Asian Alterity

With Special Reference to Architecture and Urbanism through the Lens of Cultural Studies

William S W Lim

• Publisher: WSPC
• Year: 2007
• eBook ISBN: 9789814475181
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping
• Index: Business

Asian Alterity is an interdisciplinary theoretical analysis that vigorously contests the homogeneity of the mainstream Eurocentric values. Part I argues for the need for an alternate perspective to be introduced so as to understand the diversity of Asia's cultural differences at their varied development stages and to meet the complex challenges of the explosive urban expansion and disruptive changes in traditional cultures and lifestyles.

Part II of the book consists of nine case studies of Asian major urban cities by well-established academic writers and urban theorists. Each author presents diverse aspects of urban dynamism. The case studies will collectively demonstrate a broad framework to understand the essentiality of the interdisciplinary mode of Cultural Studies as an important lens towards meeting the challenges in Asian Architecture and Urbanism.

Highlights of the book:

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• Forewords and comments written by an international panel of multidisciplinary academics and urban theorists including Linda Lim, Lim Teck Ghee, John Philips, Saskia Sassen, Iain Borden, Edward Soja and Chua Beng Huat.
• Innovative graphic design and page layout by an internationally established designer, Jackson Tan of Singapore.
• Elegant limited edition box set includes five additional posters of images from the book.

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Contents:

• Part I:
  • Asian Alterity:Introduction and The Rise of Asia:
  • • The Relevance of Cultural Studies
    • The Rise of Asia
  • Modernities:
  • • Multiple Modernities and Contemporariness
    • Democracy, Human Rights and Social Justice
  • Selected Cultural Studies:
  • • Cultural Identities, Diaspora and Memories
    • Globalization and Inequalities
    • Sustainability and Affordability
    • Popular Culture and the Contemporary
  • Asian Architecture and Urbanism:
  • • Creativity of the Contemporary
    • Asian Urbanism — Challenges Ahead
    • Asian Architecture — Challenges Ahead
• Part II:
  • Case Studies of Asian Cities:
  • • Bangkok: A City in Flux (K Ratanapridakul)
    • Ho Chi Minh City [Saigon]: Before the Doorstep of Global Assimilation (Khang T)
    • Hong Kong: City of Maximum Quantities (S Li)
    • Istanbul: Observations (K N Tan)
    • The Melbourne Case Study: The Consultant Arrives [and sees] … (L van Schaik)
    • Seoul: Gangnam Alternative Nature — The Experience of Nature Without Parks (Y-J Park & J Kim)
    • Shanghai Assessed: Six Architectural Nodes of the City (E Seng et al.)
    • Singapore: In Search of Transparency (J K Kaw)
    • Tokyo: An Urban Collage of Chaos Amidst Order (T Muraji)

0Keywords:Asia;Asian Architecture and Urbanism;Critical Urbanism;Cultural Studies;Asian Modernity;Multiple ModernitiesReview:

“This book on Asian Alterity is so welcome, as one of the new (yet still all too rare) explorations in architecture and urbanism which seek to operate from an interdisciplinary perspective, and, as such, comprehend the true difficulty of the life that we seek to comprehend and better. As such, it provides invaluable insights into aspects of what William Lim calls the ‘non-West’, that is into modernity globalization, technology, politics, and social organization … it helps me to understand my London-based daily life, one which is composed of similarly complex (and often ‘Asian’) cultures, languages, peoples, hybrids, diasporas, fractional identities, and disparities of wealth. And the book suggests too that, of course, places like London are also part of the global condition of architectural and urban issues such as memories, public space, uncertainty, spatial justice and what William Lim memorably terms the ‘Colonial Hangover’.”

Iain Borden
Professor of Architecture and Urban Culture
Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London

“There is nothing quite like Asian Alterity for its comprehensive and insightful perspective on Australasian urbanism, its creative recomposition of stubborn modernist binaries, its sensitive handling of difference and otherness, its effectively politicized interdisciplinarity, and its challenging ethical agenda for the city building professions and city dwellers everywhere.”

Edward W Sojo
Professor of Urban Planning and Visiting Centennial Professor of Sociology
School of Economics

“This book is a poised and critical examination of the latent potential in the cultures of those cities … Their discussions are incisive, objective, and eminently successful in placing the Asian experience in an interdisciplinary framework.”

a+u (Architecture and Urbanism)

“This book is highly recommended to architects, urban planners and decision makers in the respective fields.”

INDONESIA design

“The book distills a decade of Lim's thinking, observing and writing about postmodernity and its place in the Asian city.”

The Hilt
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Note on Foreword Writers and Reviewers

In line with the interdisciplinary nature of cultural studies which engender broad perspectives in interpreting issue-oriented and discipline-specific issues, I have invited scholars from various disciplines as well as architects to present their thoughts on Part I of the book. The forewords set the stage in introducing and reviewing specific themes of the book that are of concern to the writer. The reviews deal with a collage of themes, ranging from defining “Asian Alterity” to globality, urbanism and cultural studies.

The first foreword is written by Andrew Lee and Leong Teng Wui, two young architects and urbanists from Singapore. Their foreword sets a critical point of entry to the book in describing and assessing my thesis. They outlined three critical concerns. These are – concern for a cultural practice of difference, concern for ethical practices and concern for the production of new cultural imaginaries. In addition, having tracked and reviewed much of my writing, they highlighted that Asian Alterity completes the author’s “trilogy of foundational books on Asian Urbanism and architecture over a period of ten years.”

The second foreword is written by Linda Lim, a well-established economist on Asian economies. Notwithstanding her general agreement with my economic analysis, she nevertheless identifies critical issues that need to be further developed. One such issue is the future direction of the “developmental state” as she clearly identified that “political democratization has been accompanied by a diminishing, if not yet a dismantling of the ‘developmental state’ ”.

The third foreword is written by Lim Teck Ghee, a well-known historian as well as analyst and social commentator. He stressed that the issue of the impact of colonial past in ex-colonial territories must be raised and incorporated into our understanding of the present.

In “Selected Quotes from Reviewers”, I highlighted quotes that serve as points of entry into Part I of Asian Alterity. The full text reviews can be found in “What Others Say”, page.

The tone of the reviews in “What Others Say” runs a gamut from reservations, critical to complimentary. All the reviews are greatly appreciated as the contributors present many ideas that could be further examined and developed in my subsequent writing.

Collectively, these forewords and reviews reveal myriad paradigms of understanding of Asian Alterity with Special Reference to Architecture and Urbanism through the Lens of Cultural Studies and it is hoped that the reader will also consider and assess the various issues discussed which are critical to the future dynamic direction of development in Asia today.

Foreword

Andrew Lee + Leong Teng Wui

“Throughout Asian Alterity, Lim aims to make sense of the ways in which city processes are enacted in various Asian cities. At the same time, these enactments also suggest that understanding Asia can never be fully comprehensive or complete. The research work is therefore not to fix and define the relationship between the political, economic, social and cultural. Rather, it sees the need to problematize these connections in particular cities and time periods and to continuously develop fresh ways of imagining Asia as a vast terrain of possibilities...”

Asian Alterity is William Lim’s latest book, but this is not our first introduction to the man. Almost ten years ago, Tan Kok Meng, the editor of Singapore Architect, said: “You should do a book review of William Lim’s book Asian New Urbanism. His research work will have great impact on urban thought in Asian cities”. We vividly remembered our first exposure to Lim’s ideas on urbanism in Asia and his sequel Asian Ethical Urbanism, and we were not disappointed.

Lim is a man of many ideas. He draws on a wide repertoire of concepts in an attempt to address major urban, societal and cultural issues in differing ways. So a caveat to new readers of Lim. Lay aside your presumption that you understand all the terms that he uses. Pay attention to his definitions. We are sure that you will find him an insightful theorist. Conceptions like “Asian urbanism”, “Ethical urbanism”, “Safeguarding the Commons”, “spaces of indeterminacy” and “creative rebelliousness” are unique to Lim and insightfully apt.

Throughout Asian Alterity, Lim aims to make sense of the ways in which city processes are enacted in various Asian cities. At the same time, these enactments also suggest that understanding Asia can never be fully comprehensive or complete. The research work is therefore not to fix and define the relationship between the political, economic, social and cultural. Rather, it sees the need to problematize these connections in particular cities and time periods and to continuously develop fresh ways of imagining Asia as a vast terrain of possibilities.

A new millennium is upon us. The beginning of the twenty-first century is an exciting time for those wanting to understand and engage meaningfully with Asia. With signs of sustained growth in Asian economies, changes in the governance of Asian countries and the increasing impact of globalization on people living in Asian localities, there is a growing realization that Asia’s era is in full swing, from daily life to business, government and society. It is in these cities that decisive decisions for the quality of life will be contested and their outcomes will have great impact on the urban environment and on human relations.

What relevance has Lim’s ideas in the twenty-first century? Lim has had a great influence on urban thought during the transition from the last two decades of the twentieth century. We will like to highlight three key areas whose influence, we are convinced, will continue to resound in the minds of the readers. We will address them as concerns, for what they mean to Lim. They are a concern for a cultural practice of difference, a concern for ethical practices and a concern for the production of new cultural imaginaries.

Concern for a cultural practice of difference

By this we mean the direct engagement with Asia as a vast terrain with differentiated cultures. Lim views Asian cities as amorphous pieces with multiple cultural peculiarities. The absence of any homogeneous urban pattern is apparent in Asian cities, as they are sites of great differentiation and complexity. For Lim, Asian cities are a heterogeneous mixture of unique cultures and a fertile ground for the production of new cultural hybrids.

Lim sees two sets of reactions to the heterogeneity of Asian cities: the tendency to map order onto the various cities in an attempt to govern and control and the attempt to maintain and celebrate cultural heterogeneity. On the one hand, there is a need to assert and defend the Asian audience against the dominance of Western modernist planning as a model to guide the development of Asian cities. He sees the need for Asian cities to discard the burden of perpetuating large-scale Western modernist redevelopment schemes that are based on orderly functional urbanism and single-usage zoning. Recognizing Asian cities with their plurality of positions and values will mean that it is difficult and inappropriate to impose one particular view of planning and privilege it over others. As long as we seek to maintain cultural differences, there will always be the availability of choices in planning practices. Cultural differences give us different vantage points as to how human beings organize life. Lim sees the need to maintain “cultural differences” (which is based on situated understanding of local conditions) and to reveal the partiality and imposition of long-standing dominant practices.

On the other hand, you feel as you read Asian Alterity that Lim knows Asia, not as an inert canvas for dominant practices to script hegemonic intentions but as a vibrant terrain that involves creative agency and purpose. By raising the need to maintain cultural differences, Lim is not attempting to generate rhetorical Asian defensiveness. Rather, he is urging the Asian audience to become producers of creative knowledge/agents of change by adopting an “attitude of criticality” that consciously seeks to create alternative cultural imaginations that will enhance urban life in Asian cities.

Concern for ethical practices

This has probably influenced us more than any single or group of ideas. Here Lim has modelled an attitude for us — anyone who has read his books or talked with him or attended his lectures or observed him answering questions, we trust will be able to say that Lim is a man who cares for his fellow humans. Here is a man who has dedicated Asian New Urbanism to the millions of urban poor in Asian economies, who he believes deserve an equitable share of the development benefits. How many architects, urban planners and cultural critics would think of reacting like this? There is a deep, humane care in what Lim writes and does.

Lim is ultimately interested in the individual’s relation to thei...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Outline of Book
• Part I Asian Alterity
• Part II Case Studies of Asian Cities