GUEST LECTURE
DR. GUANGHUI DING
CHINA’S ARCHITECTURAL EXPORTS TO THE GLOBAL SOUTH:
FROM THE 1950s TO THE PRESENT
Date & Time
19.11. 2021 2.15 PM, CET
Location
Trainee Centre Online https://cesnet.zoom.us/j/7262880184
Abstract
China’s architectural exports to less-developed countries, such as conference halls, government offices, hospitals, institutional headquarters, schools, stadia and theatres, have played a special role in the state’s foreign aid and diplomatic strategy. This talk attempts to examine the development and transformation of this distinctive phenomenon, using architectural aid as a lens through which to unpack the state’s motivation for and the institutions/individuals’ commitment to constructing China’s global influence. The exported architectural projects – profoundly marked by the state’s intervention – demonstrated a ‘transformational modernism’ that was both a product
of social transformation in China and a positive engagement with the recipient nations’ local conditions.
Bio
Dr. Guanghui Ding is Associate Professor of Architecture at Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture (BUCEA) in China. He is the author of Constructing a Place of Critical Architecture in China: Intermediate Criticality in the Journal Time + Architecture (London and New York: Routledge, 2016) and co-author of A History of Design Institutes in China: From Mao to Market (London and New York: Routledge, 2018, with Charlie Xue).
