Contemporary Architecture in East Asia
MAK, Vienna, 05. 06 – 06. 10. 2013

Curators: Andreas Fogarasi, Christian Teckert
Text: György Szegő
Photos: MAK

Rural Urban Framework: Mulan Primary School, Mulan/Huaiji, Kína, 2012 © Joshua Bolchover, John Lin

Eastern Promises conveys a representative cross-section of architectural developments in this region, ranging from the stars of Japanese architecture and the Chinese bureaus, which are slowly but surely shifting into the spotlight since the late 1990s, to young, up-and-coming architects, whose work is being presented in this way for the first time to a wide public. The new social aesthetic addressed by the curators, Andreas Fogarasi and Christian Teckert is represented in particular by the latest architectural projects, for instance by Sou Fujimoto, Kazuyo Sejima, and Ryue Nishizawa in Japan, by Li Xiaodong, Wang Shu, and KUU in China, by Sheng-Yuan Huang in Taiwan and by Mass Studies in South Korea. Their buildings shown in the exhibition are deeply rooted in traditional concepts of space characterized by emptiness and objectivity, and simultaneously engage repeatedly with the idea of the relationship between different spatial and hierarchic levels.