Architecture Asia, as the official journal of the Architects Regional Council Asia, aims to provide a forum not only for presenting Asian phenomena and their characteristics to the world, but also for understanding diversity and multiculturalism within Asia from a global perspective. This issue reveals the development of Thailand contemporary architecture, and features five essays and twelve projects that elaborate this perspective. The five essays elaborate the contemporary architecture of Thailand in Southeast Asia, and how Thailand architecture was influenced by western architectural theories and finally found a good balance between modernization and localization. The twelve projects, accompanied with full-color photos and text descriptions, concentrate on the exploration of modernity, regionalism and futurism in Thai architecture from 1940 to 1980, and highlight architectural works that reflect on practical industrial buildings, demonstrate the exploration of Thai contemporary architecture from form, space and architecture to the complex disciplines of ecology, humanities, society and industry.
Professor Wu Jiang is a full professor at Tongji University's College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He was the former deputy director of the Shanghai Urban Planning Administration Bureau, and the former executive vice president of Tongji University. He was also an elected member of L'Académie d'Architecture de France in 2015. Since 2019, he has been serving as the vice president of Architects Regional Council (ARCASIA) and is also the board chairman of Global University Partnership on Environment and Sustainability (GUPES), as well as a member of UIA Education Commission (EDUCOM). He is the vice president of the Urban Planning Society of China (UPSC) and serves as a standing council member of the Architectural Society of China (ASC), as well as the director of Institute of Architectural Education, Architectural Society of China (IAE-ASC), and the chairman of Asian City Forum. He has been invited worldwide to well-known universities and research institutes to deliver keynote speeches, including Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. He is also the founder of several joint international design studios with top world institutes, such as Princeton, HKU (University of Hong Kong), ETH-Zürich, Yale, UIUC (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), and TU Berlin (Technical University of Berlin). He was the juror of the final review of the Dubai Awards hosted by UN HABITAT, curator of the 2002 Shanghai Biennale Urban Construction, as well as founder and chief curator of the first Shanghai Urban Space Art Season (SUSAS 2015). As a devoted architecture scholar, he has published many important books on architectural history, urban planning, urban regeneration, and urban governance.
Dr. Li Xiangning is deputy dean and full professor in History, Theory and Criticism at Tongji University's College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He is a member of CICA (Comité International des Critiques d'Architecture), and has worked as a curator for numerous exhibitions, and published widely on contemporary Chinese architecture and urbanism. He is the chief editor of Architecture China and the president of the Architecture China Foundation. He has been working with international museums and institutes, and has been a jury member to many international awards and competitions.
