Abstract
This chapter discusses two Chinese built cases in the situation of Belt and Road Initiative. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, China has radically increased its development aids, cooperation, and investment with less developed countries. These development programs comprise of many architectural projects. The aim of this China’s international development program is to strengthen bilateral relations and cooperate in mutual economic development projects. BRI is China’s latest form of international economic cooperation. Pakistan has close ties with China and become an important partner of China in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In such a development scheme, the designers of architectural projects are mainly from Chinese state-owned design institutes. In a few cases, they collaborates with local architectural firms. This chapter investigates the cross-cultural architecture exchanges between China and Pakistan. It has established a “contact zone” between two state expertise, where new eclectic architecture evolved by a collaboration of complex actors from both sides. The process finds a “third space” that syncretizes the similar architectural features of both cultures in a modern way. This study challenges the western way of globalization and broaden our epistemological understanding of south-south architecture exchanges.
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Notes
- 1.
See in “Arts of the Contact Zone” by Mary Louise Pratt. She introduced the concept of a “contact zone”. She stated that “This term refers to the social space in today's world that refers to the social space in which cultures meet, collide, and work with each other, often in the context of very asymmetric power relations, such as colonialism, slavery, or its aftermath”. Tom Avermeate and Maristela Casciato recently adopted this concept in order to explain the phenomenon of architectures exchanges in their research.
- 2.
Third space concept introduced by Homi Bhabha; Edward Soja; Henri Lefebvre. According to Homi Bhabha, first space is of native space, second space is the foreigner’s space who brought with them and third space is intermixing of first and second space, it is ambivalent or hybrid space. According to Soja who inspired from Lefebvre trialectics of spatiality; first space is “things in space” that is of native, second space is of “thoughts about space” or “mental space” and third space fall between these two spaces which Henri Lefebvre called “lived space” or “real space”. Along with “contact zone” the “third space” is equally interesting concepts to know the transcultural processes in architecture.
- 3.
See the post-colonial critiques presented by Esra Ackan.
- 4.
Jali is local language word means “perforated wall” This word specifically originated from Mughal architecture.
- 5.
Discussion with CPEC center members and analyzing its research documents. CPEC center is research group working under Pakistan planning commission their task is to do research on CPEC projects and made their contribution in sustainability of these projects. Author visited several times to this office in Islamabad.
- 6.
Lawrence Vale discussions hints that the western concept of critical regionalism is ambivalent in nonwestern context.
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Marri, S.A. (2022). Architecture of Eclecticism: China’s Architectural Projects in Pakistan (2001–2019). In: Xue, C.Q., Ding, G. (eds) Exporting Chinese Architecture. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-2786-7_10
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