An Inter-Institutional Platform
for PhDs, PostDocs and ECRs in
Architectural History and Theory,

Landscape and the City




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DocTalks x MoMA
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7 January 2025
8:00 AM EST / 2:00 PM CET


DocTalks x MoMA


The Rural Reinvention:
Emerging Taobao Villages and the Infrastructural Modification of the Invisible China



SOFIA LEONI
Politecnico di Torino


Respondent: Gianni Talamini, City University of Hong Kong


Photo by Sofia Leoni, shot during fieldwork on March 15, 2024. This image captures a local advertisement promoting e-commerce entrepreneurship in rural Junpucun. The phenomenon of rural e-commerce growth, exemplified by Taobao villages, has been strongly encouraged through targeted marketing strategies. Some of the slogans include: Tired of life as a migrant worker? Why not come home and work on Taobao.com?” “You can run a store online and it won’t affect your personal life.” “Visit Taobao if you want to live a better life.”


In recent years, China’s e-commerce revolution has expanded beyond urban centers, integrating remote regions into the country’s economic and political framework. This profound shift addresses the “three rural issues” identified in 2006: declining agricultural productivity, the widening urban-rural divide, and insufficient rural infrastructure and services. By combining national policies with localized implementation, these challenges have catalyzed a unique form of urbanization, often shaped by the interplay of public and private initiatives.

At the forefront of this transformation are Taobao villages, a grassroots revitalization model enabled by Alibaba’s C2C, e-commerce platform. Predominantly located in less developed coastal and central regions, these villages have experienced significant economic and spatial transformations driven by digital commerce. To qualify as a Taobao village, at least 10% of households—or a minimum of 100 shops—must engage in online trade, generating annual revenues exceeding CNY 10 million. This integration of e-commerce has disrupted traditional economic systems while reshaping spatial practices and mobility infrastructures. For instance, streets are frequently appropriated as informal public spaces, adapting organically to the demands of commerce and community life.

This research investigates the infrastructural and socio-economic changes occurring in Taobao villages through a multi-scalar approach that bridges spatial analysis and infrastructural studies, with a particular focus on logistics and the informal dynamics underpinning platform economies. Fieldwork conducted in three case studies—Junpucun in Guangdong Province (specialized in clothing and leather goods), Wuchuchen in Zhejiang Province (focused on tea and bamboo), and Dongfeng in Jiangsu Province (producing furniture and “fake Ikea” products)—uncovers how digital platforms facilitate new forms of entrepreneurship and spatial organization while simultaneously reshaping traditional rural identities.

The findings reveal a dual reinvention of rural labor and space. On one hand, traditional socio-economic structures are adapting to accommodate new entrepreneurial practices tied to global supply chains. On the other, digital infrastructures are reframing the role of logistics, relying heavily on human labor and localized knowledge to sustain platform ecosystems. These dynamics highlight the coexistence of modern and traditional systems, challenging binary perceptions of urban versus rural. At the same time, the study calls for a pluralized understanding of rural areas as spaces of negotiation and hybridity, where old and new forms of infrastructure, labor, and spatial practices intersect. By doing so, it sheds light on how rural China actively participates in global economic processes, redefining itself as a dynamic and adaptive entity in the digital era.

***

China’s Two Tropical Architectures:
Climate, Thermal Technocracy, and Global Socialism in Guangzhou and Dar es Salaam, 1955-76


ZHIJIAN SUN
National University of Singapore

Respondent: Yiping Dong, Xi’an Jiaotong – Liverpool University

Collage showing socialist China's two tropical architectures in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and in Guangzhou, China


This paper offers a critical understanding on the entanglement between environmental history, built environment and geo-politics, by scrutinizing socialist China’s engagements in the built environment of the decolonizing tropical world, which is still marginal to existing narratives on tropical architecture around the (post-)colonial network and global socialism. Based on archival research and fieldwork in China, Tanzania and the UK, it reveals the concurrency and coconstitution between knowledge production and practice of China’s two tropical architectures in the mid-to-late 20th century, i.e. its overseas architectural aid in the decolonizing Tanzania (one of the largest but unnoticed African recipients of China’s aid), and its subtropical modernist architecture in Maoist Guangzhou (a stronghold for China’s subtropical building research), and thus how the Chinese socio-cultural construction of the tropics challenges established discourses on global tropical architecture. Instead of attributing architectural production merely to the genius of certain individuals, it attends to a much broader framework of socialist state-run institutions operating both within and beyond China, in which not only architects and planners, but also meteorologists, physicians, thermal engineers and Party cadres were all active agents for global flows of resources and knowledge. Drawing on theories of techno-political regimes and critical temperature studies, it develops the notion of “thermal regimes” to capture the interdependence between the use of thermal technologies and institutions of socio-political power. Through case studies of Guangzhou Textile Factory (1958) and China-aided Friendship Textile Mill (1968), it scrutinizes how an interlinked set of climatic knowledge, thermal comfort standards, architectural technologies and a body of expertise transcending Cold-War rivalries were marshalled by Chinese and Tanzanian actors, driven by a common appetite for industrial modernity, towards the technocratic control of environmental parameters, state intervention of human bodies, and extensive exploitation of natural resources and human labor.





21 January 2025
10:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM CET



Women as Patrons of Architecture in 17th century Mughal Empire:
The Legacy of Nur Jahan



FARHAT AFZAL
DAAP, University of Cincinnati

Respondent: TBD



Jahangir and Prince Khurram entertained by Nur Jahan (detail), India, ca. 1617.
© National Museum of Asian Art.



Islamic architectural history is often visually depicted in ways that contextualizes its significance in the contemporary world. This is illustrated using images showing scenes such as men performing ablutions inside mosque complexes or a group of male students sitting around a teacher in a madrasa. Rather than depicting monuments as empty and isolated, such depictions help to show how people interact with architectural spaces in the Islamic world. This approach is particularly valuable in contextualizing the architecture for people who are not familiar with the Islamic culture. However, many of these images mostly depict men, which often raises the question of “Where are the women?” While scholarship on women in the Islamic world haveincreased in the past several decades, primarily due to the increase in gender studies in western countries, scholars from both Muslim and non-Muslim backgrounds agree that the approach for gender studies developed in the West cannot be thoughtlessly applied to the non-West. In addition, there has been a dearth of scholarship on women and the visual culture of the Islamic world from the pre modern period. Which then raises the next question of, “Where are the women in art and architecture of the Islamic world?” This study thus aims to highlight the contributions of a woman who greatly influenced the artistic traditions of the pre modern Islamic world: Empress Nur Jahan, wife of Emperor Jahangir, the fourth ruler of the Mughal Empire. It will investigate how her architectural patronage in 17th-century India served as both a representation of her power and her position as a spiritual sovereign, a concept that ties political power with sainthood.


***

Architecture school for others:
Howard University; and the inclusive architectural pedagogy (1970-1990)


ALI JAVID
University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

Respondent: TBD



The design studio’s fundamental question at Howard university:
“What is the most appropriate forms for Others architecture to take?” Image Source: The Hilltop, the student newspaper of Howard University, 1971


Howard University, a leading centre for training African-American students since 1924, has always been a hot-bed for protests against racial discrimination and gender inequality, but after 1968, it also became a base for Third World students protesting against colonialism and cultural-economic hegemony by Western powers in their countries. This atmosphere of the university attracted many Third World students and teachers from the Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East to participate in its faculty of architecture during the 1970s. Subsequently, by gradually changing the faculty, the curriculum, and even the subjects of the projects, the School of Architecture endeavoured to address Third World countries' needs to shape their future. This presentation examines Howard's inclusive architectural pedagogy in the 1970s, which was implemented under the slogan "Education for All," and investigates its pedagogical response to the participation of students of multiple races and ethnicities from the Third World. Finally, the presentation will chart the impact of its pedagogy upon the subsequent work and approaches of Iranian architectural alumni, Kamran Diba and Khosrow Moradian, during the political crisis and the 1979 Iranian Revolution.



4 February 2025
8:00 AM EST/ 2:00 PM CET


DocTalks x MoMA


In Front of Everyone’s Eyes:
Cruising Infrastructure in Berlin’s Hasenheide and Whole Festival


CAROLINA SEPÚLVEDA
Harvard University

Respondent: TBA


Cruising: Whole Festival at Ferropolis, 2024. Credit: Tomás Eyzaguirre

The research begins with the premise that queer bodies and their collective associations are intricately shaped by their continuous interaction with the urban environment. Similarly, urban life is formed and contested by the diverse collective actions that subjectivities play in the public sphere, serving as indicators for measuring cultural currents. Cities, in this manner, are molded by infrastructures, demonstrating how sets of processes, policies, and practices converge differently in specific places and at particular times.

The proposal delves into the interaction between queer individuals and urban infrastructure within Berlin’s parks. Here, I explore the concepts of “body as infrastructure,” “infrastructured bodies,” and “queer infrastructure” to explain the dynamics between queer bodies, collective affects, and the urban environment. The study focuses on two moments of collective revolt against infrastructure in different time periods. Firstly, I scrutinize the Turnplatz, the first open-air gymnasium inaugurated in 1811 within Hasenheide Volkspark, which faced closure in 1819 following an uprising culminating in the assassination of poet Kotzebue. Secondly, I link Hasenheide's historical Turnplatz to its contemporary role as a cruising site—a practice involving seeking sexual encounters in public areas, typically among men—ultimately connecting it to the genesis of the WHOLE Festival, a three-day queer event situated in Ferropolis, so-called the “city of iron,” featuring cruising areas alongside music stages and darkroom spaces.

The evolution of Hasenheide park from a site emphasizing bodily rigor and discipline in the 19th century to a renowned venue for bodily pleasure through cruising or public sex reflects a broader cultural transformation in contemporary Berlin. Lastly, these cases shed light on the interplay of inclusion and exclusion dynamics arising from the intersection of identity formation, infrastructure, and modern life.


***

Thinking Like a River:
Land, Water & Territorial Imagination in Colonial Punjab (1849-1920)


JAVAIRIA SHAHID
Columbia University

Respondent: TBA



Left: The Bar Before Colonization: Caption: “Here the Bar is seen in its natural condition before the introduction of canal irrigation. At this site the jungle growth in the foreground is less than usual. The ragged clumps of trees are characteristic.”

Right: The Bar After Colonization. Caption: “This illustrates what Government waste lands will look like when irrigation is developed in a few years’ time. This illustration speaks volumes.” (Source British Library)


During the pivotal decades spanning India's subjugation to the British crown in 1857 and its eventual partition in 1947, the arid wastelands of Punjab underwent a profound transformation under the sway of colonial governance and economic imperatives. Once inhospitable desert wasteland, these lands were transfigured into fertile fields dedicated to the cultivation of lucrative cash crops (sugarcane, wheat & cotton) and the mobilization of labor.

British engineers and planners, discerning India's hydrological challenge not as one of water scarcity but of its erratic abundance at the wrong time, embarked upon a monumental endeavor to tame the Indus. Their ambition was succinctly articulated by Geoffrey de Montmorency, Governor of the Punjab from 1928 to 1933, who envisioned nothing less than to "make the desert bloom." The solution they proposed: perennial canal irrigation and alluvial planning—a strategic approach to reining in Punjab's tumultuous environment by orchestrating land utilization in harmony with the rhythms of irrigation and water management, negotiated against the caprices of rivers, rainfall, and soil. My dissertation project traces the intricate web of transformations wrought by this endeavor in the Chenab Canal Colony. Here, I examine how the architecture of mandi towns served as the nexus for the convergence of imperial networks spanning the Indian subcontinent, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean world, between the dynamics of extraction between colonial power and the indigenous knowledge and labor. By shifting the focus from notions of improvement to considerations of depletion, this project reconfigures our understanding of water and land and their intrinsic value within the imperial paradigm.





18 February 2025
10:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM CET



“Forever Hidden”: Architectures of epistemological resistance at the New York World’s Fair 1939/40



MAGDALENA GRÜNER
Universität Hamburg


Respondent: TBD



Deep-sea diorama in the New York Zoological Society pavilion, New York World’s Fair 1939/40, size and materials unknown, Princeton University Library Special Collections, William Beebe Papers, box 12, folder 9.

The pavilion of the New York Zoological Society at the 1939/40 World’s Fair was a veritable twentieth century cabinet of curiosities: electric eel “Electra” sending out Westen Union telegrams, the Bronx Zoo’s famed giant panda “Pandora,” a number of titillating birds and fish labelled as the “crown jewels” as well as habitat groups of different sizes. The highlight of the exhibit, however, was the area dedicated to William Beebe’s deep sea dives on the Bermuda Oceanographic Expeditions, which were the site of the first crewed descents to the ocean-depths, conducted with a diving device called the “bathysphere” in the early 1930ies. This spherical part of the building housed not only the bathysphere itself, but also a series of deep sea dioramas, modeled after pictures painted by expedition artist Else Bostelmann. Within the sphere, a show of light and darkness, of seeing and not-seeing, of science and fiction awaited the audience. While this exhibit can be understood as a model of the bathysphere, the deep sea, and of being present in the deep sea all at once, it also articulates scientific epistemology that embraces non-knowledge, imagination, and fantasy as crucial vehicles of knowledge-making. The aim of my paper is to argue that the bathysphere exhibit is one of the displays on the 1939/40 World’s Fair grounds that undermined the general message of the fair which emphasized a science based on technocratic principles as the key to a prosperous future. Instead, it proposed a science that met its subject of investigation with curiosity rather than rationalist domestication, with awareness of its own limitations rather than claims of absolute authority, with playful engagement rather than entitled mastery.


***

Creating a Social Environment for Coexistence: American Architectural Discourse and
Korean Architects/Urban Planners during the Cold War


MAN JOONG KIM
Binghamton University


Respondent: TBD


Left diagram: Kim Tai Soo, Van Block Housing, Progressive Architecture (January 1969) Right floor plan: Woo Kyu Sung, Roosevelt Island, AIA Journal (July 1975)

Throughout the 1960s, new perceptions of the environment were ignited by Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Martin Luther King Jr.’s advocacy for the Fair Housing Act. The built environment should have shifted its focus toward ecological and spatial justice. Simultaneously, architecture students from Korea, who longed to embrace modernist architecture, encountered challenges from postmodernist claims on their campuses. Faculty and students in U.S. schools were relatively progressive and sought to engage with the discourses demanded by society, while Korean students adjusted themselves to the novel North Atlantic framework through theory and practice. However, the narrative was not exclusively characterized by progressive tendencies. During the Cold War, the United States—as a state, institutions, and schools—actively sought to intervene in domestic urban crises as well as challenges within the Third World with architecture.

This study will examine how architecture students from Korea—specifically Kim Tai Soo, Woo Kyu Sung, and Kang Hong Bin—received education in the United States and how the reinterpreted and recontextualized their experiences from the U.S. in Korea as architects and urban planners. Furthermore, it will explore how architecture and urban planning that embodied publicness became a significant discourse and how this had supported their careers. The participated from the early stages of new interdisciplinary fields such as urban design and architectural theory, fulfilling a role of avant-garde.





4 March 2025
10:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM CET

DocTalks x MoMA


Salt and Land


YOSUKE NAKAMOTO 
ETH Zürich

Respondent: TBA


Influx Tidal Salt Field, Mitajiri, Yamaguchi Prefecture, 1953

This thesis investigates the modernisation of the salt industry in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea region, focusing on the concept of "metabolic rift" derived from Marx's critique of capitalist agriculture. It examines how salt, a vital resource historically embedded in Japan's maritime culture, has shaped the evolving relationship between land and society, from traditional methods of production to contemporary industrial processes. The research traces the historical evolution of salt production, beginning with the premodern tidal influx method, which relied on natural environmental conditions and fostered reciprocal trade between coastal and inland communities. This labor-intensive practice tied salt production deeply to the rhythms of nature and established salt as an economic and cultural link between regions. However, the introduction of mechanised methods, such as the gravity flow and ion-exchange membrane processes in the 20th century, marked a shift towards greater efficiency and standardisation. These technological advancements, driven largely by government monopolisation and the demands of global markets, transformed the salt industry from a locally integrated system into an industrialised, globalised process.

The thesis argues that this shift toward industrial efficiency and reliance on imported salt represents a broader environmental and cultural estrangement, or "metabolic rift," disconnecting local communities from the land and sea. The loss of traditional salt fields signifies not only an economic shift but also the erosion of cultural practices and environmental stewardship linked to Japan’s coastal landscapes. Ultimately, the thesis advocates for a comprehensive reevaluation of Japan's coastal history, which has often been marginalised in favour of prevailing agricultural narratives. By positioning salt as a critical lens for examining the country’s environmental and economic transformations, it emphasises the need to restore Japan's maritime heritage as an essential component of understanding the nation’s cultural landscape.


***

The Desagüe Debates: Water and Drainage in Enlightenment Mexico


REBECCA YUSTE
Columbia University

Respondent:  TBA



Axolotl. Amphibia. Amybystoma. Torner Collection of Sessé and Mociño Biological Illustrations, courtesy of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 6331.1253.

This paper examines the role that the desagüe, or drainage system, played in the modification of the environmental conditions of the Valley of Mexico in the late Enlightenment. Begun in the sixteenth century, the desagüe was designed to protect Mexico City from the seasonal floods of Lake Texcoco. Drainage continued for the following two hundred years, using technologies and procedures learned in mining and extraction projects elsewhere in Mexico to uncover useful, productive, arid land. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, the effects of systematically eliminating water from the valley began to emerge. Creole scientists, in particular Jos. Antonio de Alzate (1737-1799), became increasingly concerned with the climatic effects of this changing environment. They observed and wrote about the atmosphere, weather patterns, flora and fauna, and the cultural and societal changes suffered by the indios who lived in surrounding villages. These scientists, many of whom worked in opposition to the Bourbon crown, articulated a deep skepticism towards these neo-mercantilist imperial projects, instead proposing a more conservation-minded approach to land and water management. The desagüe, then, becomes an early site to think about the relationship between human activity and climate change. It offers a case study in the longue-dur.e of environmental and ecological history. As the work of these creole scientists demonstrates, an ecological dissent emerged alongside techniques of land control and disruption. Calling into question the need to so drastically change the natural world, these scientists were ultimately silenced, as the imperial reformist projects marched forward in the name of progress, eventually draining the lake completely and forever altering the environmental identity of the valley.





18 March 2025
10:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM CET



City in the Face of Urban Scarcity: Navigating Urban Form and Architectural Responses to Resource Challenges in Tirana (1995-2010)



ANTEA LEKA
Technical University of Munich


Respondent: Saimir Kristo, Barleti University



Pyramid of Tirana. Source: Elie Gardner for The New York Times.


Current challenges such as rapid urbanization, resource depletion, and socio-economicinequalities are pressuring cities to rethink their development strategies and administrative approaches. The research project explores the future of urban transitions with a focus on scarcity, analyzing its impact on spatial development in European cities. The main goal is to assess administration policies, planning strategies, and spatial development from 1995 to 2020 through the lens of scarcity. The study considers political, economic, demographic, and social factors aswell as community engagement. It is divided into three main parts: understanding the concept ofurban scarcity, case studies, and recommendations.

A critical dimension of this research is its relation to environmental justice, particularly how scarcity exacerbates inequities in urban environments. Scarcity disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, leading to unequal access to resources such as water, green spaces, and housing. This imbalance reinforces socio-economic inequalities, posing ethical and governance challenges for cities.

The case of Tirana, Albania, and its latest developments offers a unique perspective within this study. Rapid urbanization and unregulated development in Tirana, especially after the fall of communism, have created deep-seated spatial inequalities. Informal settlements on the city's periphery, lack of green infrastructure, and uneven access to basic services like water and waste management illustrate how scarcity-driven urban transitions can undermine environmental justice. At the same time, recent urban regeneration projects, such as the transformation of Skanderbeg Square, show the city's efforts toward addressing these inequalities, though theirimpact remains uneven across socio-economic groups.

The research aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on future cities amidst climate change and poly-crisis by addressing how scarcity and its consequences shape urban development, what actions are taken at public and community levels, and the importance of resilience and collaboration for sustainable urban futures in Europe.

***

The Film “Small Crime” as a Lens on Τhirassia’s Marginalized Communities and Environmental Justice


ANGELIKI BARAS
Athens School of Fine Arts


Respondent: Saimir Kristo, Barleti University


Clip from the film ”Small Crime” (2007) by Christos Georgiou presenting the reaction of the two protagonists against the illegal initiative of the local rulers of the island, to exploit a plot in order to create the largest Water Park in the Mediterranean. On the banners are written the slogans “Your water slides elsewhere” and “Pebbles only to those who like them”, expressing in this way the contrast of touristic constructions that alter the natural environment, with the purity of nature that very few will understand. Source: Christos Georgiou.

The film “Small Crime” (2007) by Christos Georgiou, although fictional, depicts with particular sensitivity characteristic everyday situations that occur in the communities of the island of Thirassia. It is an almost “anthropological” approach and outline of the small island of Thirassia, which together with Thira make up the island complex of Santorini. Thirassia is a place that faced and faces problems of survival, while it is exposed to local, national and international crises. The unequal relationship between Thirassia and Thira, both on an economic and socio-political level, is a decisive factor for the course of development of the island, presenting at the same time particular research and even artistic interest.

The paper attempts to use the film “Small Crime” as a tool to present the coexistence of development and depopulation of the island, a coexistence that summarizes the history of development of many places in Greece, shedding light on issues related to irregular practices for tourist exploitation of the island, but also issues of environmental justice. On the one hand, the film offers explanations regarding the stereotype of the “stuck local” that usually accompanies the identity of “small places” like Thirasia. On the other hand, in an inventive way through the plot, it presents the operation to abolish the “authentically traditional” on the altar of profit from tourism, illuminating the invisible competition between touristized Santorini with its luxurious resorts and “deserted” Thirassia with its nudist beaches. The inevitable beauty of Thirassia, with its unique color palette, is not highlighted in the same picturesque way that would happen on a tourist island, but critically, leading thinking in directions that raise debates around the environmental values of a place.




25 March 2025
10:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM CET



The Waiter’s Wall: The Neo-Constructivist Microhistories in the 1960s Kosova



EDMOND DRENOGLLAVA
University of Cincinnati


Respondent: TBD



“The Waiter” – the so-called mural on the facade of the Hotel “Luboteni”. Source: Spomenik Database postcard archive.

The internal colonial (hi)stories surrounding socialist Yugoslavia, in all of it, in its paradoxes and tenaciousness, are an intense global microhistory. The narratives emerging from Kosovar cities can be included among the neglected narratives, whereas those of avant-garde artists and artworks originating from Kosova are among the undiscussed and unacknowledged accounts—constituting the marginal of the marginal. To map out a more expansive international, and in this case, an “intra-national”1 constructivist network of individuals, ideas, and coalitions, this study analyzes the neo-constructivist mural called “The Waiter” (1961) displayed on the south-eastern elevation of the 1960s building, Hotel “Luboteni” (Fig.1.). 

This unheeded example reveals the tension between the abstract, idealized art and the often practical, utilitarian architecture that mirrored the broader struggle within Yugoslav society to balance ideological purity with real-life constraints. In Kosova, hence in Yugoslavia as elsewhere in the world, with the economic depression and the rise of propagandistic governments, the painting entered the domain of architecture and flourished. Leger, Duty, and Delaunay in Paris, and Pollock, Gorky, and de Kooning in New York covered ‘architecture’ with their art.2 In the case of Hotel “Luboteni,” the mural is conceived as tectonic and allows architecture not just to include the figurative but to become the figurative, dematerializing architecture. 

This only leads the study to raise two important questions about the ontological and cross-pollinative status of art and architecture (of the country) itself: first, how permeable was Kosova’s cultural space in receiving neo-avant-garde tendencies; and second, if and when representation becomes architecture, does the translation from drawing to building have a particular character in neo-avant-garde practice, retaining the qualities of idealism? The research, then, endeavors to illuminate and redefine one among many histories of a micro-zone and that of a micro-community aiming toward the end of history (in inverted Fukuyama terms)—all this microhistory is therefore not diminutive, it is not “micro” at all and is worth knowing for.


1Referring to activities, issues, or policies that occur within the boundaries of a single nation and its domestic context. Although Yugoslavia was a multi-state federation, many of its policies were implemented intranationally within each republic, allowing for distinct regional dynamics to emerge while still operating under a unified federal framework.

2 This was done in and on various pavilions at the 1937 Paris Exposition Internationale and at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. On the latter, see Barbara Cohen, Trylon and Perisphere, New York: Abrams 1989.

***


To Recover the Moon:
Land and Water as Instruments of Control in East Berlin’s Chinese Garden (1985-1999)



ROBIN HUEPPE
ETH


Respondent: TBD



The Chinese Garden in Berlin Marzahn, photograph by Manfred Durniok, 1999



Constructed in the 1990s as Europe’s largest Chinese garden on the terrain of the former East Berlin Garden Show (Berliner Gartenschau) 1987, the “Garden of the Recovered Moon” materially embodies the shifting dynamics of Sino-German relations and the integration of East and West Germany. A symbol of regained harmony and unity, it emerged as a late manifestation of China’s resurrected diplomatic relations with East Germany in 1985. As the Garden Show transitioned to West German management post-reunification, it became entangled with broader economic interests, tied to the Berlin-Beijing city partnership, trade agreements, and the exchange of land and resources.

Situated at the foot of a mound of war rubble and construction debris, the garden’s design concept of a Chinese scholar’s garden (Gelehrtengarten) aimed to connect landscape, architecture, and philosophy through the semiotics of arranged water features, rocks, pavilions, bridges, and plants to frame visual experiences and program specific ways of seeing. However, this artificial harmony masked the hidden traces of war buried beneath less than one meter of topsoil. The involvement of Manfred Durniok, a West German filmmaker with ties to both East Germany and China and Berlin-Beijing partnership commissioner, underscores how architecture and landscape became shaped by scripted narratives and projections arising from geopolitical desires, transitioning from a place marked by destruction and displacement to one of transnational ties and renewed economic prosperity.

By relying on archival material, secondary literature, and site visits, this study explores how this transnational governance materialized in the garden’s construction process. It examines how Sino-German agreements transformed the accumulated detritus of collapse into a site symbolizing economic growth, revealing their consequences on East Berlin’s mass housing landscapes. By analyzing the garden’s conception, transition, and execution, this study attempts to show how political decisions reshaped the built environment before, during, and after reunification.



20 May 2025
08:30 AM EST / 15:30 PM CEST

DocTalks x MoMA


Field Work: Tina Modotti and the Free Schools of Agriculture, México, 1926-1932


NIKKI MOORE 
Wake Forest University


Respondent: Adam Jasper, Chinese University of Hong Kong


Tina Modotti, Pandurang Khankhoje y el aspects del campo de experimentación de la Escuela Libre de Agricultura Emiliano Zapata / Pandurang Khankhoje and the look of the experimental fields of the Emiliano Zapata Free School of Agriculture, 1930. Source: Fototeca Nacional INAH, Pachuca, Mexico.

In 1928, Tina Modotti photographed two men in a dry field holding a bedsheet behind an ascending row of maize plants in Mexico’s Central Valley. On the left stands a student from one of the region’s Indigenous communal farming villages; on the right, India’s ex-pat and México’s first geneticist, Pandurang Khankhoje. One of fifty images recently bequeathed by Dr. Savitri Sawhney to the Fototeca Nacional in Pachuca, México, this little-known work by Modotti, Teozinte (Euchlaena Mexicana), (1928), documents a series of experiments in which decolonial Indigenous agricultural science and art activism were made one. Each newly bequeathed image marks an uncharted moment in Mexico’s scientific, aesthetic, and political postrevolutionary development: namely, the emergence of thirty Free Schools of Agriculture. Supported by Mexican modernists Diego Rivera, Xavier Guerrero and Modotti, and run by First Nation’s teachers, the Free Schools were an educational organization that centered Indigenous land restitution goals via demonstrations of agricultural abundance, self-sufficiency, and what we now call environmental justice.

Too often seen as a passive eye documenting the work of others in the Mexican avant-garde who tokenized ancient First Nations aesthetics, this paper argues that with the addition of Dr. Sawhney’s collection both Modotti and her photography emerge as protagonists championing a complex visual politics of living postrevolutionary Indigenous agency and thriving. As such, Modotti’s work with the Free Schools of Agriculture necessitates a rethinking of the photographer’s oeuvre, as she leveraged her lens, published photos, and circulated prints to reclaim the image of the region’s First Nations from the photographic categories of discrimination they had endured in the press, while celebrating each community’s stake in México’s modern future.


***

A Map of Hong Kong’s Hidden Music Peripheries: Post -1980s


DIEGO CARO
University of Navarra

Respondent: Adam Jasper, Chinese University of Hong Kong



Music studio located in an industrial building, Hong Kong. Source: Diego Caro.

Floor 26 of Ho King Commercial Centre in Yau Ma Tei, the elevator stops. At the end of the corridor, the sound of a heavy metal band, detuned screams buffered by the cracked plywood door of a tiny music studio. Outdated factory buildings in Kwun Tong, industrial architecture gradually surrounded by new commercial and residential complexes; their precarious wait for urban renewal has offered an opportunity for young musicians to establish music studios, classrooms, or improvised bedrooms where music and teenage discoveries mingle with the noise of machinery. Tiny, closed shops with an infinitude of colorful objects that repose after a long day of sales, evoking a sense of initiation into Hong Kong’s underground music scene. The queue is the origin of casual conversations around an orange metallic cube that turns black, green, or purple in the inside, where the combination of sounds and lights acts as a social condenser via the affective power of music.

This research project maps the musical peripheries that coexists with the boisterous rhythm of Hong Kong from within. It encompasses visiting and studying spaces for music, drawing and photographing these often ephemeral venues, analyzing them in reference to the city´s real estate dynamics and sociopolitical context, interviewing the main stakeholders, and reading the stories behind the music to decipher the role of art production in the current context of Hong Kong. By wandering around the spatial networks formed by hundreds of musicians scattered in unexpected secluded venues around the city, this research seeks an alternative understanding of the diverse struggles over placeness in the city through the lenses of emergent culture, showcasing artist’s “tactics” to counter the commodification of creativity in a tightly controlled bureaucratic society. 




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