Writing and Literature Seminar: Patrick West, Cher Coad, 10th March, 12pm

SCCA WRITING & LITERATURE SEMINAR

When: Wednesday 10 March from 12.00 pm to 1.00 pm.

Where: Zoom (see invitation copied below).

Title: The CCTV Headquarters—Horizontal Skyscraper or Vertical Courtyard? Anomalies of Beijing Architecture, Urbanism, and Globalisation

Presenters:

Patrick West and Cher Coad

Abstract:

Beijing’s China Central Television Headquarters was designed by the architect Rem Koolhaas. Completed in 2012, it is a controversial feature of the Beijing skyline: an anomaly in a double sense. Firstly and most obviously, it stands out as an anomalous, futuristic reimagining of the vertical skyscraper typology. Koolhaas calls it a “hyperbuilding”—a self-contained, aerial “city” meant to ease urban overcrowding. The building’s second anomaly is less conspicuous than the first, but ultimately, perhaps, more socially significant. The classical Chinese courtyard house, or siheyuan, is ubiquitous in Beijing. While less common today than in the past, its influence, in modified form, remains evident in local and diasporic Chinese architecture. Framed within the CCTV Headquarters’ dominant horizontalism, the siheyuan—in the shape of a vertical courtyard—is an anomaly within an anomaly. Daniel M. Abramson’s concept of “unbuilt architecture” opens architecture more fully to its historical context, which helps position the CCTV Headquarters in relationship to Roberto Schwarz’ argument that “forms are the abstract of specific social relationships.” Born of ancient Chinese philosophy, the form of the siheyuan has massive social consequence, which overlaps with the CCTV Headquarters as a site of globalized data. The courtyard of data thus produced creates a heterotopic tension of “glocalization”, which interrupts the hegemony of hybrid “globalization” that Koolhaas asserts of the building. As an architectural anomaly, the siheyuan points the way towards a new sort of architecture—one better sensitized to “glocal” tensions, in which the local and the global might be more productively reconciled.

Bio. Notes:

Dr Cher Coad is an independent scholar and artist. Her PhD from Griffith University, Gold Coast (2012) explores issues of writing, difference, culture, time, the body and memory through an exegesis and two feature-film scripts: The bridge between, a Chinese single-nation production, and Swell, an Australian-Chinese international co-production. Cher’s professional experience includes work as an actor, film and theatre director, film producer, journalist, model and ringmaster. She has collaborated with directors like Wang Kei Wei.

Dr Patrick West is an Associate Professor in Writing and Literature in Deakin University’s School of Communication and Creative Arts. He was the Higher Degree Research Coordinator in the school from 2016 to 2019. Patrick’s most recent creative-arts publication is the short story ‘An Aura Nothing Out of the Ordinary,’ published in Prosopisia (Vol. XIII, No. 2, 2019). With Eleni Bastéa he co-edited a Special Issue of TEXT on Writing | Architecture in 2019 (No. 55) available at http://www.textjournal.com.au/speciss/issue55/content.htm

This presentation is based on the following recent publication:

Recent Research: ‘The CCTV Headquarters—Horizontal Skyscraper or Vertical Courtyard? Anomalies of Beijing Architecture, Urbanism, and Globalisation,’ M/C Journal, Vol. 23, No. 5 (2020) with Cher Coad

Hope to see you all there.

Cheers,

Patrick.

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Patrick West is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Writing & Literature Seminar for March

Time: Mar 10, 2021 12:00 Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney

Join Zoom Meeting

https://deakin.zoom.us/j/95090581865

Meeting ID: 950 9058 1865