Beyond the Pagodas: Other Tushanwan Models and their Purposes
Professor Thomas Coomans
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In 1915, a set of 84 hand-carved model pagodas from the Tushanwan workshop in Shanghai travelled thousands of miles to San Francisco for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. This set depicted pagodas across China and was intended to educate the public, as well as to facilitate artistic and cultural exchange. But the Tushanwan workshop also produced scale models of other buildings for different purposes. For example, some were used to give clients a sense of buildings they commissioned, such as a 1903 model of the Chinese Pavilion in Brussels, built for Leopold II.
This talk puts the set of pagodas into context by examining four other types of models made at the workshop under the direction of the Jesuit priest Alois Beck. Particular attention will be paid to two models related to the sacred hill of Sheshan 佘山 near Shanghai. The first depicts a large Marian pilgrimage church, which was designed by Beck in 1918 but never built. The second is a model of a Buddhist pagoda on the eastern side of the hill, Xiudaozhe Ta 秀道者塔 – the only Tushanwan model sent to San Francisco that shows a ruined building.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Thomas Coomans 高曼士教授 is professor of Architectural History and Built Heritage Conservation at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He is director of the international advanced Masters of Conservation of Monuments and Sites programme (Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation) at the University of Leuven. Coomans’ research focuses on architectural transfers, cross-cultural exchanges, and shared built heritage between Europe and China in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His methodology combines archaeology, architectural history, and heritage conservation, supported by fieldwork in China and archival research in Europe. He maintains a long research and teaching collaboration with the School of Archaeology and Museology of Peking University.
His recent publications include
Missionary Spaces. Imagining, Building, Contesting Christianities in Africa and China, 1830s–1960s (2024); “East Meets West on the Construction Site. Churches in China, 1840s–1930s” (2018); and
Life inside the Cloister: Understanding Monastic Architecture (2018).
DISCUSSANTS
Puay-peng Ho holds the UNESCO Chair on Architectural Heritage Conservation and Management in Asia and is professor of architecture at the Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore. His research deals with architectural history and conservation practice, and how knowledge can be translated into teaching and practice. His main focus is the Buddhist architecture and rituals of medieval China and Japan. Before joining NUS in 2017, Puay-peng was a professor of architecture and director of the School of Architecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He works as conservation consultant and architect in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Kevin Lam is senior curator of Chinese Art at the Asian Civilisations Museum. Before joining the museum he played a key role in launching Tai Kwun Contemporary in Hong Kong, and worked at the Hong Kong Palace Museum, where he oversaw the design and contemporary art galleries. In addition to painting and calligraphy, Kevin is interested in Chinese decorative arts and their connections with neighbouring cultures. He holds a PhD in art history from Northwestern University.
This seminar is organised in conjunction with the special exhibition
Pagoda Odyssey 1915: From Shanghai to San Francisco.
The ACM Conversations Lecture Series is generously sponsored by Dalio Philanthropies
