4/21/16
Xiangning Li, visiting professor in architecture at Harvard GSD in spring 2016, will discuss contemporary Chinese architecture in terms of its increasing focus on interior space and matter and the return of “memory.” Can these be understood as critiques of the “iconic turn” the country’s architecture has suffered in recent decades? Is this reaction an antidote to the Western corporate/formalist “virus”? Could it be an interesting argument opposing any conservative response to the internal aim for a “normal” architecture?
Xiangning Li is deputy dean and professor of history, theory and criticism at Tongji University College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He has lectured widely on contemporary Chinese architecture and urbanism and published on these topics in international architecture journals. He has been a visiting scholar at MIT, a fellow at MAK Center of Art and Architecture in Los Angeles, and a visiting professor at TU Darmstadt; and he has curated the Chengdu and Shenzhen Biennale exhibitions, among various distinctions.
