Contested Modernities: Postcolonial Architecture in Southeast Asia

Online Symposium: Building Modernities and Pre-Launch ARCH+ 243: Contested Modernities
Friday, 16 April 2021, 2 – 5 pm CET, 7 – 10 pm UCT+7

Upon gaining independence in the mid-20th century, many cities in Southeast Asia also changed dramatically in terms of their physical appearance as well. The task of becoming an independent nation was accompanied by the desire for a symbolic new beginning in architecture and urban planning. International modernism not only offered an aesthetic programme that reflected expectations of progress and prosperity, but also served as a means of emancipation from the colonial powers.

While planners of the former colonial powers continued to work in the newly independent countries even after they became independent, young local architects, some of whom had trained in Europe, the United States, or the Soviet Union, began searching for an architectural style that, informed by their local climate and culture, would catalyse a new sense of identity. Some of these architects created informal networks that transcended national borders, and together looked for ideas to shape the city in the tropics.

Furthermore, in the course of the political reorientation of the young nations, new, cross-national cooperations emerged and with them new ways of knowledge and architecture transfer.

But how did these international networks work? Who initiated them? Did conflicts arise during their collaborations, and if so, how were they handled? What geopolitical ambitions stood behind this engagement?

Contributors:

  • Anh-Linh Ngo, Architect and ARCH+ editor-in-chief: Introduction and presentation of ARCH+ 243
  • Christina Schwenkel, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside: Anticolonial Solidarity and Decolonial Planning in Vietnam
  • Eduard Kögel, Researcher and curator, Berlin: Julius Posener and Lim Chong Keat: The Malayan Architect on Trial
  • Wee H. Koon, Architect, researcher, educator, Hong Kong: An Emergent Asian Modernism
  • farid rakun, Artist, writer, instigator, ruangrupa/Gudskul, Jakarta, Indonesia: On transdisciplinary networks. Against the backdrop of the previous contributions farid rakun and Anh-Linh Ngo discuss transdisciplinary and transnational networks and knowledge exchange between art and architecture.