Developments in transportation, communication and networking technologies in recent decades have instigated unprecedented flow of people, goods, and information across the globe, a phenomenon that has shaped the all-powerful thrust of globalization. This phenomenon led a drive for taking a universal outlook on social, economic, and environmental issues, but at the same time, instigated a wave of criticism. With its tendency to blur the boundaries among nations and cultures, globalization is seen as benevolent and progressive by some, and malevolent and regressive by others. While one camp promises economic prosperity for partners of global exchanges, the counterpart protests the potential of the exchanges to breed erosion in societal identities of regions and nations. The opposing views tackle all aspects of human living, and as such, spread broadly to the academia and the professions where heated debates on global issues are now enduring. CSAAR 2007 conference addresses regional architecture and identity in the built environment in the context of globalization. The conference will focus on the study of increasing contradictions between the "modernization" of regions on the one hand and the cultural identity of these places on the other.
Though the recent tide of globalization is very strong, it is clear that there is also a countervailing need for regionalism. We propose that globalization can only succeed on the basis of healthy regionalism. It is evident that under strong globalization trends, regional identities did not disappear. On the contrary, they have tenaciously continued to express themselves urbanisiticlly, architecturally, and behaviorally. The conference intends to use this proposition as a point of departure to explore and examine the various discourses regarding regionalism, globalization and their impact on the built environment. Questions to be asked and issues to be considered include: regional architecture and how it is being (re)defined, the interaction(s) between the regional and the global, the intersection between colonial past and contemporary architectural productions, the regional dynamics of architectural/cultural flows, the trends of regionalism and how they coexist, compete or contradict with the process of globalization, the role of architecture in connecting people and cultures across geographical and chronological boundaries, the role of the state in promoting/ constructing various types of cultural identities, bridging the gab between Regionalism and Modernization, how regional architecture can surmount the limitations of constant forms of the past, to what level features of contemporary urban developments respond more to global (economic) conditions than to local or national ones, to what extent regionalism accept other regions traditions and incorporate and integrate new technological, and environmental inventions.
The conference is structured around a number of themes that include -but are not limited to: Forms of Cultural Identities; Urban Morphology and Identity; and Cultural Heritage and Tourism.