Page 7 - JCAU-5-1

Journal of Chinese

Architecture and Urbanism

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Constructing geographical and architectural

imaginations: The China-aided assembly
buildings in Africa, 1960s – 1970s

Guanghui Ding*

Department of Architecture, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing, China

Abstract

China’s exports of architectural designs to numerous countries in Asia and Africa
during the Mao era generated significant tensions regarding the necessary
geographical knowledge. As many of these countries are situated in tropical regions,
understanding and responding to the unique hot, humid or dry climate conditions
was crucial for successful transnational architectural production. This article
situates the practical knowledge generation process within a complex process of
political, institutional, individual, and intellectual interactions, examining the role of
Chinese architects and technocrats in constructing geographical and architectural
imaginations for China-aided projects built in Africa. Specifically, in this article, two
case studies of assembly buildings erected in Guinea (1967) and Sudan (1976) are
presented to demonstrate Chinese efforts to address the climatic, cultural, and
*Corresponding author: practical requirements of architectural aid. Through political negotiation, personal
Guanghui Ding observation, onsite visits, media publication, and scholarly exchange, Chinese
(tin_tin0504@hotmail.com) professionals constructed geographical and architectural imaginations in Africa,
Citation: Ding, G. (2023), creating modernist architecture that retained a particular sense of place and time,
Constructing geographical and thereby reflecting continuity and transformation of their domestic work. These
architectural imaginations: The subjective imaginations were shaped by the combination of economic rationality
China-aided assembly buildings in
Africa, 1960s – 1970s. Journal of and technical expertise, manifested in the selection of appropriate site, climate
Chinese Architecture and Urbanism, responsive designs, materials, technologies, cultural articulations, and economic
5(1): 200. considerations. The aided buildings, as embodiment of the Chinese professionals’
https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.200
geographical and architectural imaginations not only displayed a critical process of
Received: September 19, 2022 knowledge production situated within the physical, material world in the tropics, but
Accepted: March 7, 2023 also served as China’s political engagement with Guinea and Sudan that aimed to
interrogate existing structure of international order.
Published Online: March 30, 2023
Copyright: © 2023 Author(s).
This is an open-access article Keywords: Tropics; Geographical and architectural imaginations; Guinea People’s Palace;
distributed under the terms of the Sudan Friendship Hall; Chen Deng’ao; Wang Dingzeng
Creative Commons Attribution-
Non-Commercial 4.0 International
(CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits all
non-commercial use, distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, 1. Introduction
provided the original work is
properly cited. Recent scholarship has increasingly focused on the emergence and exportation of China-
Publisher’s Note: AccScience built architecture in Asia and Africa during the 1960s and 1970s, as a form of material aid
Publishing remains neutral with (Ding & Xue, 2015; Liu, 2022; Roskam, 2015; Song, 2022; Xue & Ding, 2022). However,
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional a fundamental question that remains under-examined is the historical, geographical,
affiliations. diplomatic, and cultural contexts under which Chinese architects designed foreign-

Volume 5 Issue 1 (2023) 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.200