Changxue Shu
The University of Hong Kong, Division of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, Faculty Member
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Dept. III Artifacts, Action and Knowledge, Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow
I work as a historian of knowledge (esp. science and technology) on the 19th and 20th century knowledge production, circulation and interaction between Chinese, Europeans and Americans. My research combines historical, digital, and lab-based analytical methods, focusing on intersections of intellectual sphere and physical environment. Before joining HKU, I worked in KU Leuven of Belgium as Marie-Curie individual postdoctoral fellow (EU 2020 project, 2017-20) to undertake the project “Fired Clay in the Built Environment: Western Heritage in China”. I also held fellowships at the Needham Research Institute (University of Cambridge, 2015-16) and Polytechnical University of Milan (2010-13). My research has been supported in different forms by the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG, Berlin), the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), the National Research Council of Italy - Institute for Conservation and Valorization of Cultural Heritage (CNR-ICVBC, Florence) and Chinese Scholarship Council, amongst others.
Over the last two decades, I have participated in World Heritage, national and local monuments and sites but also uncharted historical sites, firstly as an architect, planner and surveyor, and later as a building/industrial archaeologist, conservator, historian and educator across five different countries. The field, laboratory, and archival works together triggered my awareness of some lacunae between the history of science and physical-material existence. The dilemmas in most conservation practices have led me to question the ontology of the discipline “Conservation Science” and the problematic epistemic approaches to protecting and studying built heritage. I am a member of ICOMOS and the International Scientific Committee of Stone (ICOMOS-ISCS).
Over the last two decades, I have participated in World Heritage, national and local monuments and sites but also uncharted historical sites, firstly as an architect, planner and surveyor, and later as a building/industrial archaeologist, conservator, historian and educator across five different countries. The field, laboratory, and archival works together triggered my awareness of some lacunae between the history of science and physical-material existence. The dilemmas in most conservation practices have led me to question the ontology of the discipline “Conservation Science” and the problematic epistemic approaches to protecting and studying built heritage. I am a member of ICOMOS and the International Scientific Committee of Stone (ICOMOS-ISCS).
less
InterestsView All (14)
Uploads
Books by Changxue Shu
This article pioneers an experiment of building a longue durée history about producing and using mineral building materials in China. With firm evidence, it has revealed an unexpected phenomena of “replacing and reconstructing wooden structures with brick and stone materials” in China since the mid-15th century. The aim of this article (and the project) is to open a scholarly discussion about the interior mechanism of that longue durée history. It embodies five innovative aspects: (1) using non-architectural sources to build an architectural history; (2) bridging the long divided histories of the ancient and modern architecture of China; (3) focusing on the often ignored aspects of materiality in Chinese architecture, especially the mineral building materials; (4) applying tools of digital humanities and cutting-edge biggish datasets into architecture, and providing critical viewpoints for either field. (5) The findings support two original arguments, showing both continuity and transformation of Chinese architecture in long-term of centuries; novel questions were generated for following up studies.
Papers by Changxue Shu
The paper presents the first results of an interdisciplinary investigation. Fourteen brick samples and one sample of raw material were studied with regard to the mineralogical, petrographic, chemical, physical, mechanical characteristics, and the maximum firing temperature. It also makes measurements of the presented soluble salts in the altered brick samples.
Preliminary conclusions are drawn with regard to three critical issues: the provenance of the bricks, the hitherto undocumented changes in the manufacturing technology, and the condition of the brick material in terms of conservation.
The paper concludes, for the first time, that the simple technology of Victorian brick masonry was a principal source and antecedent of modern Shanghai brickwork. Distinct from the tradition of transmitting construction-related technology by oral instruction, textbooks, handbooks and manuals constituted a new, and powerful means for the dissemination of technical knowledge in modern China. The interpretation of western technology appears to have been selective in Shanghai; a typical example is the brick bonding methods independent of closer bricks compared to English construction. Interestingly, Chinese authors did not fully adopt western construction modes, and old Chinese knowledge was incorporated into new systems of construction, greatly conditioned by material problems, as this study reveals. The spread of construction technology knowledge involved broad cross-field networks in and across Shanghai, the complexity of which suggests a shift of knowledge systems, rather than a direct transfer of building technology based on western construction methods.
The use of fire brick has received very little attention from historians. Fire brick was used by engineers and architects in China from the mid-nineteenth century onwards and stimulated wide application in modern structures. The research opens a broad historical picture of knowledge circulation between Asia, Europe, and the USA, and exposes the scientific value in the historical materials today. It draws further conclusions regarding China’s modern shift from traditional to western brickmaking system, as discussed in 5ICCH.
• The content of this paper has been recognised by the Needham Research Institute based in University of Cambridge UK, which awarded “Jing Brand Scholarship” to the author in 2015. The Jing Brand Scholarships in Chinese Science and Civilisation are designed to support research on the history of science and culture in China, in particular the relationship between science, technology, medicine and commerce, and the significance of such research for understanding China’s current and future developments.
• This paper, for the first time, addresses the epoch-making shift from “blue brick” to “red brick” in the context of history of building material in China and explains the changing technology of brickmaking. The study was built upon a broad investigation of diverse sources from architects, engineers, ceramic technicians and historians. It juxtaposes different viewpoints from different groups of professional or social backgrounds, and in a critic standpoint, it reveals the incompatibility between the architectural historians’ ideas and the engineers’ scientific results on the mechanical and physical properties of the two kinds of bricks. As a results, the author turns to the technology of brickmaking industry at a time Western ceramic technology was introduced into the ceramic country China. The study breaks through the customary classification of “blue brick” and “red brick” defined by apparent colours and proposed a new approach of studying them especially concerning the issues of durability in historical brick materials.
• The follow-ups of this study later received funding from European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 665501.
Abstract of the paper:
In history of building material, modern China was embedded in an epoch-making shift from “blue brick” to “red brick”. This classification are customarily defined by the apparent colour. In Shanghai red brick was introduced through the architectural culture from Europe. By the mid-twentieth century red brick had prevailed over the traditional blue bricks in both production and use, a new system was developed locally. The shift took more than half a century with arguably crucial steps in 1866-1936 in architecture. This paper, for the first time, addresses the changing technology of brickmaking. The bigger aim is the durability of the two kinds of historical bricks, which is important in conservation practice.
Questioning the incompatibility between the architectural historians’ ideas and the engineers’ scientific results on the mechanical and physical properties of the two kinds of bricks, the author turns to the technological issues of brickmaking industry at a time Western ceramic technology was introduced into the ceramic country China. It presents a brief state-of-the-art on the changing history of manufacture. It proposes two most important questions about the argil and the production process that are arguably crucial to the deterioration and the durability of those Chinese bricks, based on referable European studies.
One principal source of the paper is the technical publications written by different professionals from diverse fields including architects, engineers, technological historians, from ancient time to modern period. Another main source is the industrial records from the manufacturing sector. It also carefully considers the unpublished but prevailing knowledge from the local heritage specialists and architectural historians.
In un contesto multi culturale, le costruzioni diventano particolarmente complesse. Questo di solito è l’esito di adattamenti successivi volti a fronteggiare nuove problematiche ed esigenze, in un clima di mutamento del contesto. Nella Shanghai moderna, l’espressione constructional polychromy è rappresentativa della storia della costruzione locale, che si è svolta attraverso l’adattamento. L’espressione deriva dall’architettura vittoriana della Gran Bretagna, che trova un importante riferimento nell’architettura medievale italiana. In Cina, ad oggi, non è stata trovata un’espressione che traduca il termine inglese, né storici dell’architettura che discutano di questo argomento in ambito accademico.
Nel presente saggio saranno messe a confronto le forme realizzate nei due mondi (Shanghai e Gran Bretagna), a partire dall’osservazione diretta condotta a più riprese negli ultimi anni, considerando che le specificità non possono essere illustrate soltanto dal punto di vista delle tecniche costruttive ma che, più in generale, i mattoni locali influenzarono il linguaggio della policromia a Shanghai.
Googlebook reading of the paper: https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=OzfnCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA156
Official website: http://www.laricercachecambia.it/pubblicazione/
This article reviews the debates in the field of conservation emerged from the Venice Charter since 1964 in Italy. Starting from ICOMOS heritage 'Paradigm Shift' problem, the author concisely retraces some of the most important events and documents in the context of Italian conservation from an international perspective. The author explains how and why the conditions and the ideas about conservation have been developed in the school of architecture in Milan during the past 50 years. The characteristics of Italian mode in conservation are also represented in the text.
文章对意大利历史保护界在《威尼斯宪章》（1964）发布后的50 年间因其而引发的讨论展开回顾。从国际古迹遗址理事会的遗产保护“范式转变”问题开始，选择最为重要的一些保护事件与文献，以国际视野回溯意大利保护界在保护情境、保护思想，以及保护机制等方面的变化与转变，同时对成因进行言简意赅的解释与评述。其中，对意大利保护模式的特征，以及特殊背景下成长起来的米兰学派的贡献与影响，也做了明晰的介绍与阐释。
米兰理工大学的历史建筑保护研究与教育，既有意大利的典型特色，又因自己的独特传统区别于意大利其他地区，乃至欧洲其他国家的建筑保护院校。目前，米兰理工大学的历史建筑保护研究与教育已经形成比较成熟的形式，并分布于其下属的多个分支机构。不同机构间教学理念、课程组织等亦和而不同。文章立足于历史建筑保护学科发展的历史渊源及文脉，在欧洲及意大利的大背景下，观察米兰理工大学教学的历史、社会与理论环境，阐释并评述其下属各主要分支机构的教学思想、方法、形式与内容，同时讨论历史保护与建筑学的关系，旨在为我国同类院校相关专业提供一个有价值的样本。
A brief for the paper:
Through case studying two historical industrial sites of breweries in Shanghai and Taipei respectively, the study concentrates on operational mode and value judgment of participants in the intervention of urban industrial heritage. It adopts a comparative and empirical method to examine the complexity of conservation in the two typical Chinese-speaking cities.
The paper firstly presents the histories of two breweries in Shanghai and Taipei. It then reviews the actual 'conservation' and revitalization activities stimulated by these two industrial sites within each city's milieu, comparing and analyzing the distinctive elements that grew out of their context. Based on historical perspectives, it examines the operational modes and focuses on the evolution of the concrete value interpretations in either case. Particular attention is paid to the 'conservation' concept in the local context, as well as the participation modes, and the local regulations for heritage control. The conclusions are: firstly, the historic conservation appeared to be a moderation process among different social and interest groups. Broader, diverse participants and multi-sides participation led to richer and deeper interpretations of the heritage. This interesting observation might be useful for our future treatment of urban heritage. Secondly, the urban heritage not only represented the past but also inspired the imagination and the vitality of the present and future. Although value judgment was conditioned and restricted by both the current and the historical circumstances, the meanings of historic conservation were continuously explored, enriched and accumulated in an ongoing process, which itself became part of the history of heritage conservation.
Thesis Chapters by Changxue Shu
Conference Presentations by Changxue Shu
The blue-red-plain-brick-wall is the exposed brick wall constituted of both bluish bricks and reddish ones. Interesting questions start with how reddish brick came to being in Shanghai as the bluish one has stably been a traditional building material all over China since more than two thousand years ago. In fact the reddish brick from the Western culture has interrupted the Chinese blue brick tradition, and integrated with the bluish one to create some hybrid patterns. This new architectonic manner widely displayed in historical buildings of Shanghai, and today is reused as a nostalgia symbol finally.
The paper discusses the blue-red-plain-brick-wall as one sort of built heritage, which is argued due to three reasons: (1) One third of the registered historical buildings of Shanghai are built of plain-brick-walls, and half of them are in the blue-red-plain-brick pattern, excluding the more widespread minor architectures built in the same manner. They have characterized the image of the city but been disappearing since the redevelopment of Shanghai in recent decades. (2) Predecessors' study has already referred the blue-red-plain-brick manner as a characteristic in many historical cases, but did not consider its real past and future from heritage’s point of view. (3) Today they are representing the collective memory that implies the reality of the postcolonial Shanghai.
Regarding the methodology, the paper focuses on the European origin (prototype), popularization and the dying-out of this architectonic of brickwork in view of the urban development, architectural tradition as well as the material history in particular. The rediscovery and reconstruction of the historical stuff aim to uncover a hidden thread of Shanghai’s architectural history, thus a potential narrative of the connotation of this identified built heritage. Historical research is mainly based on Literature review, field investigation and case study.
Book Reviews by Changxue Shu
This article pioneers an experiment of building a longue durée history about producing and using mineral building materials in China. With firm evidence, it has revealed an unexpected phenomena of “replacing and reconstructing wooden structures with brick and stone materials” in China since the mid-15th century. The aim of this article (and the project) is to open a scholarly discussion about the interior mechanism of that longue durée history. It embodies five innovative aspects: (1) using non-architectural sources to build an architectural history; (2) bridging the long divided histories of the ancient and modern architecture of China; (3) focusing on the often ignored aspects of materiality in Chinese architecture, especially the mineral building materials; (4) applying tools of digital humanities and cutting-edge biggish datasets into architecture, and providing critical viewpoints for either field. (5) The findings support two original arguments, showing both continuity and transformation of Chinese architecture in long-term of centuries; novel questions were generated for following up studies.
The paper presents the first results of an interdisciplinary investigation. Fourteen brick samples and one sample of raw material were studied with regard to the mineralogical, petrographic, chemical, physical, mechanical characteristics, and the maximum firing temperature. It also makes measurements of the presented soluble salts in the altered brick samples.
Preliminary conclusions are drawn with regard to three critical issues: the provenance of the bricks, the hitherto undocumented changes in the manufacturing technology, and the condition of the brick material in terms of conservation.
The paper concludes, for the first time, that the simple technology of Victorian brick masonry was a principal source and antecedent of modern Shanghai brickwork. Distinct from the tradition of transmitting construction-related technology by oral instruction, textbooks, handbooks and manuals constituted a new, and powerful means for the dissemination of technical knowledge in modern China. The interpretation of western technology appears to have been selective in Shanghai; a typical example is the brick bonding methods independent of closer bricks compared to English construction. Interestingly, Chinese authors did not fully adopt western construction modes, and old Chinese knowledge was incorporated into new systems of construction, greatly conditioned by material problems, as this study reveals. The spread of construction technology knowledge involved broad cross-field networks in and across Shanghai, the complexity of which suggests a shift of knowledge systems, rather than a direct transfer of building technology based on western construction methods.
The use of fire brick has received very little attention from historians. Fire brick was used by engineers and architects in China from the mid-nineteenth century onwards and stimulated wide application in modern structures. The research opens a broad historical picture of knowledge circulation between Asia, Europe, and the USA, and exposes the scientific value in the historical materials today. It draws further conclusions regarding China’s modern shift from traditional to western brickmaking system, as discussed in 5ICCH.
• The content of this paper has been recognised by the Needham Research Institute based in University of Cambridge UK, which awarded “Jing Brand Scholarship” to the author in 2015. The Jing Brand Scholarships in Chinese Science and Civilisation are designed to support research on the history of science and culture in China, in particular the relationship between science, technology, medicine and commerce, and the significance of such research for understanding China’s current and future developments.
• This paper, for the first time, addresses the epoch-making shift from “blue brick” to “red brick” in the context of history of building material in China and explains the changing technology of brickmaking. The study was built upon a broad investigation of diverse sources from architects, engineers, ceramic technicians and historians. It juxtaposes different viewpoints from different groups of professional or social backgrounds, and in a critic standpoint, it reveals the incompatibility between the architectural historians’ ideas and the engineers’ scientific results on the mechanical and physical properties of the two kinds of bricks. As a results, the author turns to the technology of brickmaking industry at a time Western ceramic technology was introduced into the ceramic country China. The study breaks through the customary classification of “blue brick” and “red brick” defined by apparent colours and proposed a new approach of studying them especially concerning the issues of durability in historical brick materials.
• The follow-ups of this study later received funding from European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 665501.
Abstract of the paper:
In history of building material, modern China was embedded in an epoch-making shift from “blue brick” to “red brick”. This classification are customarily defined by the apparent colour. In Shanghai red brick was introduced through the architectural culture from Europe. By the mid-twentieth century red brick had prevailed over the traditional blue bricks in both production and use, a new system was developed locally. The shift took more than half a century with arguably crucial steps in 1866-1936 in architecture. This paper, for the first time, addresses the changing technology of brickmaking. The bigger aim is the durability of the two kinds of historical bricks, which is important in conservation practice.
Questioning the incompatibility between the architectural historians’ ideas and the engineers’ scientific results on the mechanical and physical properties of the two kinds of bricks, the author turns to the technological issues of brickmaking industry at a time Western ceramic technology was introduced into the ceramic country China. It presents a brief state-of-the-art on the changing history of manufacture. It proposes two most important questions about the argil and the production process that are arguably crucial to the deterioration and the durability of those Chinese bricks, based on referable European studies.
One principal source of the paper is the technical publications written by different professionals from diverse fields including architects, engineers, technological historians, from ancient time to modern period. Another main source is the industrial records from the manufacturing sector. It also carefully considers the unpublished but prevailing knowledge from the local heritage specialists and architectural historians.
In un contesto multi culturale, le costruzioni diventano particolarmente complesse. Questo di solito è l’esito di adattamenti successivi volti a fronteggiare nuove problematiche ed esigenze, in un clima di mutamento del contesto. Nella Shanghai moderna, l’espressione constructional polychromy è rappresentativa della storia della costruzione locale, che si è svolta attraverso l’adattamento. L’espressione deriva dall’architettura vittoriana della Gran Bretagna, che trova un importante riferimento nell’architettura medievale italiana. In Cina, ad oggi, non è stata trovata un’espressione che traduca il termine inglese, né storici dell’architettura che discutano di questo argomento in ambito accademico.
Nel presente saggio saranno messe a confronto le forme realizzate nei due mondi (Shanghai e Gran Bretagna), a partire dall’osservazione diretta condotta a più riprese negli ultimi anni, considerando che le specificità non possono essere illustrate soltanto dal punto di vista delle tecniche costruttive ma che, più in generale, i mattoni locali influenzarono il linguaggio della policromia a Shanghai.
Googlebook reading of the paper: https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=OzfnCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA156
Official website: http://www.laricercachecambia.it/pubblicazione/
This article reviews the debates in the field of conservation emerged from the Venice Charter since 1964 in Italy. Starting from ICOMOS heritage 'Paradigm Shift' problem, the author concisely retraces some of the most important events and documents in the context of Italian conservation from an international perspective. The author explains how and why the conditions and the ideas about conservation have been developed in the school of architecture in Milan during the past 50 years. The characteristics of Italian mode in conservation are also represented in the text.
文章对意大利历史保护界在《威尼斯宪章》（1964）发布后的50 年间因其而引发的讨论展开回顾。从国际古迹遗址理事会的遗产保护“范式转变”问题开始，选择最为重要的一些保护事件与文献，以国际视野回溯意大利保护界在保护情境、保护思想，以及保护机制等方面的变化与转变，同时对成因进行言简意赅的解释与评述。其中，对意大利保护模式的特征，以及特殊背景下成长起来的米兰学派的贡献与影响，也做了明晰的介绍与阐释。
米兰理工大学的历史建筑保护研究与教育，既有意大利的典型特色，又因自己的独特传统区别于意大利其他地区，乃至欧洲其他国家的建筑保护院校。目前，米兰理工大学的历史建筑保护研究与教育已经形成比较成熟的形式，并分布于其下属的多个分支机构。不同机构间教学理念、课程组织等亦和而不同。文章立足于历史建筑保护学科发展的历史渊源及文脉，在欧洲及意大利的大背景下，观察米兰理工大学教学的历史、社会与理论环境，阐释并评述其下属各主要分支机构的教学思想、方法、形式与内容，同时讨论历史保护与建筑学的关系，旨在为我国同类院校相关专业提供一个有价值的样本。
A brief for the paper:
Through case studying two historical industrial sites of breweries in Shanghai and Taipei respectively, the study concentrates on operational mode and value judgment of participants in the intervention of urban industrial heritage. It adopts a comparative and empirical method to examine the complexity of conservation in the two typical Chinese-speaking cities.
The paper firstly presents the histories of two breweries in Shanghai and Taipei. It then reviews the actual 'conservation' and revitalization activities stimulated by these two industrial sites within each city's milieu, comparing and analyzing the distinctive elements that grew out of their context. Based on historical perspectives, it examines the operational modes and focuses on the evolution of the concrete value interpretations in either case. Particular attention is paid to the 'conservation' concept in the local context, as well as the participation modes, and the local regulations for heritage control. The conclusions are: firstly, the historic conservation appeared to be a moderation process among different social and interest groups. Broader, diverse participants and multi-sides participation led to richer and deeper interpretations of the heritage. This interesting observation might be useful for our future treatment of urban heritage. Secondly, the urban heritage not only represented the past but also inspired the imagination and the vitality of the present and future. Although value judgment was conditioned and restricted by both the current and the historical circumstances, the meanings of historic conservation were continuously explored, enriched and accumulated in an ongoing process, which itself became part of the history of heritage conservation.
The blue-red-plain-brick-wall is the exposed brick wall constituted of both bluish bricks and reddish ones. Interesting questions start with how reddish brick came to being in Shanghai as the bluish one has stably been a traditional building material all over China since more than two thousand years ago. In fact the reddish brick from the Western culture has interrupted the Chinese blue brick tradition, and integrated with the bluish one to create some hybrid patterns. This new architectonic manner widely displayed in historical buildings of Shanghai, and today is reused as a nostalgia symbol finally.
The paper discusses the blue-red-plain-brick-wall as one sort of built heritage, which is argued due to three reasons: (1) One third of the registered historical buildings of Shanghai are built of plain-brick-walls, and half of them are in the blue-red-plain-brick pattern, excluding the more widespread minor architectures built in the same manner. They have characterized the image of the city but been disappearing since the redevelopment of Shanghai in recent decades. (2) Predecessors' study has already referred the blue-red-plain-brick manner as a characteristic in many historical cases, but did not consider its real past and future from heritage’s point of view. (3) Today they are representing the collective memory that implies the reality of the postcolonial Shanghai.
Regarding the methodology, the paper focuses on the European origin (prototype), popularization and the dying-out of this architectonic of brickwork in view of the urban development, architectural tradition as well as the material history in particular. The rediscovery and reconstruction of the historical stuff aim to uncover a hidden thread of Shanghai’s architectural history, thus a potential narrative of the connotation of this identified built heritage. Historical research is mainly based on Literature review, field investigation and case study.