Globalization and Architecture in and through China

<p>Course closed to further enrollment. In-person Course. This course delves into the complexities and ambiguities of globalization through architecture. From nineteenth-century treaty ports to Special Economic Zones, from the Silk Road to the Belt and Road Initiative, we will investigate how the built environment and global networks mutually condition each other. As knowledge, money, and materials circulate globally, they transform how architecture interacts with its surroundings. Architecture serves as a medium through which supranational institutions and corporations thrive and expand. Using China as its entry point, this course enriches the understanding of modern architecture by revealing how styles, environments, and technologies travel beyond their places of origin.&#160;</p></p> <p><p>Capitalizing on infrastructural investments and architectural construction in Africa, South Africa, South East Asia, and Europe, China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) activates a new mode of globalization based on old geographical affinities that have been dormant for decades, if not centuries. This course contextualizes the BRI through four historical episodes: 1910s-1940s, 1950s-1960s, 1970s-1990s, and 2013 until now. Each period corresponds with a different world conception, which this course will show through a series of architectural projects. China as a site and an actor is important because holes in the global network are as constructive as the network itself.&#160;1 Credit. Session B: July 1 – August 2. Tuition: $5070.</p>