I’m not sure where the link to this came from, but anyone interested in Asian architecture will get a kick out of Traditional Architecture in modern Asia, which included full transcripts of all the speakers’ addresses.
East Asia has a long tradition of unique architectural style. Apparently it has little changed in its style during the past thousand years. This does not mean that it has not changed at all or stagnated. Rather it stands for a great adaptability of traditional wooden architecture to the changing conditions of society and life. However, traditional architecture of East Asia suddenly lost its relevance in our society after the rapid modernization during the last century.
TAmA : Traditional Architecture in modern Asia
The theme of the 2002 Seoul International Conference on East Asian Architectural History is “Traditional architecture in modern Asia.”
East Asia has a long tradition of unique architectural style. Apparently it has little changed in its style during the past thousand years. This does not mean that it has not changed at all or stagnated. Rather it stands for a great adaptability of traditional wooden architecture to the changing conditions of society and life. However, traditional architecture of East Asia suddenly lost its relevance in our society after the rapid modernization during the last century.
This situation brought about a drastic change to the status of traditional architecture in modern society. Traditional architecture is a recent past which remained relevant until recently and yet it has become a remote tradition. While being recognized as a universal architectural system and bearing little stylistic changes, traditional architecture has never emerged as an object for a conscious theoretical research in the meantime. Thus, neither its characteristics nor its meaning has been fully understood.
While traditional architecture still remains as a very rich and important cultural tradition in East Asian society, it has lost its connection with our contemporary architecture and life. Thus, the identity of East Asian traditional architecture in modern society has yet to be reconstituted. Its principles have to be understood more clearly and its symbolic meaning as well as technical knowledge has to be uncovered. Furthermore, its relevance to modern society should also be explored. In short, the gap between traditional architecture and modern society should be bridged both in theory and practice.
The TAmA conference brings together more than 80 scholars from not only East Asian countries but also western countries to address these issues. As the first international conference which is held in this field in Korea, we would like to address as broadest of issues as possible. Papers will be presented under the sessions structured around main themes such as types and principles of traditional architecture, modern interpretation and historiography, comparative studies, western influence and modern adaptation, preservation, and history and morphology of traditional settlements.
