DocTalks is a series dedicated to ongoing investigations by doctoral, postdoctoral, or early-career researchers into the expansive entanglement of architecture and the natural environment. These sessions are meant to create an intercollegiate cohort of scholars who workshop writing, share research findings, and experiment with methodological tools while engaging with the vision and investigations of the Ambasz Institute.
These Doc Talk sessions are intended for scholars or architecture history and theory, but scholars in related fields and the general public are welcome to attend.
Mediating Knowledge and Practice: The Architectural Production of the Astor Chinese Garden Court
Speaker
Zheming (Taro) Cai, University of Toronto
This paper explores the transnational exchange of landscape design knowledge and practice in creating an overseas Chinese garden, focusing on the construction of the Astor Chinese Garden Court at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It highlights the critical role architects and architecture played in shaping this cultural ensemble. In 1981, the Met unveiled the Astor Court, a garden designed to house Ming-dynasty Chinese furniture, exemplifying traditional domestic spaces typical of Southern China. Notably, this project marked a significant moment in history as the first permanent cultural exchange between the People’s Republic of China and the United States following the reestablishment of their diplomatic relations.
Despite the use of authentic Chinese building materials and the involvement of skilled craftsmen from Suzhou, the garden required substantial adaptation to accommodate the conditions unique to its new setting in New York. The research investigates the nuanced negotiations occurred during transplanting a garden across distinct cultural, technological, legal, and ecological frameworks. It also explores the role of architecture in the institutionalization of the “Classical Chinese Garden” canon and the modernization of traditional garden-making practices through architectural production. The Astor Court, through its various epistemological discrepancies during the transnational production, challenges traditional notions of authenticity and the nature-culture binary. Furthermore, it sheds light on the role of architecture in facilitating cultural diplomacy and shaping national identity.
Zheming (Taro) Cai is a PhD candidate in architecture, landscape, and design at the University of Toronto. His research centers on the production and dissemination of knowledge, cultural landscapes, landscape infrastructure, and critical heritage studies. His dissertation explores the development of urban parks, gardens, and the discipline of landscape architecture in China since 1949. Specifically, it examines the transnational exchange of landscape design knowledge and practices during the reform and post-reform eras, investigating the role of landscape in the People’s Republic of China’s nation-building process. Before joining the University of Toronto, Cai earned his bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture from Purdue University and his master’s degree in landscape architecture from Harvard University. His student works received the Award of Excellence and the Award of Honor from the American Society of Landscape Architects. Cai also brings with him five years of experience as a designer, researcher, and project manager at OLIN in Philadelphia. Currently, Cai is a Massey College Junior Fellow and a Junior Fellow of the Theory and History Committee at the Chinese Society of Landscape Architecture.
Respondent
TBA
On the Photographic Circulation of “Dragon Fossils”
Speaker
Joy Zhu, University of California, Los Angeles
In 1915, stalagmites discovered in a cave in Hubei, China, were initially mistaken for dinosaur and dragon fossils, sparking widespread interest among Western scientists after news of the discovery spread. Yuan Shikai, a prominent Chinese warlord of the time, interpreted the appearance of these dragon fossils as an auspicious sign for him to step up as an emperor. Geological investigator Zhang Hongzhao, who was involved in examining the stalagmites, was motivated by this incident to pen “The Interpretation of Three Spirits” (三靈解) in 1919, in which he delved into the zoological characteristics of the mythological creatures dragon, phoenix, and Qilin as referenced in Chinese classics. Drawing heavily from the pre–Qin Dynasty Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shanhaijing), which describes fabulous creatures in a mountain range in Western China, he suggests that these mythical creatures are of Western origin. According to Zhang, this in turn affirms the theory of Sinobabylonianism—the idea that the Chinese race originates from Babylon.
In this talk, I will show the ways in which Zhang’s ethno-racial tract was made possible by Western and orientalization of Chinese culture through photographic media in the early 20th century. I will answer the following questions through visual analysis: How have the photographs of the “dragon fossils” been spectacularized in its visual language in the Scientific American, and in turn reframed and reinterpreted by the Chinese intellectual community through publications like Dongfangzazhi?
Joy Zhu was born and raised in Hong Kong. Joy is a fifth-year architecture and urban design PhD student at UCLA. Her research explores geology as antiquity from early-19th through 20th-century British colonial Hong Kong and China. She holds a BA in comparative literature with a focus in German from Middlebury College, and is a graduate of the New Normal program at Strelka Institute, Moscow. Previously, she taught in the Department of Architecture at University of Hong Kong and the Department of Design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research has been supported by the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and Chiang King-Kuo Foundation, among others.
Respondent
TBA
This event was made possible through a generous gift from Emilio Ambasz. The Emilio Ambasz Institute for the Joint Study of the Built and the Natural Environment is a platform for fostering dialogue, promoting conversation, and facilitating research about the relationship between the built and natural environment, with the aim of making the interaction between architecture and ecology visible and accessible to the wider public while highlighting the urgent need for an ecological recalibration.