Telescopic and Microscopic:On How to Study Yung Ho Chang's Architectural Practice in China and Beyond
How to examine an architect in the context of historical and global relationships?How to outline and define architecture of modern and current China in such a context?And how do these two situations-individual architects and China's architectural design culture-get entangled and in what ways?What are the relationships between an architect's own statement and actual developments judged in a larger context?Given the weight of publications and a profusion of coverage on Yung Ho Chang,what can we add for a new and critical perspective?This article aims to explore these methodological issues.Adopting telescopic and microscopic lenses,this article proposes and articulates these themes as important for a study on Yung Ho Chang:biographic trajectories across a global and historical map;critical moments on the trajectory;the breakthrough and its importance in Yung Ho Chang's proposal of a'Basic Architecture'in the late 1990s;internal and logical relationships between'Narrative Architecture'and'Basic Architecture';an opening expansion of the vocabulary of Basic Architecture over the last three decades;Yung Ho Chang's practice as a speaking'discourse'in multiple forms;the crucial roles architectural culture and media have played;and the significance of international relations in our understanding on individual architects and an overall design culture in China.
BiographyCritical momentsInternational relationsA geo-political mapNarrative ArchitectureBa-sic ArchitectureSigurd LewerentzPoetics of the brickArchitectural practice as discourseArchitectural cultureArchitectural exhibitionsA forum on East Asia