Rafael Vinoly Grant

They rejected the best grant proposal they are going to get in a long time. I think so, anyway, and since I wrote the thing, why wouldn't I think that? But still, the fact that they didn't pick this as one of the five grantees makes me wonder. What are they afraid of? A real Ph.D. candidate? One who isn't getting a Ph.D. in architecture, where they don't know real research if it bit them on the you-know-where, but in a field where architecture requires knowing other disciplines. Fields. An undergraduate degree that isn't primarily a skilled trade degree?

So here it is:

Despite all recent press, a close reading of China’s urbanization has not been performed by those trained in its history, language, culture, historiography or epistemology. Western, Orientalist discourses privilege the “Nest,” the “Egg,” CCTV or hutongs as the sole relevant examples of Chinese urbanization. They exemplify China’s modernity and its failings, along with superior Western design. Presumably China cannot attain true modernity, producing grotesque imitations plagued by uniquely Chinese problems: alienation, exploitation and the spectacle amidst indiscriminate demolition.

"This project transforms the entire discourse on Chinese urbanization, transcending narrow studies on “hutong preservation” or “migrant housing”. It frames context: Western discourses portray projects as decontextualized icons. We investigate an entire area of all formal, informal, small and medium-scale projects and spaces. Most importantly, we situate them in their larger context. We study Beijing because it has become the proxy for China’s failed modernization and has been so grossly misrepresented.

At stake is fundamentally changing strategies and policies for urbanizing China—not just Beijing—to prevent what Westerners lament and yet replicate: designs disassociated from China’s cultural and historical context. By documenting how architects, China’s government, residents and the Western gaze construct Beijing, this project will shape advanced strategies and policies."

My guess that the post-Orientalist, and anti-Orientalist approach was too much for their rather narrow, dare I even suggest racist? minds. I think so. They'd rather have some Chinese person from China, who doesn't question basic American epistemology about China, to make a proposal about China.

This was a grant about emerging economies, the BRIC economies, and I think it is just too threatening for conventional people not educated outside of the architectural field to contemplate something different. I guarantee none of them has ever read Edward Said. Or, dare I suggest a woman? Chandra Talpade Mohanty?

I await the de-Orientalizing of the architecture field