|
Proposed Symposium on the
Achievements of Asian American Architects
and American Architecture with an Eastern Influence
Fall 2002, CBWAAC and Staller Art Gallery, SBU
Asian American architects includes any architect of
Asian descent, living or dead, born anywhere in the world but with at least one project
completed in North America. American architecture with an Eastern influence includes
any non-Asian architects who have designed or worked on a design in North America that is
obviously influenced by Eastern architecture. American includes all of North America
since residents of Plattsburgh, New York will be more influenced by the architecture of
their closest metropolitan area, Montreal, than they will be by Houston, and the same can
be said of Southwesterners re Mexico and anyone from the northern regions of the United
States re Canada. And historically in terms of Eastern architecture influencing the
West, the first Chinatown in the Americas was in Mexico City in the 1600's.
Date: Final determination on date is still to be made, though it will be
on a Friday to accommodate the architects, contractors, and labor unions as well as the
campus community. Fall semester 2002 is the scheduled opening of CBWAAC.
Place: CBWAAC and Staller Art Gallery. Architectural models,
renderings, etc., would be in the art galleries / reception areas. Panels would be
in theatre, multi-purpose room, lecture rooms, and gardens. Dining facilities
available.
|
Purposes:
Multiple educational panels and discussion still to be
determined. Audience will be architects, contractors, unions as well as academic community
so panels will have to be geared to satisfy both. Partial list of panel
possibilities includes (and some of these may be combined into one panel, e.g., 1,
6 &
8).
How the East and West have influenced each other in
terms of architecture.
Individual architects. Can we have the first
symposium on Asian American architects without addressing the grandfather of them all - I.
M. Pei?
Or those who paved paths such as Beatrice Takeuchi?
Or well known buildings whose architects are not known outside of the
field? How many know that Japanese American
Minoru Yamasaki designed the Twin Towers in NYC? Or that as a senior Yamasaki used
his respect in the community to unite Asian Americans to fight for equal justice after the
murder of Vincent Chin?
Francis D. K. Ching on architectural drawing. The
Master.
Regional flavor - e.g., NYC and LI. How many
people know that I. M. Pei designed Roosevelt Field?! (How many people even know the
name of any Asian American architect except Pei?)
Historical differences between Eastern and Western
architecture prior to modern architecture.
Asian gardens. Chinese Scholar's garden.
Japanese Zen garden.
The pagoda / watchtower throughout history - from it's
beginnings in India and its eastward spread. It's historical role in the development
of the modern skyscraper.
Goal is to have the symposium dinner be the initial
fundraiser for an endowment in the Melville Library Special Collections for an archivist
for the Stony Brook Collection, and eventually an Asian / American Archive. The archive
idea came about because all of the work of Minoru Yamasaki, architect of the World Trade
Center twin towers in NYC, was thrown out after he died because his widow had no place to
keep it and no library would take it. Libraries are generally not well
endowed.
According to the former Dean of the Melville Library,
to endow a permanent position for an archivist requires a $250,000 endowment.
Dinner guests would include members of Long Island's construction industry - architects,
contractors, labor unions, suppliers, etc.
A web site of Asian American Architectural
Achievements, to eventually become a permanent website on New York Interactions with Asia
and Asian America, with an emphasis on those interactions that occur at Stony Brook.
See
www.ic.sunysb.edu/clubs/educasia/StallerArtGallery/,
site of Staller Art Gallery's Fifteen Asian American Artists show in Spring
2001.)
UPDATE June 2001 - See sample site on Shigeru
Ban put together by Stony Brook international student Chi Gao.
Last but not least, to celebrate the Charles B. Wang
Asian American Center, the first AAC built in the country, from an architectural and
construction point of view. The architect will not want this to be a day of
celebrating him in any way. He is reticent about talking about himself at all:
"It is the building that is important, not me." In that sense then, the
celebration of the Center will be one of the panels and through the
actual use of it, but it will not be a symposium on the Center itself.
.
|
Format for the Day: This
is open for any ideas or suggestions for improvement.
8:00 - 9:00 - Registration and continental breakfast
9:00 - 9:15 - Welcoming Remarks
9:15 - 10:00 - Panel 1
10:00 - 10:45 - Panel 2
10:45 - 11:00 - Break
11:00 - 11:45 - Panel 3
11:45 - 12:30 - Panel 4
12:30 - 2:30 - Lunch / Tours of the CBWAAC
2:30 - 3:15 - Panel 5
3:15 - 4:00 - Panel 6
4:00 - 4:15 - Break
4:15 - 5:00 - Panel 7
5:00 - 5:45 - Panel 8
5:45 - 6:00 - Closing Remarks
6:00 - 7:00 - Cocktail Hour
7:00 - 10:00 - Dinner w/ Speaker
Closing Reception
|
Hosts and
Sponsors:
University clubs and organizations (ASA, CASB, Club
India, JSS, KSA, PUSO, VSA, Fine Arts Club, etc.), departments (Art, Asian and Asian
American Studies, Center for India Studies, etc.), community organizations (CAS,
EducAsians, etc,), administration (V.P.S.A., Provost's office, etc.)
The official University hosts would be the University
architect, Robert Zimmerman; Rhonda Cooper, Director of Staller Art Gallery; James Rubin, Chair of the Art
Department; Ann Kaplan, Director of the Humanities Institute.
The non-University host could be Richard Tao, the head
of May Design & Company. Although he lives out of state he has a home in the
Hamptons.
Contact: board@educasians.org
EducAsians, POB 4093, Stony Brook, NY 11790
631-831-6062, 631-632-7573 |
