Instant Asia. Fast Forward through the Architecture of a Changing Continent

In recent years Asia has represented, in architectural terms, the idea of boundless potential for new works and resources to give shape to cities of the future. Asia has also attracted great international 'designer' studios as leading players in this epoch-making transformation. However, what we see today are mainly images of anonymous urban landscapes whose identity is not connected to the places and traditions that have nourished them. We see a generic landscape, born of globalisation and banality. A new generation of artists and architects is attempting to find a solution to this, and from China to South Korea and Japan these creative people are reflecting on what shape to give the modernity and novelty demanded by some of the most important countries of this vast continent.
Joseph Grima's book accurately analyses these issues by presenting dialogues with the leading artists and architects of this new generation, and through a selection of unique images produced by photographer Gaia Cambiaggi.
In this way contact with these protagonists (Qun Dang, Liu Jiakun, standard­architecture, Atelier Deshaus, Xu Tiantian, Ai Weiwei, Pei Zhu, Turenscape and Qingyun Ma for China; Minsuk Cho, Moongyu Choi, Yoongyu Jang, Hailim Suh and Kim Jong Kyu for South Korea; Masaki Endoh, Junya Ishigami, Ryue Nishizawa, Tezuka Architects, Atelier Bow-Wow and Makoto Yokomizo for Japan) opens doors to a fresh way of looking at Asian architecture and the works that are currently being produced, in which the search for an original and mindful approach to thinking about contemporaneity might point the way to a richer future.

Joseph Grima is the director of Storefront for Art and Architecture, a non-profit gallery in New York City committed to the advancement of innovative positions in architecture, art and design. He is a special correspondent for the architecture magazine Abitare and co-editor of the book Shift: SANAA and the New Museum (Lars Müller, 2008). His writing has been published in numerous books and international publications including Domus, Icon, Tank, Urban China, Project Russia and others.

Born in Genoa in 1977, Gaia Cambiaggi studied fine arts in Italy and Madrid. She completed her MA in Photography at the London College of Printing. Currently based in New York, her work as a freelance photographer has led her to travel extensively in Asia, Europe and Central and South America. Her photographs have been published in Domus, Abitare, Blueprint, D di Repubblica, Rolling Stone, Tank, L'espresso and many others