Every year, architects, representatives of member associations of the Architects Regional Council Asia (ARCASIA) meet in a selected country to discuss issues of common cares like practice of architecture, training of architects and green architecture. Among many interesting events, the most attention-catching is the ARCASIA FORUM. This is an open scientific forum that focuses on issues selected by members in previous meeting.
This year, following the ARCASIA Forum 14 themed “Cities and Politics” in Mongolia in 2009 and the ARCASIA Forum 15 themed “Green Action - Architecture of a New Order” in Pakistan in 2010, the ARCASIA Forum 16 held in Vietnam in 2011 is themed “Asian Cities in the 21st Century - Trends and Challenges” with participants from 17 member countries and territories (China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, South Korea, Mongolia, Macau, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam) and guest representatives from Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.
As we all know, Asia is a diverse continent with many ancient cultures, different climate, terrain and landscapes. Entering the 21st century, Asian cities are changing very fast in many aspects, possibly fastest in the world.
Today, cities become centres of high economic growth and home to half of population. Global City model appears and directly affects city development, rapidly changes spatial structures and images of traditional city architecture, including Asian cities. In that context, Asian cities have certain specific characteristics and places of contradictory evolutions: Western concept of development and Eastern perspectives; Modern and identity; Reason and feeling; Orthodox and folk; Innovation and conservation; Testing and consideration; Success and failure; and so on.
Thus, amid mixed blessing of the globalisation process together with the flip side of urban development (human disaster), especially in large cities in short term, and pessimistic warnings against global climate change (natural disasters) in the near future, how Asian cities, especially large cities in late-developed countries, including Vietnam, will integrate and develop while upholding diverse local cultural values of cities to make them eternally good habitats.
These matters catch the attention of world’s architects and are the overarching theme of ARCASIA Forum 16 in Da Nang, Vietnam on August 18 and 20, 2011.
ARCASIA Forum 16 is an opportunity for architects from many countries in the world, not only within Asia, to share views, experiences and solutions in architectural design and urban planning to look for new innovations to make Asian cities’ architectures dynamic, modern and rich in local cultures.
More than 40 architects send abstracts to ARCASIA Forum 16, let alone free viewpoints to be raised during the discussion sessions thanks to the openness of the forum. Their writings represent many dimensions of Asian city development and diversification in the past and the present time on the back of globalisation. The diversity and dynamism in Asian city architecture development are expressed in the pursuit of modernity and conservation of traditional ways and so forth.
Assoc. Prof, Ph.D, Architect Nguyen Quoc Thong
Vice President of the Vietnam Association of Architects
Vietnamese
