This module questions conventional modernist historiography by exploring architectural encounters with modernity outside its dominant geographical, theoretical and professional territories. Students begin by situating current global modernist perspectives within a wider context, using the example of the West’s encounter with China and Japan from the 18th Century to examine the artistic and architectural consequences for East and West. Seminars focus on specific sites of architectural production and urban development including: Russia’s initial attempt to open Manchuria; post-Meiji era Japan (the first nonWestern country to modernise); Japan’s creation of Manchukuo in the 1930s; and the pursuit of a national architecture in pre-Communist China. In the second part of the term, students then explore examples that possess modern characteristics but have been overlooked by conventional modernist readings owing to their cultural condition, geographical setting or their professional approach. Case studies include: the enduring global modernity of Shanghai; pre-and postcolonial modernisms in Africa and questions of modernist heritage; peripheral modernisms in Europe through the cities such as Gdynia and Tel Aviv, and alternative modernisms in Britain through the architecture of Charles Holden and McMorran & Whitby

This module is aimed at students interested in critically engaging in social and cultural architectural practices across historical, theoretical and design disciplines in a global context. It advocates a reassessment of architectural historiography in the twenty-first century, by providing a historical, critical and scholarly approach to interdisciplinary studies of modernity in relation to architectural encounters both outside the West and outside conventional Modernist discourses. Students are encouraged to question established architectural histories and dominant historical narratives, especially those founded in the twentieth century and associated with encounters with modernity globally. Through a series of examples from different cultural, geographic, thematic, disciplinary and theoretical contexts, students engaged in this module will acquire the skills to critique the writing, construction, interpretation and dissemination of architectural history and theory in a global context and, through their own original research and writing, propose alternative histories.