Asian Urbanism Collaborative (AUC), founded and led by Shiqiao Li and Esther Lorenz, is a global platform to develop conceptual and professional insights from a better understanding of Asian urbanization. Asia is home to some of the world’s most successful civilizations, yet we are making insufficient use of its cultural resources. The goal of AUC is to articulate these conceptual and professional insights by mapping more accurately the cultural forces that have led to Asia’s enormously significant urbanization, and by establishing a collaborative scholarly community. Instead of perpetuating intercultural perceptions, AUC seeks to defend the integrity of indigenous thoughts and practices, suspended in productive dialogue with those embedded in urbanization in other parts of the world.
Cities constitute most of cultural life and consume most of the world’s resources; Asian urbanization, by far the largest development of cities in the recent decades, is a complex development; it both enriches global cultural life and exacerbates the resource and pollution problems of the world. The cultural resources we can potentially deploy here are consequential; they are relevant to immediate mitigation through debate and design, and to long-term modifications of the discipline of architecture and urbanism as historically constituted in the image of the Euro-American city. The complex nature of the problem of the city necessitates collaboration; AUC aims to curate innovative scholarship that includes theoretical research in humanities, quantitative research in social sciences, and design research and practice to formulate critical and contextualized responses to today’s challenges of our constructed environments.
Shiqiao Li is Weedon Professor in Asian Architecture, School of Architecture, University of Virginia, where he teaches history, theory, and design of architecture, and directs PhD in the Constructed Environment Program. He studied architecture at Tsinghua University in Beijing and obtained his PhD from AA School of Architecture and Birkbeck College, University of London. Prior to joining University of Virginia, Li practiced architecture in London and Hong Kong, and taught at AA School of Architecture, National University of Singapore and The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Some of his design research and teaching is featured in Kowloon Cultural District: An Investigation into Spatial Capabilities in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: mccm creations, 2014, co-edited with Esther Lorenz). His research contributes towards an understanding of architecture as it is situated in indigenous cultural contexts. His books include Understanding the Chinese City (London: Sage, 2014), Architecture and Modernization (Beijing: WaterPower Press, 2009, in Chinese) and Power and Virtue, Architecture and Intellectual Change in England 1650-1730 (London and New York: Routledge, 2006).
Esther Lorenz is Associate Professor at the School of Architecture, University of Virginia, where she teaches architecture and urban design and co-directs the school’s China program. She is a licensed architect with education from TU Graz and TU Delft, and she has practiced architecture and urban design in Austria, the Netherlands, and Australia. Her research explores the connections between architecture and culture, from the study of new urban formations to cultural and spatial practices in relation to built form, to investigations of the intersections between media and architecture. Her work has been exhibited in the United States, and in biennales in Venice, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen. Prior to joining University of Virginia, Lorenz taught at The Chinese University in Hong Kong and the Technical University Graz. She is co-editor of Kowloon Cultural District: An Investigation into Spatial Capabilities in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: mccm creations, 2014). Her research and teaching have been recognized with the UVA Excellence in Education Abroad Award, and the ACSA Creative Achievement Award.
Contact
Shiqiao Li
lishiqiao[at]virginia.edu
Esther Lorenz
e.lorenz[at]virginia.edu