The Chinese Courtyard: An Encomium

Xing Ruan’s 'Confucius’ Courtyard: Architecture, Philosophy and the Good Life in China' is authoritative, erudite, and enjoyable. And it is about so much more than architecture, encompassing as it does culture, gardens, literature, and calligraphy in its exploration of this most significant of Chinese spaces: the courtyard. Divided into three...

Asian Independence: Notes on Modernism and Creativity in the Built Environment

This article discusses three recently published books examining the cities of East Asia. The first, Southeast Asia’s Modern Architecture: Questions of Translation, Epistemology and Power (2019), edited by Jiat-Hwee Chang and Imran bin Tajudeen,1 “explores the histories of Southeast Asia’s architecture and built environment in the twentieth...