Modern Vernacular: Asian American Architects and the Built Environment of Postwar Northern California | Exhibition
Please note that the Environmental Design Library will be closed for winter break from Dec. 20 through Jan. 19. Environmental Design Library hours
Interweaving professional drawings with personal documents, this exhibition highlights the often overlooked contributions of Asian American architects to the development of midcentury modernism in Northern California.
Drawing on the collection of the Environmental Design Archives, this exhibition highlights the often overlooked contributions of Asian American architects to the development of architectural modernism in postwar Northern California. It features works of six designers: architects Kinji Imada (1927–2005), Roger Yuen Lee (1920–1981), Terry Tong (1921–2016), and Worley Wong (1912–1985) and landscape architects Mai Kitazawa Arbegast (1922–2012) and Casey Kawamoto (1919–2010). All except Imada earned their design degrees from UC Berkeley.
The exhibition explores how these designers incorporated the language of California regionalism in the mid-20th century in their professional practices, developing new yet familiar architectural and landscape expressions that we still encounter today. More than a survey of their professional achievements, this exhibition aims to contextualize their design practices within the highly racialized history of the Asian American experience in the mid-20th century by interweaving their professional drawings with personal documents, ranging from encampment photos and family portraits to diaries and personal correspondence.
About the Curators
Nathan Shui is a sixth-year PhD candidate in Architecture (History, Theory, and Society). His research examines the intersection between queer sexuality and urban modernity in postsocialist China. Shui also works on Asian American architecture in the 20th century, with an area focus on Northern California. Before starting the PhD program at UC Berkeley, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture from the National Institute of Applied Sciences of Strasbourg, France, and a Master of Science in architectural history and theory at the University of Florida, Gainesville.
Elizabeth Fair is a PhD candidate in the History of Art Department. Her dissertation research explores Chinese American architectural interventions in California, from the 19th to the 20th centuries, and their intersections with landscape, history, and memory. She is a co-organizer of the Transpacific and Asian American Art Histories graduate student working group (Center for Race and Gender).
The exhibition is free and open to the public during Environmental Design Library hours.
Support provided by the Joan Draper Research Endowment (Department of Architecture), the Center for Race and Gender, and the Mary C. Stoddard Lecture Fund (History of Art Department).
If you require accommodations to attend this event, contact betsyfr@berkeley.edu at least 10 days in advance of your visit.