Chinese Cities as Pedagogy

The book introduces innovative teaching practices and methods with a critical focus on understanding and interpreting Chinese cities as a rich context. Additionally, the book provides thorough mapping of the applied methods across disciplines and offers deeper reflections on the emerging pedagogy. "This is an unusual study on architectural education in contemporary China where urban conditions, with torrential currents and contradictory palimpsests colliding into a soil of uncertainties, are being used as a live laboratory for studio teaching and classroom criticism. It reveals a dynamic thought experiment unfolding beneath a surface of iconic monuments or their dystopian reflections. Written by a new generation of scholars with international perspectives, it reveals a restless search through teaching: a pedagogic practice on the move." —Professor Jianfei Zhu, Chair of East Asian Architecture, Newcastle University, United Kingdom "Richly documented and very well-argued, this volume presents the city of Suzhou through the critical lenses of an interdisciplinary pedagogical approach, bringing together interviews, oral history, art, typology, media studies, and criticism. Examining past, present and future, the volume serves methodologically as a pilot project for the analysis of other cities, not only in China, and paves the way for further innovative teaching frontiers." —Dr. Alberto Bologna, Professor in Architectural and Urban Design, Sapienza University of Rome "Focusing on the challenges educators face in fostering critical thinking, this book is a voyage into the complexities of teaching in architecture schools. On the one hand authors emphasize the significance of individual agency and autonomy in learning. On the other, the book empowers study subjects, by…