Workers in Hong Kong made plastic flowers, incense before that, and consumer goods throughout the city's provincial, Imperial, and colonial periods. Kowloon Peninsula's deep harbour and proximity to shipping lanes gave rise to exportoriented industries long before imperialistic conflicts changed their ownership from Chinese to British, and back again. Making things in this context served to define self-motivated enterprise. Hong Kong Chinese people made most of their export goods following a low material investment, labour-intensive model. Workers hand-painted ceramics and toys more often than their employers invested in better plant to replace their work.

The Glasgow School of Art has a long history of the cultivation of the art of drawing. Many types of drawing have been taught and practiced within the institution since its establishment in 1845. Mackintosh's Glasgow School of Art building, completed between 1897 and 1909, can be seen as one great outcome of that design-through-tradition. The building not only sheltered and thus enabled a further cultivation of the art of drawing, but became itself a model for the practices of that drawing tradition. There is a strong body of work, much of it by teachers and students of the Mackintosh School of Architecture, which has focussed on the building and explored through drawing the architectonic features and significance of the structure. This work has been useful as a teaching and critical aid but also as a contribution to the art and discipline of architecture. In the wake of the first 2014 fire, which destroyed part of the building, this body of work suddenly became of use as a design tool rather than simply an exploratory or critical tool, as the institution sought to reproduce exactly what had been lost. The most recent 2018 fire wreaked a destruction much more comprehensive across the whole building. Accordingly, we are forced to completely review the relationship of that drawing heritage to the building. That is to say, the building largely no longer exists, and the drawings take on a life of their own in a way not previously attached to them. The school may, however, be rebuilt, recreated ‘as was’ at some point in the future, potentially instigating yet another type of relationship between the existing drawing work and a new ‘Mackintosh’ building.

Despite drawing being the first-hand work of the architect, there has not been enough discussion about where architectural drawings and models belong, and the ways in which they move and develop between sites of production, storage, and revision. It is often assumed that the mobility of drawings in the Renaissance period implied the possibility of action at a distance, allowing the architect to be absent from the fabrication site. Earlier Medieval practices of incised stone drawings and plaster drawings traced on floors determined the immobility of drawings, which made them integral parts of the building and assured the presence of the architect. However, an alternate reading is possible, which is that immovable drawings and the presence of models freed the architect, because the tools that guide construction were, in fact, in situ.

In his essay of 1983, ‘Towards a Critical Regionalism’, Kenneth Frampton referred to the Bagsværd Church as a primary exemplar, briefly citing the architect's representation of ‘the Chinese pagoda roof’ in this project, to emphasise the importance of crosscultural inspiration in the creation of ‘critical regionalism’. Peter Myers followed Frampton in his 1993 ‘Une histoire inachevée’, arguing for the significant role that Chinese architecture played as a source for Utzon's Bagsværd Church design and further variations on the theme of Chinese and Japanese exemplars on Utzon's work follows. Françoise Fromonot established the importance of the 1925 edition of the Yingzao-fashi (State Building Standard, first published in 1103 ad) and Johannes Prip-Møller's 1937 Chinese Buddhist Monasteries for Utzon; Philip Drew pointed out the significance of the work of Chinese writer Lin Yutang (1895–1976) and historian Osvald Sirén (1879–1966) as important channels through which Utzon perceived East Asian art and architecture; while in 2002, Richard Weston suggested Das Japanische Wohnhaus (1935), written by Japanese architect Tetsuro Yoshida (1894–1956), as a formational influence in Utzon's early perception of Japanese building culture. However, none of these works attempt to clarify the precise role that Chinese and Japanese precedents play in Utzon's architectural career. Two more recent studies, by Philip Goad and Michael Asgaard Andersen, have confirmed the role of Chinese architecture in Utzon's church design and have introduced new evidence and details, but there are still unanswered questions about the exact nature of these influences. This article attempts to address the detailed process of Utzon's cross-cultural practices for his design of the Bagsværd Church in order to reveal how Utzon interpreted specific ideas, ideals, and artefacts from East Asian building culture.

Wang Shu (b. 1963) is a locally trained Chinese architect who has received widespread media coverage in the last decade, especially after receiving the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 2012, often considered the Nobel Prize of architecture. Numerous articles and interviews have been published concerning Wang Shu and his design practice, however, there is a lack of analysis of his work from what might be called the perspective of his ecological phenomenology. Wang acknowledges his interest in phenomenological thinking and expresses an ongoing concern about human relationships with place and nature, the continuity of craftsmanship in the face of technological development, as well as the materiality and tactility of bodily perception. Before analysing Wang's work, relevant ideas of Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) and their influence on architectural discourse are firstly examined. Both of them were seminal philosophers who offered inspiring insights to ecological discourse.

This article brings together two distinct aspects of Aldo Rossi's urban theory and reads them against recent urban peripheral development in Madrid. By exploring the scientific method used in Rossi's work The Architecture of the City against the contemporary conditions of this metropolis, the authors examine whether and to what extent either ‘memory’ or ‘permanence’ are reflected in this new city. Additionally, the analogous city of fragments that Rossi explored in the second phase of his career is also brought into play, and considered in relation to Rossi's scientific method. Developing from Rossi's later approach, we carried out a photographic survey of these areas to understand the contemporary urban landscape. We utilise these two theoretical positions in his work as a form of critique on today's periphery, focusing on two of the Urban Action Plans (PAUs) — Las Tablas and San Chinarro — in the city of Madrid, and bridging the ideas of theory and project that were so important for La Tendenza, the group of architects to which Rossi belonged in the 1960s. These specific study areas allow a broader understanding of the patterns of urban development around Madrid, and the consequences of these projects as experienced by citizens of the city. More broadly, this analysis aims to further our understanding of the European urban peripheral condition, and points to the continuing relevance offered by the theoretical approaches of Rossi's work in today's context, a critical discourse that is felt to be necessary by the authors.