Shifting Terms: The Nanjing Exchange as Point-of-Departure
Date 11.4.2025
Time HKT 10am~6pm
Location Zone F, LSK Architecture Building, CUHK
Shifting Terms will deal with the consequences of "the Nanjing Exchange," the ongoing exchange of young teaching professors between SEU (Southeast University Nanjing) and the ETH (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) during the 1980s and 1990s. No other international collaboration in architectural teaching has produced anything like the singular impact of this exchange. Many of the young teachers who participated in it became protagonists in the global rise of Chinese architecture after the turn of the millennium.
At the same time, many elements of this exchange were contingent, even accidental, and its success hinged upon the commitment of a small handful of people, including Gu Daqing and the now-deceased Swiss professor, Herbert Krämel. In this unique, one-day symposium, many of the key actors in the Nanjing Exchange will be gathered together for the first time in decades.
Why did this exchange flourish where others failed, and what can it teach us about teaching architecture, both in the recent past and the near future? Finally, what do such ventures reveal about the benefits of open exchange—and indeed trust—in an era of increasing geopolitical isolationism?
Speakers:
David Leatherbarrow
Foreign Dean of the Architecture Internationalization Demonstration School, Southeast University (SEU); Professor Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania
Marc Angelil
Professor at the Department of Architecture of ETH Zurich
Ding Wowo
Professor, academic committee chairperson in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning of Nanjing University
Gu Daqing
Professor of the Architecture Internationalization Demonstration School of Southeast University, Emeritus Professor at CUHK
Zhao Chen
Professor in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at Nanjing University
Philip Ursprung
Professor of the History of Art and Architecture and formerly Dean of the Department of Architecture of ETH Zurich
Vito Bertin
Emeritus Professor at CUHK
WU Jiawei
Assistant Professor, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Nanjing University.
Karin von Wietersheim
Architect
PhD in Architecture from ETH Zurich
Session 1:Karin von Wietersheim, Wu Jiawei, Zhao Chen: 10 am to 12:30 pm
Session 2: Gu Daqing, Philip Ursprung, David Leatherbarrow: 2 pm to 4:30 pm
Session 3: Ding Wowo and Marc Angélil: 5 pm to 7 pm
