Date: Tuesday June 2nd, 12:00pm (CET)
Hosts: Sheng Yuan Huang, Alessandro Martinelli, Chun Hsiung Wang
In collaboration with ListLab
ABSTRACT OF THE LECTURE
The City Beyond Architecture
The work of Fieldoffice, Taiwan, and today’s architecture of the city
The lecture will comprise of a presentation of Fieldoffice work by Sheng Yuan Huang and a debate with Alessandro Martinelli, author of the book ‘The City Beyond Architecture’ about Fieldoffice work and Taiwan, with the participation of Chun Hsiung Wang, curator of the Fieldoffice exhibitions at the Biennale di Venezia.
As we know, the urbanization of the Far East has nothing to do with what happened in the West. In Asia, activities are all mixed, and one can find agricultural production sitting side by side with housing, temples, or high tech factories. In this context, a public space capable to structure such unique landscape and provide social spaces and a sense of identity to the place is just starting to develop. If this may remind what landscape urbanism has been theorizing for some time, Yilan, Taiwan, thanks to the work of Fieldoffice and the cooperation of the local society, is the avantgarde of this happening. In a way, Yilan may remind what happened at the onset of the Tessiner architecture school in South Switzerland, or the times preceding Barcelona Olympics in Catalonia, those special occurrences of city-making where innovations of planning and design have been put forward to shape a new urbanism.
The lecture and following debate will both showcase the work and the practice of Fieldoffice, explain the relevance in terms of city-making, and finally highlight how the specific approach to architecture has interacted with the social and administrative conditions of Taiwan. Indeed, the lecture aims to preview those contents that constitute the core of the the book ‘The City Beyond Architecture’ about Fieldoffice and Taiwan, which will be published by Listlab in August 2020.
About the hosts
Sheng Yuan Huang, born in Taipei in 1963, holds a Bachelor in Architecture from Tunghai University, Taiwan, and a Master in Architecture from Yale University, the United States. Before returning to Taiwan in 1993, he worked for Eric Owen Moss Architects as a project associate, and taught at the North Carolina State University. While he advocates for freedom in the process and the shape of architectural design, for more than 20 years he contained his life and work into a single township of Taiwan, Yilan. Fieldoffice is the architectural office established by him in 1994. Somehow, it is an architectural practice and a way of living. Indeed, the people of Fieldoffice wish to integrate with the place by carrying on an everyday life that is absolutely genuine and on-site.
Alessandro Martinelli was previously involved in research projects and didactical activities about the contemporary urban condition at the Accademia di architettura in Mendrisio, the International Institute of Architecture in Vico Morcote (CH), the Berlage institute (NL), the Barcelona Institute of Architecture (SP), the Canadian Centre of Architecture, the Archivio Cattaneo in Cernobbio (ITA), and the Shih Chien University in Taipei, Taiwan. Today he is assistant professor at the department of Landscape architecture, the Chinese Culture University in Taipei, and works together with BIAS Architects on architectural and curatorial projects that concern the public space today.
Chun Hsiung Wang is the Chairman of the Department of Architecture, Shih Chien University, Taiwan, the Chief Editor of the Architecture + Tectonics Taiwan Magazine (a+t), the President of the Alliance for Architectural Modernity, a Member of the National Historic Monuments Preservation and Conservation Commission of the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan, and the consultant for the redevelopment of Taipei and Hsinchu.