Review

Reviewed Work(s): Architectural Encounters With Essence and Form in Modern China
by Peter Rowe and Seng Kuan
Review by: Jeffrey W. Cody
Source: Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review , SPRING 2004, Vol. 15, No. 2
(SPRING 2004), pp. 80-81
Published by: International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments
(IASTE)

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/41758046

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80 T D S R 1 5 . 2

Architectural
could easily stand alone. As noted by Milo Beach Encounters With Essence and Form in Modern
in the intro-
China . Peter Rowe and Seng Kuan. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
duction: "... her photographs are not mere documentation.
Press, 2003.
They are superb images that are valuable independent of her
other scholarly work; they make their points clearly and visu-
With this overarch-
ally, and are not simply the documentation for or illustration
of a necessary accompanying text. She considers
ingherself
synthesis,pri-
Peter
Rowe and
marily a photographer, it seems, but she has probed Seng Kuan
more
than many scholars." The photographs in Stepshave
to Water not
made a significant
only tell us of the stones and water, but of the contribution
climate, the to those

seeking
weather, the vegetation, the people, and the living to understand
communi-
the vagaries
ties out of which the wells grew, and within which and vicissi-
they con-
tudesquality
tinue to exist or disappear. The large number and of architecture
of in
Chinathe
color images bring us directly into the wells, while during the past
black-
century
and-white photographs convey the age and touch and astone.
of the half.
They have
The measured drawings by Michael McCabe confirm reached
the
unique spatial conditions of the wells and enable
beyond
us to
the see
conventions
of either "vernacular" or
their structure and order as well as their beauty.
In such an undertaking, not all desires on the"traditional"
part of Chinese

architecture
every reader can be satisfied, and it takes nothing from the into the challenging terrain of "modern China,"
book to point these out. First, the inclusion ofwhich is elusive, contradictory and unpredictable. With clear
the chronology
and the two maps are extremely helpful, and Iinsights
suspect these
they have helped blaze a trail through that terrain,
were much harder to produce than it seems. But
and for
with those
sensitive words they have helped push those analyz-
who wish to visit many of the wells, more detailed maps
ing Chinese or
"modern" architectural history onto new paths
GPS coordinates would have been a welcome addition. for future research. This book is an important benchmark in
Perhaps this points to a future project for the Architectural a growing field of scholars - Chinese and non-Chinese
Guide Series, also published by the Princeton Architectural alike, for it introduces to the interested observer a multitude
Press. Second, the drawings are reproduced as subordinate to of architects and their works - Chinese and otherwise -
the photographs, but are beautiful and carry important infor- who remain well outside the mainstream of familiarity. Its
mation. They could be larger and include more site informa- authors helpfully underscore the roles played by culture, eco-
tion both above and below ground. As drawn, the wells nomics and politics in the creation of architecture in China.
remain vibrant, but somewhat decontextualized. And because the authors express their ideas lucidly and with-
A more substantial conundrum involves the organiza- out jargon, the book is stimulating, focused and probing. Its
tion of such a mosaic of material. Livingston faced the diffi- few weaknesses are outweighed by its many strengths.
cult choice between developing individual case studies and In a brief introduction, the authors - Rowe, the Dean of
using the individual examples to support the larger narrative. Harvard's Graduate School of Design, and Kuan, a graduate
For the most part, she has privileged the compelling story, student there - affirm that the boòk arose "from a longstand-
using photographs of various structures to make the case in ing curiosity toward the roles of tradition and modernism in
parallel. As a result, we understand a detail or view of a well shaping the architecture and architectural environment of
in relationship to the text, but cannot quite apprehend the modern China, developed during numerous trips both to and
illustrated well as an individual or coherent structure. At within the mainland over the years." Confronted by the over-
times, the critical photograph or drawing is disassociated whelming scale and scope of recent construction in China,
from the text by a few pages. The individual structures are Rowe and Kuan seek to make historical and conceptual sense
so compelling and complex that I came to desire a more sys- out of sometimes cataclysmic building conditions.
tematic and complete description of individual wells. Although Rowe and Kuan do not explicitly state their
We have all become cynical about publisher's blurbs. methodology, their references suggest their search for clarity
However, the willingness of Milo Beaçh to write the introduc- from a disparate combination of Chinese and non-Chinese
tion and Anita Desai and Gita Mehta to review the manuscriptsources. For example, one of the book's major contributions
and contribute their thoughts cannot be taken lightly. They is to bring to light (in English) the viewpoints and research
promise no more than the book delivers, but they promise results of heretofore largely unknown Chinese scholars who
much: "To open this book is to open the door to a world for have also struggled to understand constantly shifting,
which, when parched, thirsty and needy, one has searched." Chinese architectural environments. The authors' conclu-
sions, couched in a largely narrative, chronological frame-
Susan Ubbelohde work, are grouped within eight chapters and two appendices,
University of California, Berkeley one of which is an extremely helpful set of "profiles of select-

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 BOOKS 81

ed Chinese architects and schools." At the

Rivers beginning
of Rock: Storiesof each
from a Stone-Dry L
chapter is also an imagined conversation
Project Archaeology.
among three young
Stephanie M. Whitt
Chinese architects who respond to the book'sof
University points and,
Arizona in
Press, 2003. Distri
Research, to
so doing, provide an informal counterpoint Inc., Tucson.
them.
A dominant conceptual thread running through
Culture and this fab-
Environment in the American
Honor of
ric is the tradition-modern dyad which, Robertit
although C.helps
Euler.
toDavid A. Phillip
editors.
cohere the narrative, is also at times SWCAThe
confining. Anthropological
histori- Researc
Phoenix:in
an Paul Cohen in his Discovering History SWCA
ChinaEnvironmental
[1984], Consulta
The
wrote eloquently about some of the University
drawbacks of of
theArizona
tradi- Press, Tucson
tion-modern dichotomy. Readers of this book - and of this
Cultural
journal, with "Traditional" in its title resources
- would management
do well to read (CRM
that owes its existence to U.S. federal go
Cohen's chapter regarding this point.
Thanks to laws
At the opening of the first chapter Rowelike Section
and 106 of the National
Kuan beginHistoric
Preservation
weaving with the tradition-modern Act, those, like
"thread." Here government
they agencies
show or develop-
ers, who work
its derivation in the late-Qing dynastic on federalfrom
context projects, have
the to at least attempt to
Self-
collect
Strengthening, or Westernization and preserve information
Movement (Ziqiangabout human
yun- history before
taking
dong) of the 1860S-1870S. At this timeactionathat
keymightreformist
destroy that information. There was
a timeof
challenge was posed in the doctrine when"Chinese
archaeological sites were bulldozed
learning forin the name
of progress.
essential principles, Western learning for Now,practical
the bulldozers wait while CRM archaeolo-
functions
(zhongxue weiti, xixue weiyong)."gists
Theand their colleagues, working
authors have under takencontract to those
who hired the bulldozers,
the ti-yong couplet - where "ti" refers to "essence," and collect as much data as they can
before the site is destroyed.
"yong" refers to "form" - as a complementary Granted,
dyad ofnot "tradi-
all sites recorded
by CRM archaeologists
tion" and "modern." And throughout the book are in such danger
they refer(government
agencies also hiremusical
back to ti-yong as if it were a resounding CRM archaeologists
theme to record
in sites
a
revealed by wildfires on public lands, for instance), but a
symphony of Chinese "modern" architecture.
Having established this theme ingreat
the dealopening
of the data collected under thein
chapter, auspices of these
regulations
the second chapter the authors discuss the would never have been gathered
significance of for- if it weren't for
eign influences and the creation of the
theAmerican tendency to
so-called foster mammoth
"first infrastructure.
generation
Given
(di yidai) of Chinese architects" in the this, one In
1920s. may the
imagine that there
third would be some
chap-
ter they turn to "four architectural impetus on the part
attitudes to of government agencies to share archae-
modernization"
ological information
(from ca. 1900 to 1937). They continue with the with"big
the general
roof'public. This seems to
con-
rarely"struggles
troversy of the 1950s, followed by the be the case. Mostwith
CRM archaeological
mod- reports, while
available
ernism" beginning in the late 1950s, and to "the
anyone who wants to see
culture them, sit on dusty
fever"
shelves in
resulting from Deng Xiaoping's early the bowels of government
reforms buildings and in the ref-
(1979-1989).
erenceand
They end with the "commodification collections of the CRM firms that producedof
internationalization them.
Commonly
architecture" beginning in the 1990s, known as "gray
followed byliterature,"
"moderniza-they are not intended
for consumptionconclusion.
tion in China," which serves as a summary by those with an avocational interest in
archaeology.
When I used this book as a text Yet so much 2004
in a spring of what the scholarly community
semi-
nar, my students (almost all fromknows
Hongabout ancient
Kong) peoples in the United
found it States, we know
extremely helpful as an overview. because
But of these works.
they also found it limit-
Perhaps because
ing because it did not delve deeply enough it is a relatively
(they said)young field (the NHPA
into
either the architects, their works,passed
or thein 1966), CRM archaeologyminefield
conceptual has developed as its pri-
associated with the words "modern"mary mission,
and protection of cultural resources.
"traditional." They Few firms
have had
(and I) also were disappointed by the the resources to make
relatively poor theirquality
findings, fascinating
of as
they sometimes are, in
the photographic reproductions, surprising available to the general
a book pub- public - ulti-
mately the source
lished by M.I.T. Press. These limitations, of their funding.
however, Some largernot
should firms, how-
ever, nor
be placed on the authors' shoulders, have begun
dotothey
address their responsibility
detract fromto the
the book's overall importance andtaxpayers
utility.and produce
This popular
work volumes, which are pitched
should
be widely read, especially by thosenot to archaeologists
with interests and bureaucrats, but to the otherwise
in "tradition-
al dwellings and settlements," but interested
also reader.
by others seeking to
make sense of China's ongoing One
architectural
recent contribution to this frenzy. ■ of
body of work is Rivers
Rock, Stories from a Stone- Dry Land: Central Arizona Project
Jeffrey W. Cody Archaeology , produced by Statistical Research, Inc., and
Chinese University of Hong Kong authored by archaeologist Stephanie Whittlesey. Based on

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