EASTERN PROMISES

Contemporary Architecture and Spatial Practices in East Asia

Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, Andreas Fogarasi, Christian Teckert (eds.), MAK Wien/Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2013

Texts by Andreas Fogarasi, Christian Teckert, Roan Ching-yueh, Harry den Hartog, Jun Jiang, Kim Sung Hong, Bert de Muynck/Mónica Carriço, Christina Nägele, Alke Thamsen, Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, Julian Worrall a.o., German/English, 304 pages, 650 images.

Pioneering architectural projects are currently originating in the East Asian countries of China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Taiwan. Not only do local conditions and traditions play a role that is just as important as knowledge of global media technologies, social awareness, ecological strategies, as well as artistic practices are also being combined in a new way. This architecture is less interested in iconic objects and spectacular forms, but rather more in a structural rearrangement of society in its spatial dimensions. A social aesthetic is being ushered in whose strategies are more mindful of the world’s diminishing resources.

The volume introduces more than sixty architectural projects in East Asia. It includes essays on the various relationship between architecture and everyday spatial practice in the individual countries, and is supplemented by graphic and photographic mapping of uniquely Asian phenomena.

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