Category: architecture

November 2012 Author Events

Posted on by UH Press Marketing

Thursday, November 8, 12 noon to 1:15 p.m.
Wendy S. Arbeit shares her experiences in researching Hawaiian cultural and utilitarian objects, her techniques used in revealing their patterns, and how she documented them with detailed line drawings in her award-winning book, Links to the Past: The Work of Early Hawaiian Artisans.

Some of the questions that will be addressed:
What went into tracking down those artifacts now scattered across the globe?
What do the 1,400 illustrations tell you about pre- and early contact Hawaiian culture and the ways it changed in response to Westerners?
What sort of questions are raised by the grouping of so many objects?

The talk is part of the Brown Bag Biography series at the Center for Biographical Research, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Henke Hall 325, 1800 East-West Road. For more information, see the UH event calendar or call 808-956-3774 or email: biograph@hawaii.edu.

Isaiah Walker

Thursday, November 8, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.
BYU-Hawaii professor and former competitive surfer Isaiah Walker will  give a lecture at Arizona State University on his thought-provoking book, Waves of Resistance: Surfing and History in Twentieth-Century Hawai‘i. Walker explains how Hawaiian surfers have successfully resisted colonial encroachment in the po‘ina nalu (surf zone). In making his case, he also explores empowerment and masculinity, media representation of islanders, identity struggles, and other topics. The talk is open to the public and will be held in West Hall, Room 135, at ASU in Tempe. For more information, see the ASU calendar posting.

Tuesday, November 13, 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.
See below listing under November 18 for George and Willa Tanabe’s Japanese Buddhist Temples in Hawai‘i.

Saturday, November 17, 3:00 p.m.
San Diego resident Leilani Holmes will visit Basically Books in Hilo, Hawai‘i to discuss and sign copies of her recent work, Ancestry of Experience: A Journey Into Hawaiian Ways of Knowing. Born in Honolulu in 1952 to a Hawaiian mother, Holmes was adopted as an infant by a haole (Caucasian) couple who moved to Ohio when she was four years old. The book recounts, explores, and analyzes the author’s quest to reclaim her origins and come to terms with the duality inherent in being an indigenous adoptee. The two-column format of the book mirrors this dichotomy, with a personal, conversational style of narrative on one side, and academic explanatory text on the other.

Saturday, November 17, 4:00 p.m.
Seattle author/poet/artist Alan Chong Lau will be at the Wing Luke Museum’s Tateuchi Story Theatre to join his sister, food writer Linda Lau Anusasananan, as she reads from The Hakka Cookbook, published by University of California Press. (Read a related post on the UC Press blog here.) Alan Lau provided the artwork for the book, done in a similarly whimsical, sumi-e style that illustrates his UH Press-published book of poetry, Blues and Greens: A Produce Worker’s Journal.

Sunday, November 18, 2:00 p.m.
George J. Tanabe and Willa Jane Tanabe will appear at Barnes & Noble, Ala Moana Center, for a signing of their just-released guidebook, Japanese Buddhist Temples in Hawai‘i: An Illustrated Guide. The Tanabes personally visited each of the ninety temples still in existence, and took photographs not only the buildings’ exteriors but of the ornate altars and interior details. Over 360 of these color photos are contained in the book. Descriptions of each temple and explanations of the symbolism of objects and design elements will help temple visitors decipher the meaning behind these physical expressions. Also at this event, information will be distributed on the related exhibit due to open December 1 at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i.

Last-minute update: On Tuesday, November 13, 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., George and Willa Tanabe will give a PowerPoint lecture at the Honpa Hongwanji Hawaii Betsuin Annex Temple (makai of the main temple), 1727 Pali Highway. Open to the public, with a $10 fee. For more information, click here for a link to the Dharma Light Project brochure and map, or call 808-536-7044.

Song Culture in the Yingzao Fashi Building Manual

Posted on by stephchun

Chinese Architecture and MetaphorChinese Architecture and Metaphor: Song Culture in the Yingzao Fashi Building Manual, by Jiren Feng, reveals significant and fascinating social and cultural phenomena in the most important primary text for the study of the Chinese building tradition. Unlike previous scholarship, which has reviewed this imperially commissioned architectural manual largely as a technical work, this volume considers the Yingzao Fashi’s unique literary value and explores the rich cultural implications in and behind its technical content.

“This fascinating and erudite study takes a fresh and original approach to the most significant document in Chinese architectural history. Taking the terminology and textual strategies of the Yingzao fashi as his starting point, and drawing both on literature and on the structures and aesthetics of surviving buildings, Jiren Feng develops a complex and sophisticated cultural analysis of the text and of Chinese historical traditions of architectural writing more broadly, demonstrating that matter and metaphor cannot be disentangled in Chinese architectural thinking and practice. As well as being an argument about architecture, this is a study of poetics and of sensibilities, and a history of the meaning of grand buildings in Chinese cosmology and politics.” —Francesca Bray, University of Edinburgh

June 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3363-3 / $53.00 (CLOTH)
Spatial Habitus: Making and Meaning in Asia’s Architecture
Published in association with Hong Kong University Press

More March Author Events

Posted on by stephchun

Sunday, March 18, 2-3:30 pm, Native Books/Nā Mea Hawai‘i: Wendy Arbeit, author of Links to the Past: The Work of Early Hawaiian Artisans, will give a free talk on how she researched Links, what she discovered, and why drawings can offer more information than photographs. The discussion will be preceded by live demonstrations by cultural practitioners and followed by a book-signing by the author and light refreshments. Books will be available for purchase at the shop, located at the ‘ewa end of Ward Warehouse, 1050 Ala Moana Blvd. (phone: 596-8885).

Monday, March 19, 6:30-7:30 pm, Thinking Out Loud: Talking Issues, Taking Action (KZOO-AM 1210): Don Hibbard, coauthor of Hart Wood: Architectural Regionalism in Hawai‘i and other books on architecture, will be interviewed by radio host Willa Tanabe. The program is sponsored by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai’i.

Hart Wood Receives Historic Hawaii Foundation Award

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Hart WoodHart Wood: Architectural Regionalism in Hawaii, by Don Hibbard, Glenn Mason, and Karen Weitze, will be recognized with a Preservation Honor Award at Historic Hawai‘i Foundation’s 2011 Awards Ceremony on April 19. This is the 36th year of the Preservation Honor Awards, which are Hawai‘i’s highest recognition of preservation projects that “perpetuate, rehabilitate, restore or interpret the state’s architectural, archaeological and/or cultural heritage.”

“With insightful text and 200 illustrations, Hart Wood traces the life and work of a significant Hawai‘i architect who resided and practiced in the islands from the 1920s to the 1950s. The wide range of buildings he designed has special significance for us today, as fine examples of this period’s distinctive regional style of Hawaiian architecture. The book is the culmination of years of extensive research, documentation, and the compilation of photographs and materials, which was first initiated in the 1980s. The University of Hawai‘i Press worked closely with the authors to design and produce a volume to match their vision. . . . [An] outstanding contribution to Hawai‘i’s preservation efforts.” —Hawai‘i Historic Foundation award letter

New in Spatial Habitus: Making and Meaning in Asia’s Vernacular Architecture

Posted on by stephchun

Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-ArtsIn the early twentieth century, Chinese traditional architecture and the French-derived methods of the École des Beaux-Arts converged in the United States when Chinese students were given scholarships to train as architects at American universities whose design curricula were dominated by Beaux-Arts methods. Upon their return home in the 1920s and 1930s, these graduates began to practice architecture and create China’s first architectural schools, often transferring a version of what they had learned in the U.S. to Chinese situations.

Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts, edited by Jeffrey W. Cody, Nancy S. Steinhardt, and Tony Atkin, examines the coalescing of the two major architectural systems, placing significant shifts in architectural theory and practice in China within relevant, contemporary, cultural, and educational contexts. Fifteen major scholars from around the world analyze and synthesize these crucial events to shed light on the dramatic architectural and urban changes occurring in China today—many of which have global ramifications.

Spatial Habitus: Making and Meaning in Asia’s Vernacular Architecture
Published in association with Hong Kong University Press
January 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3456-2 / $52.00 (CLOTH)
208 illus., 60 in color

Hart Wood Authors Presentation at Reed Space HNL

Posted on by stephchun

Hart WoodDon Hibbard and Glenn Mason, coauthors of Hart Wood: Architectural Regionalism in Hawai‘i, will give a presentation and discuss their work on the book on Tuesday, August 3, at 6:30 pm, at the Waikiki Parc Hotel. Books will be available for purchase and signing after the presentation. Free and open to the public, the talk is part of Interisland Terminal’s Reed Space HNL events. Free validated parking is available for Reed Space attendees.

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