Confronted with the title Southeast Asia's modern architecture, one might expect a volume of essays about renowned twentieth-century architects and their works — Vann Molyvann, perhaps, or Rangsan Torsuwan. This new collection, edited by Jiat-Hwee Chang and Imran bin Tajudeen, has rather a different intention. It comprises essays concerned less with so-called ‘capital-A Architecture’, and more with the complex and problematic status of buildings as spaces of cultural projection. Some of these are typical or quotidian; others are symbols of national aspiration, political dominance, or contestation over fraught histories. In a few, the physical structure seems less important for-itself than as a medium of presentation and mistranslation (this is the case, for example, in H. Hazel Hahn's analysis of architectural tours of Saigon organised for celebrated Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore).
It is a diverse and rich collection, and reminds one of the value of focused scholarship on less well-trod architectural subjects. Laurence Chua and Koompong Noobamjong, for example, consider the difficult negotiation of vernacular forms, modernism, and state power in Thailand's tumultuous twentieth-century political history. Gerard Lico brings a Foucaultian lens to the nexus of hygiene and modern housing aesthetics in Manila. Peter Scriver and Amit Srivastava analyse the concoction of ‘Bali Style’, showing how the design languages of Geoffrey Bawa and others were used to create a touristic architectural currency, and to reinforce myths about the island's ethnic homogeneity. Eunice Seng's essay is perhaps more what one expects from the volume's title: a study of Singapore's famous brutalist People's Park Complex that elucidates the tactical development of an urban site that had long been a magnet for colonial (and post-) preoccupations with the control of Chinese informal urbanism. By contrast, other authors work to expand what might be considered ‘modern’ architecture. Tim Winter's chapter on ‘Conservation diplomacy’ in Myanmar's Bagan region makes a compelling case for the modernity of ruins — much as Tutin Ariyanti's study of Muslim women's prayer spaces attempts to re-situate these older architectures within a contemporary feminist critique. These subjects may not fit an orthodox definition of the subject; for many, though, they will serve to broaden the field in unexpected and insightful ways.
There is clearly a sense that this book is trying to do two distinct kinds of work. On the one hand, as noted, most of the authors present detailed case studies of Southeast Asian architectures and their shifting identities. On the other, the editors (alongside contributors Anoma Pieris and Mark Crinson) seem rather more concerned with the status of region or nation as an analytical frame. This engages less with the content of particular chapters, in favour of a critique of area studies and other Eurocentric approaches that privilege colonial histories and knowledge-systems. Pieris’ astute intervention, titled ‘Thinking beyond the nation: Repositioning national and regional identities through architectural discourse’, also raises a series of larger disciplinary issues surrounding the ongoing biases of the state as a theoretical construct. This essay marks a rather abrupt shift in tone — positioned, as it is, among analyses of particular historical-cultural instances. And while the chapters’ authors do much to connect specific sites with broader issues, Pieris interrogates the question of architectural historiography via problems of disciplinary approach. Crinson takes a similarly high-level view, proposing a fluid and contemporary understanding of regionalism that moves beyond the influence of the national or the territorial.
The fact that this collection appears to operate at two quite distinct discursive levels — a grounded analysis by most chapter authors, and an editorial concern with theoretical and academic scaffolding — suggests, perhaps, other potential structures for it. It is possible that broader academic considerations would have worked well at the end, by way of giving the last words to Pieris, Crinson, and the editors themselves. While the editorial intervention is well taken, the concern with regionalism could have been given less room, with more attention paid to common themes that emerge among the chapters. I am unsure whether the ‘rigid, bounded and essentialist continental imaginaries’ of area studies need lengthy repudiation in 2021. A perhaps more original contribution of the volume (which the editors note) are histories of influence and connection within ‘Southeast Asia’, and to India, China, and other bordering cultural and financial powers. Another common theme, impossible to ignore among these national contexts, is the uneasy embrace of democracy and a creep toward modes of illiberalism. Presently, the text is organised under the more general themes of ‘translation’, ‘power’, and ‘epistemology’. These feel rather diffuse, and many of the essays could arguably fit into all three.
Regardless, many issues organically link the book's micro-histories, and suggest an emergent agenda for architectural historians and theorists that might move beyond the limitations and aporia described in Pieris’ essay and in the introductory chapter. Southeast Asia's modern architecture lacks the canonising orientation suggested by its title, and — for the better — offers a glimpse into broader and more heterogeneous territories.
