CALL FOR PAPERS
Modern Architecture in East Asia: Regionalism/Transnationalism
(Los Angeles, February 25-28, CAA 2009)

Chairs:
Ken Tadashi Oshima, University of Washington, and Vimalin
Rujivacharakul, University of Delaware

Send abstracts to koshimau.washington.edu and vimalinudel.edu.

Abstracts Due: May 9, 2008. For abstract submission guideline and
CAA form, visit
http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/CallforParticipation2009.pdf

OMA/Rem Koolhaas's CCTV Headquarters (2002-8) is rising
triumphantly against the backdrop of Beijing's rapidly transforming
skyline. Joining it on the other side of the city is the much-famed
Olympic Stadium "Bird's Nest" (2002-8) of Herzog and de Meuron.
At the same time, Zaha Hadid's design project for the Guangzhou
Opera House (2003- ) is the architectural world's "talk of the town"
for its aesthetics and structural challenge. In Japan, Herzog and de
Meuron's Prada Building (2003), Jean Nouvel's Dentsu Headquarters
((1998-2002), and Renzo Piano's Hermes Building (1998-2002)
have all pushed the possibilities of glass to new heights, and Steven
Holl's Nexus World Housing in Fukuoka, Japan, transformed the
trajectory of his own career. Meanwhile, architects such as Yung Ho
Chang/Atelier FCJZ, Qingyun Ma/MADA s.p.a.m., and Hitoshi
Abe/A-Slash are questioning the transformation of Asia through
both their own designs and architectural education in the United
States (MIT, USC, UCLA). The architectural boom in the past decade
has inevitably shifted the field's geographical concentration from
Europe and North America to the Asian Pacific Rim.

This geo-architectural shift simultaneously raises significant
theoretical questions about positioning East Asia in the global
discourse of modern architecture. Is prospering East Asia the future,
the other modern, or simply the land where famous architects
deploy their most recent innovations? In a world of increasingly
global practice, is architecture defined by the building location or
designer's identity? Should the new architecture in East Asia be
identified as modern East Asian architecture, or the tag of
regionalism be replaced with contemporary architecture in the age
of transnationalism? Proposals on interdisciplinary, comparative
aspects, either between geographical regions or between time-
periods, are particularly welcome.