Building China Modern

In China, the quest for an architecture both modern and Chinese started early and continues to this day, running parallel with changing ideas of “China”—the place and nation—a concept radically reconstrued at least four times in the course of the same period of time. This seminar proposes to investigate experiments in new Chinese building run in three of these moments—around the May 4th Movement (1919), by Nationalist China (1927-48) and the inaugural years of the People’s Republic (1949-58). These periods represent sharply distinct mindsets but in which the reimagining of Chinese architecture and China itself was equally all-important.