It is widely considered that there is no critical mass of architecture in a homogeneous style in ... more It is widely considered that there is no critical mass of architecture in a homogeneous style in Ho Chi Minh City, in contrast to Hanoi. This essay seeks to establish Ho Chi Minh City’s architectural heritage as a significant one, by arguing that the city does actually possess a critical mass of cohesive, remarkably well-designed buildings in modernist styles. Highlighted here is a unique feature of these modernist buildings: rounded, curved corners as a recurring motif in a dense urban center. I argue that such buildings, dating from the 1920s through the 1970s, have provided the center of Ho Chi Minh City unique, cohesive, and striking characteristics and that they form one of the great ensembles of modernist architecture anywhere. This essay seeks to re-locate the place of Ho Chi Minh City on the world map of the circulation of modernism, by emphasizing the internal dynamic of the city’s architectural evolution that transcends the colonial-postcolonial divide, and highlighting the evolution of forms revealing a continuity in spite of event-based ruptures in history. The significant presence of modernist buildings with curved corners in Phnom Penh, and their similarities to those of Ho Chi Minh City, suggest that regional circulation also played a crucial role. Key words: modernism, rounded corners, architectural heritage, Ho Chi Minh City, Streamline Moderne, regional exchange, Phnom Penh
The rickshaw came to be the most popular form of transportation in Hanoi and Saigon from the 1910... more The rickshaw came to be the most popular form of transportation in Hanoi and Saigon from the 1910s through the mid 1930s. As these cities developed and grew rapidly, and as French Indochina was integrated into the world economy, rickshaws met an increasing demand for accessible, convenient, and efficient modes of transportation. The rickshaw trade provides an example of European colonizers adopting an “Asian” form of transportation, a hybrid between a sedan chair and Western-style wheels, put into motion using cheap Asian labor. The emergence of a Vietnamese middle class ensured customers for public rickshaws. For much of the urban population as well as a portion of the rural population, rickshaws became an indispensable and integral part of daily life. This essay explores how the circulation of rickshaws gave rise to issues of hygiene, safety, traffic control, taxation, convenience, comfort, aesthetics, accessibility, uses of public space, labor disputes, and ethics.
Abstract Spaces of Asia, Indochina and Empire in the French Imaginaire
Architecturalized Asia: Mapping a Continent through History, 2013
Tracing the origins and evolution of the conception of “Indochina,” this article explores the ter... more Tracing the origins and evolution of the conception of “Indochina,” this article explores the term’s spatial and ideological implications, utilizing maps, texts on geography, and other sources. The names Indochina and Indo-Chine originated in the early nineteenth century to denote a geographical entity between India and China, based on European adaptation of local historical accounts. French colonizers popularized the term through colonization, yet other competing terms persisted. Geographical meanings of “Indochina” and “Asia” were fluid throughout the long-nineteenth century and were also shaped through competing colonial incursions. In the course of the nineteenth century Europeans came to a new geopolitical understanding of the region called Indochina, but the new knowledge never completely replaced earlier speculative, almost mythical notions about India Orientalis (East Indies). The expansion of geographical knowledge facilitated imperialism.
• The English and French illustrated press between 1880 and 1905 depicted Euro-peans as superior ... more • The English and French illustrated press between 1880 and 1905 depicted Euro-peans as superior to non-Europeans and rarely questioned the colonizing right of Europe-ans. The illustrated press, such as news magazines The Illustrated London News, The Graphic, and L'Illustration, as well as the newspaper Le Petit Journal, was consumed by colonial news, reported as a series of crises, battles, and frontier troubles, and represented colonial officers and soldiers as heroes. However, a series of imperial rivalries increasingly undermined any collective " European " understanding of the imperial mission. By implicitly and explicitly questioning and criticizing other empires' motives and capacity for colonization, the press came to portray colonization as a power dynamic. Heroism was increasingly tied to nationalism rather than to broader moral principles. The rhetoric and imagery of imperialism were thus fraught with paradoxes and double standards. The press coverage also reveals close links between war and tourism imaginaries.
We have become accustomed to the association between royalty and celebrity in modern times. Yet t... more We have become accustomed to the association between royalty and celebrity in modern times. Yet the history of the triadic association between the institutions and cultural formations of royalty, celebrity culture and colonial imperialism is one that is comparatively little researched. In charting such a history in the nineteenth century, the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, is an exemplary figure and his tour of the subcontinent is a formative case study in the history of travel and celebrity. The Prince toured India and Ceylon for four months from 8 November 1875, when he arrived in Bombay, until 13 March 1876. Contemporary assessment of the tour was that it was an immense success, paving the way for the conferral of the title of the Empress of India on Queen Victoria in 1877. 2 Since then it has mostly only been discussed in Edward VII's biographies, echoing the view of some of the short-term political effect of the tour, with little effort to examine the tour in the context of broader political and cultural trends of the period. 3 The Prince of Wales was one of the most famous people in Britain at the time, and the Prince's tour was a sensational domestic media event. The immense quantity of texts and images generated through the tour highlight significant trends in representing the colonial dynamic, royal spectacle and colonies as travel destinations. 4 This essay examines the representation of the British monarchy, the Empire, and tourism as seen mainly through the extensive coverage of the English illustrated weeklies The Illustrated London News and The Graphic.
Tourism Imaginaries at the Disciplinary Crossroads: Place, Practice Media, ed. Maria Gravari-Barbas and Nelson Graburn, 2014
Le Petit Journal, which boasted a circulation of one million in the 1890s, was famed for the sens... more Le Petit Journal, which boasted a circulation of one million in the 1890s, was famed for the sensationalistic full-color front and back engraved images of its weekly supplement. Modern modes of transportation in the 1890-1914 period were associated with modernity, mobility, progress, speed, individuality, patriotism, colonial expansion, heroism, leisure, luxury, and sportsmanship. Yet the fascination with catastrophes and violence, as seen through the weekly supplement’s representations, reveals a darker side. The images constructed contradictory narratives, oscillating between the ideas of technological progress and technological failure, freedom and danger, the domination of nature and that of defeat by nature, and so on. Above all, the artfully designed images were meant to dramatize, shock, provide vicarious thrills, and be voyeuristic, rather than inform. The images reveal significant undercurrents of anxiety beneath the confidence in science, progress, and the imperial project. They also show that while the imagined ease with which dangerous travel was accomplished—mobility throughout the world—in fiction was continually checked by actualities, this fell short of actually revealing a gap between fantasy and reality, in that the dramatic forms used for representing the “real” blurred that gap.
The flâneur and the tourist were both characterized foremost by movement and curiosity. A range o... more The flâneur and the tourist were both characterized foremost by movement and curiosity. A range of meanings and resonances were associated with both figures, underlining the tensions between the ideas of the insider and the outsider, the Parisian and the foreigner, travel within Paris and without, mechanical versus purposeful seeing, and compulsive versus meaningful mobility. While the sense of vision was emphasized, literary representations often evoked the idea that vacuous and passive seeing, stimulated by trivial goings-on and merchandise, lets the flâneur neglect the other senses, whereas an inner preparation and discernment lead to a more balanced way of flânerie. The projection of flânerie onto world travel paralleled the mode of reading illustrated magazines, which elicited imaginary flânerie. The re-reading of Baudelaire's 'Le Peintre de la vie moderne' in this light provides some new insights regarding the concept of the artist as the 'man of the world'. What are the connections between the flâneur and the tourist in the nineteenth century? The figures of the tourist and the flâneur have been compared as tropes of modernity in sociological theory. However, little historical analysis exists on the association between the two figures. The flâneur was strongly associated with travel from early on, as the very etymology and definition of the flâneur had to do with the idea of walking, movement. A range of meanings and resonances, including contradictory ones, were associated with both figures especially in the early decades, characterized foremost by movement and curiosity, underlining the tensions between the ideas of the insider and the outsider, the Parisian and the foreigner, travel within Paris and without, mechanical versus purposeful seeing, and compulsive versus meaningful mobility.
The mission of the Journal des voyages et des aventures de terre et de mer, the most popular adve... more The mission of the Journal des voyages et des aventures de terre et de mer, the most popular adventure periodical of the fin-de-siècle, was twofold: publishing new adventure fiction and disseminating geographical knowledge. The Journal closely associated adventure fiction—its core content—with the activities of geographical societies. Through a complex dynamic between the Journal’s sensationalism and its supposed commitment to truth, alongside a pervasive confusion of adventure stories with accurate descriptions of real places, the Journal promoted an ideologically charged world view in which the French possessed the ability to rise to the top of the social hierarchies of societies that were labelled as primitive. The key theme of the Journal’s adventure fiction was continuous mobility, a theme that supported imperialism. In addition, an examination of a parody of adventure fiction by Albert Robida questions the Journal’s claims of realism and educational value.
Du flâneur au consommateur : spectacle et consommation sur les Grands Boulevards, 1840-1914
Romantisme, 2006
... On y découvre l'étrange et gigantesque voiture publicitaire de couleur rouge du magasin ... more ... On y découvre l'étrange et gigantesque voiture publicitaire de couleur rouge du magasin d'habillement Old England. ... Un parcours d'innovation et de modernité, Délégation artistique de la ville de Paris, 2000 ; Vanessa Schwartz ... I. Retour. [ 2] Sur le consommateur-spectateur voir ...
For years, the study of how culture operates in colonial contexts was dominated by the ideas of t... more For years, the study of how culture operates in colonial contexts was dominated by the ideas of transmission and influence. Yet the more we learn, the less useful those concepts seem to be. This collection deliberately complicates the binary of colonizer and colonized in order to establish a more effective framework for understanding. The contributors address a wide range of questions, rooted in specific colonial experiences: How can a controversy about forms of deference in Java reveal tensions around colonial policies and the rise of nationalism? What was Vietnamese about the French colonial governor’s palace in Hanoi? What can the circulation of jazz in Asia tell us about its evolution, circuits of exchange, colonial culture, and its appropriation? Through such inquiries, the volume traces the multilinear trajectories of the flow of decorative objects, architectural styles, photographs, sartorial practices, music, deference rituals, and ethnographic knowledge, in a transimperial framework within and beyond Southeast Asia and Europe. Highlighting a wide range of actors along with their motivations and interactions, this volume treats cultural heritage as dynamic processes.
Integrating the history of Paris with the history of consumption, the press, publicity, advertisi... more Integrating the history of Paris with the history of consumption, the press, publicity, advertising and spectacle, this book traces the evolution of the urban core districts of consumption and explores elements of consumer culture such as the print media, publishing, retail techniques, tourism, city marketing, fashion, illustrated posters and Montmartre culture in the nineteenth century. The book emphasizes the tension between art and industry and between culture and commerce, a dynamic that significantly marked urban commercial modernity that spread new imaginary about consumption. I argue that Parisian consumer culture arose earlier than generally thought, and explore the intense commercialization Paris underwent.
Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title
This collection explores built environments and ... more Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title
This collection explores built environments and visual narratives in Asia via cartography, icons and symbols in different historical settings. It grows out of a three-year project focusing on cultural exchange in the making of Asia’s boundaries as well as its architectural styles and achievements. The editors -- architectural scholars at University of Delaware, Seattle University, University of Washington and Harvard University, respectively – attracted contributions from Asia, Europe, and North America.
The manuscript consists of three sections – in Mapping Asia: Architectural Symbols from Medieval to Early Modern Periods, authors examine icons and symbols in maps and textual descriptions and other early evidence about Asian architecture. Incorporating archival materials from Asia and Europe, the essays present views of Asian architecture seen from those who lived on the continent, those who saw themselves residing along the margins, and those who identified themselves as outsiders. The second section, Conjugating Asia: The Long-Nineteenth Century and its Impetus, explores the construction of the field of Asian architecture and the political imagination of Asian built environments in the nineteenth century. It discusses the parallel narratives of colonialism and Orientalism in the construction of Asia and its architectural environment, mapping how empire-expanding influences from Europe and North America have defined “Asia” and its regions through new vocabularies and concepts, which include, among others, “Eurasia,” “Jap-Alaska,” “Asie coloniale,” “the Orient,” and “Further India.” The third section, Manifesting Asia: Building the Continent with Architecture, addresses the physical realization of “Asian” geographic ideas within a set of specific local and regional contexts in the twentieth century. It examines tangible constructions as legible documents of these notional constructions of Asia, and discusses their construction processes, materials and critical receptions as evidence of the physical'sreciprocal relationship to the conceptual. Regions and conditions covered include French Indochina, Iran, post-Soviet Central Asia, Japanese landscape, and the construction of theAfro-Asian built environment.
It is widely considered that there is no critical mass of architecture in a homogeneous style in ... more It is widely considered that there is no critical mass of architecture in a homogeneous style in Ho Chi Minh City, in contrast to Hanoi. This essay seeks to establish Ho Chi Minh City’s architectural heritage as a significant one, by arguing that the city does actually possess a critical mass of cohesive, remarkably well-designed buildings in modernist styles. Highlighted here is a unique feature of these modernist buildings: rounded, curved corners as a recurring motif in a dense urban center. I argue that such buildings, dating from the 1920s through the 1970s, have provided the center of Ho Chi Minh City unique, cohesive, and striking characteristics and that they form one of the great ensembles of modernist architecture anywhere. This essay seeks to re-locate the place of Ho Chi Minh City on the world map of the circulation of modernism, by emphasizing the internal dynamic of the city’s architectural evolution that transcends the colonial-postcolonial divide, and highlighting the evolution of forms revealing a continuity in spite of event-based ruptures in history. The significant presence of modernist buildings with curved corners in Phnom Penh, and their similarities to those of Ho Chi Minh City, suggest that regional circulation also played a crucial role. Key words: modernism, rounded corners, architectural heritage, Ho Chi Minh City, Streamline Moderne, regional exchange, Phnom Penh
The rickshaw came to be the most popular form of transportation in Hanoi and Saigon from the 1910... more The rickshaw came to be the most popular form of transportation in Hanoi and Saigon from the 1910s through the mid 1930s. As these cities developed and grew rapidly, and as French Indochina was integrated into the world economy, rickshaws met an increasing demand for accessible, convenient, and efficient modes of transportation. The rickshaw trade provides an example of European colonizers adopting an “Asian” form of transportation, a hybrid between a sedan chair and Western-style wheels, put into motion using cheap Asian labor. The emergence of a Vietnamese middle class ensured customers for public rickshaws. For much of the urban population as well as a portion of the rural population, rickshaws became an indispensable and integral part of daily life. This essay explores how the circulation of rickshaws gave rise to issues of hygiene, safety, traffic control, taxation, convenience, comfort, aesthetics, accessibility, uses of public space, labor disputes, and ethics.
Abstract Spaces of Asia, Indochina and Empire in the French Imaginaire
Architecturalized Asia: Mapping a Continent through History, 2013
Tracing the origins and evolution of the conception of “Indochina,” this article explores the ter... more Tracing the origins and evolution of the conception of “Indochina,” this article explores the term’s spatial and ideological implications, utilizing maps, texts on geography, and other sources. The names Indochina and Indo-Chine originated in the early nineteenth century to denote a geographical entity between India and China, based on European adaptation of local historical accounts. French colonizers popularized the term through colonization, yet other competing terms persisted. Geographical meanings of “Indochina” and “Asia” were fluid throughout the long-nineteenth century and were also shaped through competing colonial incursions. In the course of the nineteenth century Europeans came to a new geopolitical understanding of the region called Indochina, but the new knowledge never completely replaced earlier speculative, almost mythical notions about India Orientalis (East Indies). The expansion of geographical knowledge facilitated imperialism.
• The English and French illustrated press between 1880 and 1905 depicted Euro-peans as superior ... more • The English and French illustrated press between 1880 and 1905 depicted Euro-peans as superior to non-Europeans and rarely questioned the colonizing right of Europe-ans. The illustrated press, such as news magazines The Illustrated London News, The Graphic, and L'Illustration, as well as the newspaper Le Petit Journal, was consumed by colonial news, reported as a series of crises, battles, and frontier troubles, and represented colonial officers and soldiers as heroes. However, a series of imperial rivalries increasingly undermined any collective " European " understanding of the imperial mission. By implicitly and explicitly questioning and criticizing other empires' motives and capacity for colonization, the press came to portray colonization as a power dynamic. Heroism was increasingly tied to nationalism rather than to broader moral principles. The rhetoric and imagery of imperialism were thus fraught with paradoxes and double standards. The press coverage also reveals close links between war and tourism imaginaries.
We have become accustomed to the association between royalty and celebrity in modern times. Yet t... more We have become accustomed to the association between royalty and celebrity in modern times. Yet the history of the triadic association between the institutions and cultural formations of royalty, celebrity culture and colonial imperialism is one that is comparatively little researched. In charting such a history in the nineteenth century, the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, is an exemplary figure and his tour of the subcontinent is a formative case study in the history of travel and celebrity. The Prince toured India and Ceylon for four months from 8 November 1875, when he arrived in Bombay, until 13 March 1876. Contemporary assessment of the tour was that it was an immense success, paving the way for the conferral of the title of the Empress of India on Queen Victoria in 1877. 2 Since then it has mostly only been discussed in Edward VII's biographies, echoing the view of some of the short-term political effect of the tour, with little effort to examine the tour in the context of broader political and cultural trends of the period. 3 The Prince of Wales was one of the most famous people in Britain at the time, and the Prince's tour was a sensational domestic media event. The immense quantity of texts and images generated through the tour highlight significant trends in representing the colonial dynamic, royal spectacle and colonies as travel destinations. 4 This essay examines the representation of the British monarchy, the Empire, and tourism as seen mainly through the extensive coverage of the English illustrated weeklies The Illustrated London News and The Graphic.
Tourism Imaginaries at the Disciplinary Crossroads: Place, Practice Media, ed. Maria Gravari-Barbas and Nelson Graburn, 2014
Le Petit Journal, which boasted a circulation of one million in the 1890s, was famed for the sens... more Le Petit Journal, which boasted a circulation of one million in the 1890s, was famed for the sensationalistic full-color front and back engraved images of its weekly supplement. Modern modes of transportation in the 1890-1914 period were associated with modernity, mobility, progress, speed, individuality, patriotism, colonial expansion, heroism, leisure, luxury, and sportsmanship. Yet the fascination with catastrophes and violence, as seen through the weekly supplement’s representations, reveals a darker side. The images constructed contradictory narratives, oscillating between the ideas of technological progress and technological failure, freedom and danger, the domination of nature and that of defeat by nature, and so on. Above all, the artfully designed images were meant to dramatize, shock, provide vicarious thrills, and be voyeuristic, rather than inform. The images reveal significant undercurrents of anxiety beneath the confidence in science, progress, and the imperial project. They also show that while the imagined ease with which dangerous travel was accomplished—mobility throughout the world—in fiction was continually checked by actualities, this fell short of actually revealing a gap between fantasy and reality, in that the dramatic forms used for representing the “real” blurred that gap.
The flâneur and the tourist were both characterized foremost by movement and curiosity. A range o... more The flâneur and the tourist were both characterized foremost by movement and curiosity. A range of meanings and resonances were associated with both figures, underlining the tensions between the ideas of the insider and the outsider, the Parisian and the foreigner, travel within Paris and without, mechanical versus purposeful seeing, and compulsive versus meaningful mobility. While the sense of vision was emphasized, literary representations often evoked the idea that vacuous and passive seeing, stimulated by trivial goings-on and merchandise, lets the flâneur neglect the other senses, whereas an inner preparation and discernment lead to a more balanced way of flânerie. The projection of flânerie onto world travel paralleled the mode of reading illustrated magazines, which elicited imaginary flânerie. The re-reading of Baudelaire's 'Le Peintre de la vie moderne' in this light provides some new insights regarding the concept of the artist as the 'man of the world'. What are the connections between the flâneur and the tourist in the nineteenth century? The figures of the tourist and the flâneur have been compared as tropes of modernity in sociological theory. However, little historical analysis exists on the association between the two figures. The flâneur was strongly associated with travel from early on, as the very etymology and definition of the flâneur had to do with the idea of walking, movement. A range of meanings and resonances, including contradictory ones, were associated with both figures especially in the early decades, characterized foremost by movement and curiosity, underlining the tensions between the ideas of the insider and the outsider, the Parisian and the foreigner, travel within Paris and without, mechanical versus purposeful seeing, and compulsive versus meaningful mobility.
The mission of the Journal des voyages et des aventures de terre et de mer, the most popular adve... more The mission of the Journal des voyages et des aventures de terre et de mer, the most popular adventure periodical of the fin-de-siècle, was twofold: publishing new adventure fiction and disseminating geographical knowledge. The Journal closely associated adventure fiction—its core content—with the activities of geographical societies. Through a complex dynamic between the Journal’s sensationalism and its supposed commitment to truth, alongside a pervasive confusion of adventure stories with accurate descriptions of real places, the Journal promoted an ideologically charged world view in which the French possessed the ability to rise to the top of the social hierarchies of societies that were labelled as primitive. The key theme of the Journal’s adventure fiction was continuous mobility, a theme that supported imperialism. In addition, an examination of a parody of adventure fiction by Albert Robida questions the Journal’s claims of realism and educational value.
Du flâneur au consommateur : spectacle et consommation sur les Grands Boulevards, 1840-1914
Romantisme, 2006
... On y découvre l'étrange et gigantesque voiture publicitaire de couleur rouge du magasin ... more ... On y découvre l'étrange et gigantesque voiture publicitaire de couleur rouge du magasin d'habillement Old England. ... Un parcours d'innovation et de modernité, Délégation artistique de la ville de Paris, 2000 ; Vanessa Schwartz ... I. Retour. [ 2] Sur le consommateur-spectateur voir ...
For years, the study of how culture operates in colonial contexts was dominated by the ideas of t... more For years, the study of how culture operates in colonial contexts was dominated by the ideas of transmission and influence. Yet the more we learn, the less useful those concepts seem to be. This collection deliberately complicates the binary of colonizer and colonized in order to establish a more effective framework for understanding. The contributors address a wide range of questions, rooted in specific colonial experiences: How can a controversy about forms of deference in Java reveal tensions around colonial policies and the rise of nationalism? What was Vietnamese about the French colonial governor’s palace in Hanoi? What can the circulation of jazz in Asia tell us about its evolution, circuits of exchange, colonial culture, and its appropriation? Through such inquiries, the volume traces the multilinear trajectories of the flow of decorative objects, architectural styles, photographs, sartorial practices, music, deference rituals, and ethnographic knowledge, in a transimperial framework within and beyond Southeast Asia and Europe. Highlighting a wide range of actors along with their motivations and interactions, this volume treats cultural heritage as dynamic processes.
Integrating the history of Paris with the history of consumption, the press, publicity, advertisi... more Integrating the history of Paris with the history of consumption, the press, publicity, advertising and spectacle, this book traces the evolution of the urban core districts of consumption and explores elements of consumer culture such as the print media, publishing, retail techniques, tourism, city marketing, fashion, illustrated posters and Montmartre culture in the nineteenth century. The book emphasizes the tension between art and industry and between culture and commerce, a dynamic that significantly marked urban commercial modernity that spread new imaginary about consumption. I argue that Parisian consumer culture arose earlier than generally thought, and explore the intense commercialization Paris underwent.
Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title
This collection explores built environments and ... more Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title
This collection explores built environments and visual narratives in Asia via cartography, icons and symbols in different historical settings. It grows out of a three-year project focusing on cultural exchange in the making of Asia’s boundaries as well as its architectural styles and achievements. The editors -- architectural scholars at University of Delaware, Seattle University, University of Washington and Harvard University, respectively – attracted contributions from Asia, Europe, and North America.
The manuscript consists of three sections – in Mapping Asia: Architectural Symbols from Medieval to Early Modern Periods, authors examine icons and symbols in maps and textual descriptions and other early evidence about Asian architecture. Incorporating archival materials from Asia and Europe, the essays present views of Asian architecture seen from those who lived on the continent, those who saw themselves residing along the margins, and those who identified themselves as outsiders. The second section, Conjugating Asia: The Long-Nineteenth Century and its Impetus, explores the construction of the field of Asian architecture and the political imagination of Asian built environments in the nineteenth century. It discusses the parallel narratives of colonialism and Orientalism in the construction of Asia and its architectural environment, mapping how empire-expanding influences from Europe and North America have defined “Asia” and its regions through new vocabularies and concepts, which include, among others, “Eurasia,” “Jap-Alaska,” “Asie coloniale,” “the Orient,” and “Further India.” The third section, Manifesting Asia: Building the Continent with Architecture, addresses the physical realization of “Asian” geographic ideas within a set of specific local and regional contexts in the twentieth century. It examines tangible constructions as legible documents of these notional constructions of Asia, and discusses their construction processes, materials and critical receptions as evidence of the physical'sreciprocal relationship to the conceptual. Regions and conditions covered include French Indochina, Iran, post-Soviet Central Asia, Japanese landscape, and the construction of theAfro-Asian built environment.
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Papers by Hazel Hahn
Key words: modernism, rounded corners, architectural heritage, Ho Chi Minh City, Streamline Moderne, regional exchange, Phnom Penh
Books by Hazel Hahn
This collection explores built environments and visual narratives in Asia via cartography, icons and symbols in different historical settings. It grows out of a three-year project focusing on cultural exchange in the making of Asia’s boundaries as well as its architectural styles and achievements. The editors -- architectural scholars at University of Delaware, Seattle University, University of Washington and Harvard University, respectively – attracted contributions from Asia, Europe, and North America.
The manuscript consists of three sections – in Mapping Asia: Architectural Symbols from Medieval to Early Modern Periods, authors examine icons and symbols in maps and textual descriptions and other early evidence about Asian architecture. Incorporating archival materials from Asia and Europe, the essays present views of Asian architecture seen from those who lived on the continent, those who saw themselves residing along the margins, and those who identified themselves as outsiders. The second section, Conjugating Asia: The Long-Nineteenth Century and its Impetus, explores the construction of the field of Asian architecture and the political imagination of Asian built environments in the nineteenth century. It discusses the parallel narratives of colonialism and Orientalism in the construction of Asia and its architectural environment, mapping how empire-expanding influences from Europe and North America have defined “Asia” and its regions through new vocabularies and concepts, which include, among others, “Eurasia,” “Jap-Alaska,” “Asie coloniale,” “the Orient,” and “Further India.” The third section, Manifesting Asia: Building the Continent with Architecture, addresses the physical realization of “Asian” geographic ideas within a set of specific local and regional contexts in the twentieth century. It examines tangible constructions as legible documents of these notional constructions of Asia, and discusses their construction processes, materials and critical receptions as evidence of the physical'sreciprocal relationship to the conceptual. Regions and conditions covered include French Indochina, Iran, post-Soviet Central Asia, Japanese landscape, and the construction of theAfro-Asian built environment.
Key words: modernism, rounded corners, architectural heritage, Ho Chi Minh City, Streamline Moderne, regional exchange, Phnom Penh
This collection explores built environments and visual narratives in Asia via cartography, icons and symbols in different historical settings. It grows out of a three-year project focusing on cultural exchange in the making of Asia’s boundaries as well as its architectural styles and achievements. The editors -- architectural scholars at University of Delaware, Seattle University, University of Washington and Harvard University, respectively – attracted contributions from Asia, Europe, and North America.
The manuscript consists of three sections – in Mapping Asia: Architectural Symbols from Medieval to Early Modern Periods, authors examine icons and symbols in maps and textual descriptions and other early evidence about Asian architecture. Incorporating archival materials from Asia and Europe, the essays present views of Asian architecture seen from those who lived on the continent, those who saw themselves residing along the margins, and those who identified themselves as outsiders. The second section, Conjugating Asia: The Long-Nineteenth Century and its Impetus, explores the construction of the field of Asian architecture and the political imagination of Asian built environments in the nineteenth century. It discusses the parallel narratives of colonialism and Orientalism in the construction of Asia and its architectural environment, mapping how empire-expanding influences from Europe and North America have defined “Asia” and its regions through new vocabularies and concepts, which include, among others, “Eurasia,” “Jap-Alaska,” “Asie coloniale,” “the Orient,” and “Further India.” The third section, Manifesting Asia: Building the Continent with Architecture, addresses the physical realization of “Asian” geographic ideas within a set of specific local and regional contexts in the twentieth century. It examines tangible constructions as legible documents of these notional constructions of Asia, and discusses their construction processes, materials and critical receptions as evidence of the physical'sreciprocal relationship to the conceptual. Regions and conditions covered include French Indochina, Iran, post-Soviet Central Asia, Japanese landscape, and the construction of theAfro-Asian built environment.