VIRTUAL: Livable Cities – New York
Abstract
Homologous with the issues of the high-style technology and sustainability in the worldwide and historical discourse of architecture, the notion of the smart city nowadays has implied a dynamic form in two aspects – one instrumentally signifies liveability and the other ideologically suggests the immediate historicity of the contemporary urban high culture. In the first aspect, urbanism and architecture are regarded as two signifiers of liveability from a perspective of historical materialism. In the second aspect, liveability appears to be a definition problem which is used to name the answer the presence of dwelling; it has become hazardously afloat in indeterminacy as a form of political correctness. The first aspect hence refers to a concern with epistemology, whereas the second displays formalities of the power/knowledge domination. Based on this observation, I argue that both showcase a sense of ‘display-ness’ that identifies certain quality of civil society today, which reflects the postcolonial condition of globalisation and democratisation in an age of neoliberalism. In Asia, this is especially represented by public housing projects at a pragmatic level. In some cases, public housing in recent years have played an important role of moderating and mediating social responsibility in Asia, whereas some underline the collusion of pursuing specific interests – both scenarios are flowingly identified from the counterbalance of the contribution and risk they make. This paper intends to discuss such scenarios through a comparative analysis of public housing in Singapore and Taiwan. As a methodology, the theoretical unfolding of this concern with liveability will be discussed in terms of Asia’s architectural epistemology and formalities.
Dr Francis Chia-Hui Lin is Assistant Professor at National Taiwan University. His areas of expertise lie in the critical discourse on architecture and urbanism within a wider framework of history and theory. Amongst his interests, a particular focus is examining the immediate historicity of postcoloniality in the Asia Pacific region that is resulted from the inescapable marriage with the prevailing Western epistemology. His books include Heteroglossic Asia, Architectural Theorisations and Phenomena in Asia and The Postcolonial Condition of Architecture in Asia.