Abstract

An exciting explosion of urban expansion is occurring in East Asia: cities such as Singapore, Taipei, Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing, and Shanghai are expanding at a prodigious rate and bringing widespread change to the region. Peter G. Rowe's East Asia Modern is a timely comparative analysis of urban growth in this rapidly evolving part of the globe.

A renowned scholar on East Asian architecture and urbanism, Peter G. Rowe examines how the unique modernizing process of East Asian cities can be most usefully understood. Rowe offers a historical assessment of the region, chronicling the cities' development over the last century and setting into context their individual paths toward becoming modern. Rowe explains what the modernizing process has meant for the cultural diffusion of predominantly Western ideas, how East Asian urban regions have developed a distinct type of modernity, and what lessons can be gleaned from the contemporary East Asian experience. Refuting many common misconceptions about contemporary East Asian life, East Asia Modern offers a readable critical assessment of life in modern East Asia while also pointing to possibilities for the future.
. . . an interesting, well-informed, critical and comparative overview of contemporary modernisation in East Asian cities . . . A strength of the book is the examination of architectural style and building form. A real sense of cityscape is provided via the accounts of pencil buildings in Hong Kong and the verticality of living . . . This book should be a valuable library reference source . . . The book's content is up-to-date and detailed . . . the numerous black and white photographic illustrations are excellent' – Georgraphy
Peter G. Rowe is professor and former dean of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He has authored numerous books, including Architectural Encounters with Essence and Form in Modern China and Modernity and Housing.