National Buildings, Global Visions: Exporting Chinese Architecture to the Third World

Duanfang Lu

2007: Australian Research Council (ARC)/Discovery Projects (DP)

The official history of modern architecture focused on its development in the West. Academic inquiry about the built environment in developing societies often concentrated on traditional forms, while little attention was devoted to their modern architecture. Third World Modernism radically reshaped the ways in which we think about architectural modernism by advancing the understanding of modern architecture’s complex relations to development, power and identity construction in non-Western societies. Professor Anthony D. King of State University of New York at Binghamton considers it “opens up whole new perspectives on architectural modernism of the 1950s”. The book has been used as teaching material at top universities.

Building Modern India: Architecture, Modernity and Decolonisation

Peter Scriver and Amit Srivastava

Going back to the nineteenth century, Scriver and Srivastava look at the beginnings of modernism in colonial India and the ways that public works and patronage fostered new design practices that directly challenged the social order and values invested in the building traditions of the past. They then trace how India’s architecture embodies the dramatic shifts in Indian society and culture during the last century. Making sense of a broad range of sources, from private papers and photographic collections to the extensive records of the Indian Public Works Department, they provide the most rounded account of modern architecture in India that has yet been available.

Digital Outsourcing in Architecture: Opportunities for Australian Firms, or Perils for Australian Workforce?

Peter Scriver, Dr P Tombesi; A/Prof B Dave; Mr BM Gardiner

This research will help assess competitiveness and viability of different digital outsourcing practices in connection to the needs, the operative conditions and the products of the Australian building design sector. The information will give industry analysts a tool to identify the markets within which these arrangements are likely to spread or occur in the future, and take consequent corrective or supportive action.

The Architecture of Australia's Muslim Pioneers

Peter Scriver, Katharibe Bartsche and Research Associate Mizanur Rashid

This research follows the story of the Muslim cameleer Faiz Mahomet. Cameleers collectively known as ‘Afghans’ played an indispensable role in the exploration, discovery and settlement of Australia’s vast desert interior.

Agents of Modernity: Pioneer Builders, Architecture and Independence in Singapore, 1890s-1970s

Jiat Hwee Chang

This research addresses this deafening silence by tracing the emergence of local architects from the 1890s to the 1970s, i.e. from their incipient status as proto-architects in the colonial era to their established position as professional architects in the post-independence era.