The promise of a pioneering architecture, which is especially associated with East Asian countries, is the focus of the exhibition EASTERN PROMISES.

China, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea are currently seeing architectural and urban projects that amalgamate social awareness, ecological strategies and artistic practices in new ways. The reflection on local traditions and conditions as well as a critical awareness of global media technologies lead to an architectural approach that is less interested in iconic objects and spectacular forms than in a structural realignment of society in its spatial dimensions.
This development heralds the emergence of a social aesthetic of architecture in the East Asian cultural sphere whose strategies and tactics could prove decisive for the way we deal with dwindling resources on a global scale.
The exhibition features a great variety of architectural projects, including those by leading proponents of the contemporary Japanese scene and by independent Chinese offices which surfaced only since the late 1990s, but will also present a new generation of young, emerging architects whose work will be shown for the first time to the general public.
A graphic and photographic map additionally illuminates the relationship between architecture and everyday spatial practice and points to specific symptoms and phenomena within the region—from mass housing in South Korea’s major cities to illegal parasitic architectures in Taiwan, the influence of state architectural firms in China to forms of protest against social displacement processes in South Korea, China’s enclave-like urban villages to Japanese and Taiwanese convenience stores, the mass appeal of China’s new, creative districts to micro-urbanism and nomadic ways of life in Japan, along with new lifestyles in the devastated Tōhoku region.
 
A program of selected short films rounds off the exhibition with moments of experimental city viewing and everyday appropriation of (public) space.

Curated and designed by Andreas Fogarasi and Christian Teckert
Project Coordinator Marlies Wirth

Architectural Projects by
Amateur Architecture Studio/Wang Shu, Lu Wenyu       Atelier Deshaus KUU architects Li Xiaodong Atelier Liu Jiakun Architects NODE/Rem Koolhaas/Alain Fouraux Ou Ning Rural Urban Framework (RUF) Scenic Architecture standardarchitecture TAO – Trace Architecture Office Urbanus Architecture & Design Vitamin Creative Space Zheng Guogu Architects Atelier Ryo Abe Atelier Bow-Wow CitySwitch Japan dessence/Case-Real/Torafu Architects Go Hasegawa & Associates Jun Igarashi Architects junya.ishigami+associates Kazunari Sakamoto		Kazuyo Sejima Kumiko Inui Ohno Laboratory OnDesign Riken Yamamoto Ryūe Nishizawa ryuji fujimura architects Schemata Architects/Jo Nagasaka Sou Fujimoto Architects Terunobu Fujimori Tezuka Architects UID architects 3331 Arts Chiyoda Lokaldesign Mass Studies Moongyu Choi + Ga.a architects Studio K Works Field Office Architects Hsieh Ying-Chun Marco Casagrande MINIWIZ

Researches, images, maps, and artistic contributions by 
Alke Thamsen // Atelier Bow-Wow // Baidu Maps // Evan Chakroff // Haewon Shin // Iwan Baan // Jun Jiang // Jürgen Krusche // Li Mo + CAStudio // Libbie D. Cohn / J.P. Sniadecki // Listentothecity // MAP Office (Gutierrez + Portefaix) // Roan Ching-Yueh // Rural Urban // Framework (RUF) // Studio Gruber // Susanne Klien // Wa Wa Project // Xin Gu // Michele Tabet

Film program curated by Andréa Picard
Oliver Husain, Swivel (China / Germany, 2005) // Eriko Sonoda, Space is the Place (Japan, 2011) // Ou Ning & Cao Fei, San Yuan Li (China, 2003) // Eriko Sonoda, Garden/ing (Japan, 2007) // Chen Chieh-jen, Bade Area (Taiwan, 2005) // Cao Fei, Whose Utopia? (China 2006/2007) // Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries, So, so soulful (South Korea, 2006) // Chris Chong Chan Fui & Yasuhiro Morinaga, HEAVENHELL (Japan, 2009) // Tomonari Nishikawa Tokyo-Ebisu (Japan, 2010)

 
The exhibition is accompanied by the publication EASTERN PROMISES. Contemporary Architecture and Spatial Practices in East Asia, edited by Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, Andreas Fogarasi and Christian Teckert, with essays, project descriptions as well as research material on the regional contexts by Andreas Fogarasi, Christian Teckert, Roan Ching-yueh, Harry den Hartog, Jun Jiang, Kim Sung Hong, Bert de Muynck/Mónica Carriço, Christina Nägele, Alke Thamsen, Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, Julian Worrall a.o., German/English, 304 pages, 650 images, MAK Wien/Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2013. Available at the MAK Design Shop for € 39.

Videos

Amateur Architecture Studio: China Academy of art >>
NODE (Doreen Liu) / Rem Koolhaas / Alain Foureaux: Times Museum >>
Tezuka Architects: Fuji Kindergarten / Ring around a Tree >>


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