Metropolises of Pacific Asia

The 'Metropolises of Pacific Asia' (MAP) training programme constituted an architectural adventure of astonishing longevity. Heir to the 'Eastern Cities' course founded in 1981, MAP brought together the ENSA architectural schools of Paris-La Villette and Paris-Belleville and the IFU French institute of architecture until 2005, and has been pursued since in separate forms at each institution. Developed by the new generation of teachers and resear- chers forged by the antiestablishment events of May 1968 and benefitting from a groun- ding in the humanities and social sciences, the programme participated in a diverse body of architectural and urban studies on non-Western cultural centres and the Pacific Asia region in particular. This innovative educational approach within French academia was part of a larger geopolitical and societal evolution that proved decisive for the transformation of study subjects and territories, moving from the city to the metropolis, from Eastern Asia to an emerging Pacific-oriented Asia positioned at the very heart of a new global economic system that would profoundly influence the region's accelerated urbanisation.
Gathering together numerous first-hand accounts, interviews and archival documents, this extensive survey presents the history and theoretical positioning of the MAP trai- ning within this context of marked mutation. It analyses the training's educational features and facilities, as well as its legacies, to even- tually examine, city by city, the work carried out by the students both in situ and in the studio.