About
Professor Delin Lai has been the Morgan Endowed Chair in Art and Architectural History since 2018.
Before joining the faculty of the Department of Art + Design in 2007, Professor Lai taught at Oberlin College from 2006 to 2007. He specializes in modern Chinese architecture and historiography of Chinese architecture. In these areas he has published three books in Chinese: Zhongguo Jindai Sixiangshi yu Jianzhu Shixueshi (Changing Ideals in Modern China and Its Historiography of Architecture, Beijing: Zhongguo Jianzhu Gongye Chubanshe, 2016), Zhongguo Jianzhu Geming: Minguo Zaoqi de Lizhi Jianzhu (Ritual Architecture of Early Republican China and the Cult of Sun Yat-sen, Taipei: Boya Shuwu, 2011), and Zhongguo Jindai Jianzhushi Yanjiu (Studies in Modern Chinese Architectural History, Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2007).
He has also edited two books, one being the five-volume Zhongguo Jindai Jianzhu Shi (A History of Modern Chinese Architecture, Beijing: Zhongguo Jianzhu Gongye Chubanshe, 2016), of which he was the Lead Editor and co-author. In 2018, this book was one of the fifty seven works that received the Book Award at the triennial China Publication Government Awards, the highest award for Chinese publications (https://baike.baidu.com/item/第四届中国出版政府奖/21600713). The other is Jindai Zhejiang Lu (Who’s Who in Modern Chinese Architecture, 2006). This book is one of ten books that received the First Architectural Book Award of China in 2008.
Professor Lai has also published numerous articles in Chinese, English, Japanese and Italian, among them “Searching for a Modern Chinese Monument: the Design of the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing, 1925-1929” and “Idealizing a Chinese Style: Rethinking Early Writings on Chinese Architecture and the Design of the National Central Museum in Nanjing” in The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (March 2005 and March 2014); "Renewing, Remapping, and Redefining Guangzhou, 1910s-1930s" in Looking Modern: East Asian Visual Culture from Treaty Ports to World War II (Jennifer Purtle and Hans Bjarne Thomsen, eds., 2009); “An Essay on WANG Shu - About the Way of Revival and Development for the Literati's Architecture Tradition in China,” in Special Issue on contemporary Chinese architecture, Nemoha (2014); and “Translated Architecture and the Notion of Architectural Translatability in Modern China,” in The Influence of Western Architecture in China (Nilda Valentin, ed., (English-Italian), 2017).
Professor Delin Lai received the 2015 University of Louisville Distinguished Faculty Award in Outstanding Scholarship, Research, and Creative Activity in the Humanities.
Course Offerings
ARTH 290: Survey of Asian Art
ARTH 331: Chinese Art
ARTH 335: 20th Century Chinese Artists and Architects
ARTH 337: Eastern Asia Landscape Art
ARTH 339: Cities, Architecture, and Gardens of China and Japan
ARTH 342: Japanese Art
ARTH 531/631: Seminar: Nationalism and Modern Art and Architecture in China and Japan
ARTH 531/631: Seminar: Modern Cities and Architecture in Asia
Conference Papers
“Ming-Qing Narrative Illustrations and the Space of Jiang’nan Garden Architecture” (invited speaker), The 10th International Symposium on Teaching and Research in World Architectural History, Tongji University, Shanghai, Dec. 9-10, 2023.
“Western Discourses in the Invention of ‘Chinese Architecture’” (invited speaker), Modern Chinese Art in the Context of Globalization, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, Nov., 5-6, 2022.
“What was the foundation of their accomplishment?--Tsinghua campus culture and its influence on the first generation of Chinese architects” (invited speaker), the symposium in conjunction with the exhibition Accomplishment: The First Generation of Chinese Architects From the University of Pennsylvania, Tsinghua University Art Museum, Oct. 12, 2019.
“With Whom do I Sit With? -- The Chinese Private Garden as a Place for Ideal Companionship,” (invited speaker) Gendering the Garden: from Antiquity to the Present: Cross-cultural and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, University of Virginia, Mar. 15, 2018.
“Defining the Present Perfect Tense of I. M. Pei's Architectural Space,” (invited speaker) Rethinking Pei: A Centenary Symposium, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, Oct. 13, 2017. (http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/event/rethinking-pei-a-centenary-symposium/)
“Notions of Chinese architecture and their reflections in designs on both sides of the Taiwan Strait”, Opening Ceremony of the Center for Asian Architecture and the International Symposium, Southeastern University, Nanjing, Jan. 19, 2016.
“The Traditional Study of Classics, Ming and Qing Pragmatism, Late Qing New History and the Historiography of Chinese Architecture,” Senior Academics Forum on Traditional Chinese Architectural History, Vanderbilt University, July 23-25, 2015.
Lectures
“A Socialist Configuration of Shanghai: Urban Space, Architecture, and Gender in the Movie Jintian Wo Xiuxi (1959),” Chinese National Academy of Arts, Dec. 8, 2022
“Liu Dunzhen and the Modern Start of Chinese Architectural History Study,” June 25, 2022, Southeast University
“Regionality: A Resistant Issue and Keyword in Modern Chinese Architecture,” Collins/Kaufmann Forum, Columbia University, April 12, 2021; University of Chicago, Feb. 28, 2020.
“Configuration of Socialist Shanghai: Urban Space, Architecture, and Gender in the Movie It’s My Day Off (1959),” Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Mar. 12, 2021.
“Defining the Present Perfect Tense of I. M. Pei's Architectural Space,” University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA, Oct. 17, 2018.
“Burial-goods Determine or Coffins Determine? -- The design of Mawangdui Tombs in the Architectonic Development Since the Warring States Period), School of Architecture, Hunan University, Changsha, June 12, 2018.
“Defining the Present Perfect Tense of I. M. Pei's Architectural Space,” (invited speaker) Rethinking Pei: A Centenary Symposium, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, Oct. 13, 2017.
“The Discourse of the Picturesque and Architecture of Wang Shu,” Art Department, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, Apr. 22, 2017.
“Four Literati Architects: Wang Dahong, Feng Jizhong, Wang Shu, and Huang Sheng-yuan,” Department of Architecture, Shih Chien University, Taipei, May 28, 2014.
“The Influence of Chinese Architectural History Study on Taiwanese Architecture since 1950,” A keynote speech, Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians of Taiwan, Taipei, May 2, 2014.