture. It links history to current efforts of engaging Chinese architecture and explores emerging practices that address the dynamics between globalization and revitalization of regional cultures. Speakers will share their experiences, ideas, and expectations regarding Chinese architecture today on aspects of practice, theory, and education, and discuss avenues of cross-border collaborations in the built environment in a changing context.

The past century has witnessed the transformation of modern Chinese architecture as result of continuing efforts to respond to and exchange with global architectural movements. When Liang Sicheng (1901-1972; BArch‘27, MArch‘27), Yang Tingbao (1901-1982; BArch‘24, MArch‘25 ), and their peers who were trained in the U.S. and Europe returned to China in the 1920s, they aspired to create a new architectural discourse emblematic of the country’s path toward modernization. Their visions were demonstrated in groundbreaking design and conservation practices that incorporated influences of international paradigms and pedagogies with national cultural agendas. These exchanges and adaptations continue in the 21st century, generating a wider range of engagements with Chinese architecture from multiple dimensions, manifest in extensive involvements of global practitioners in design and urban development in China and in international collaborations between Chinese and foreign educational institutions. At the same time, a new generation of Chinese architects continue to address the interrelationship between individual design languages and expressions of national identities through differing approaches to architecture against the backdrop of the country’s rapid urbanization and consumerization.

Organized by Zhongjie Lin, associate professor of city and regional planning at Penn, and Ming Tong, professor of architecture at Southeast University, this symposium is the first event in a series organized in conjunction with the exhibition Building in China: A Century of Dialogues on Modern Architecture, on view at the Kroiz Gallery of the Architectural Archives and Fisher Fine Arts Library from January 28, 2022.

If you require any accessibility accommodation, such as live captioning, audio description, or a sign language interpreter, please email news@design.upenn.edu to let us know what you need. Please note, we require at least 48 hours’ notice. If you register within 48 hours of this event, we won’t be able to secure the appropriate accommodations.