articles
Weaving Modernity and Tradition
Abigail Duke explores the architecture of Arc Frank Mbanefo
Actions:
How Modern: Biographies of Architecture in China 1949-1979 reconsiders architectural production under the socialist Chinese regime to illuminate specific social biographies of projects that challenge prevailing assessments of design and architectural practice in Mao’s China as monolithic, hermetic, and autocratic.
How Modern
Actions:
Description:
How Modern: Biographies of Architecture in China 1949-1979 reconsiders architectural production under the socialist Chinese regime to illuminate specific social biographies of projects that challenge prevailing assessments of design and architectural practice in Mao’s China as monolithic, hermetic, and autocratic.
articles
Hotel Africa and the Crumbling of Modernity
Malkit Shoshan visits a Dom-Ino House, a UN Base, and an Irish Bar
Actions:
This roundtable brings together multidisciplinary scholars from media and film studies, design, and visual culture to explore modernity in China during the 1950s and 1960s through the lens of material production and spatial transformation. Centered on the intensification of productivity in industry and land use, the discussion considers how object-making and(...)
Ying Qian, Weixian Pan, Jennifer Altehenger, Joshua Neves, How Modern, GEM Lab, Concordia
19 February 2026, 6pm to 8pm
Discussion: Revolutionary Matter
Actions:
Description:
This roundtable brings together multidisciplinary scholars from media and film studies, design, and visual culture to explore modernity in China during the 1950s and 1960s through the lens of material production and spatial transformation. Centered on the intensification of productivity in industry and land use, the discussion considers how object-making and(...)
Ying Qian, Weixian Pan, Jennifer Altehenger, Joshua Neves, How Modern, GEM Lab, Concordia
articles
Agency, Industry, and Style
Agency, Industry, and Style
Shirley Surya on building socialist modernity in New China
Actions:
articles
Launching the State Architect
Shirley Surya and Li Hua interview Yung Ho Chang about Zhang Kaiji
Actions:
5 March 2026, 9am to 4pm
articles
17 November 2025
Learning from... Cairo
Nasser Rabbat challenges the traditional framing strategies of East vs. West or traditional vs. modern, focusing instead on the dialectical relationship of modernity and history in the making of contemporary Cairo. Shaped by distinct waves of modernity from the colonial Napoleonic invasion of 1789 to the revolution and independence in 1952, the city responded with layers(...)
Paul-Desmarais Theatre
15 September 2011 , 7pm
Learning from... Cairo
Actions:
Description:
Nasser Rabbat challenges the traditional framing strategies of East vs. West or traditional vs. modern, focusing instead on the dialectical relationship of modernity and history in the making of contemporary Cairo. Shaped by distinct waves of modernity from the colonial Napoleonic invasion of 1789 to the revolution and independence in 1952, the city responded with layers(...)
Paul-Desmarais Theatre