CFP: Transnational Transfers in Asian Architecture and Urban Planning, 1960-Present Location: Singapore

CFP: Transnational Transfers in Asian Architecture and Urban Planning,
1960-Present
Location: Singapore
Call for Papers Date: 2013-06-15
Date Submitted: 2013-06-12
Announcement ID: 204474


CALL FOR PAPERS
  Mobilities of Design:
  Transnational Transfers in Asian Architecture and Urban Planning,
1960-Present

  Dates: 20-22 November 2013
  Venue: ETH Zurich Future Cities Laboratory, Singapore
  Organizers: Max Hirsh (ETH Zurich) and Lukasz Stanek (Manchester
Architecture Research Center, University of Manchester)

  Deadline: 15 June 2013

  This conference investigates the transnational transfer of
architectural expertise to, from, and within Asia from 1960 to the
present--as well as its consequences for contemporary conditions of
urbanization in the region today. The goal of the event is to uncover
the multidirectional exchanges in architecture, planning, engineering,
design pedagogy, and building technology that have taken place in Asia
over the past 50 years; and to show how this acquired knowledge has
been developed, appropriated, mixed and modified in professional
practice. Through academic research papers and the insights of
practitioners, conference participants will examine a range of
transnational interactions: including, but not restricted to, the
training of South and Southeast Asian architects under Australias
Colombo Plan; Eastern European conservation and urban development
schemes in Laos, Vietnam, and India; the dissemination of European
design curricula in Mainland China; and the more recent circulation ofSingaporean expertise across the region.

  In so doing, the conference will focus on the agents, networks, and
objects of knowledge transfer:

  agents include governments, private and state enterprises, local and
international institutions, and individual go-betweens crossing
boundaries and cultures;
  networks consist of economic ties and geopolitical dependences, but
also development aid and traditional cultural exchanges;
  objects include specific designs as well as new types of
architectural commissions, such as type-designs, prefabricated
systems, regulatory proposals, and teaching methods.

  Ultimately, the conference has two goals. First, by investigating the
interaction between local clients and foreign architects, planners,
and engineers, the event will offer a heterogeneous genealogy of the
current material, economic, and institutional conditions of
urbanization in the contemporary Asian city. Second, through the
development of an innovative historical framework, the conference aims
to contextualize examples of cross-cultural knowledge transfer that
are taking place in Asian cities such as Singapore today.