Kirjahaku

Manila, 1645 reconstructs what the city of Manila was like before the earthquakes of the mid-seventeenth century.The book demonstrates the importance of addressing the history of Southeast Asia as a multi-layered framework, rather than a series of entangled histories. In doing so, Manila is contextualized not merely as a Spanish settlement connected to New Spain via America, but instead within Southeast Asia, situated between the Chinese and the Sulú Seas, and located in the centre of commercial routes used by Armenian, Dutch, and Portuguese traders. This historical and geographical context is crucial to understanding later cultural dialogues. Urban planning, housing and architecture, and social networks in the city are also examined. The book will appeal to students and scholars interested in early modern history, global history and architectural history.

Manila, 1645 reconstructs what the city of Manila was like before the earthquakes of the mid-seventeenth century.The book demonstrates the importance of addressing the history of Southeast Asia as a multi-layered framework, rather than a series of entangled histories. In doing so, Manila is contextualized not merely as a Spanish settlement connected to New Spain via America, but instead within Southeast Asia, situated between the Chinese and the Sulú Seas, and located in the centre of commercial routes used by Armenian, Dutch, and Portuguese traders. This historical and geographical context is crucial to understanding later cultural dialogues. Urban planning, housing and architecture, and social networks in the city are also examined. The book will appeal to students and scholars interested in early modern history, global history and architectural history.

This book reinterprets architecture in Beijing during the reigns of the Kangxi (1661-1722), Yongzheng (1723-1735) and Qianlong (1736-1795) emperors in the eighteenth century. More specifically, it views the building processes of the four churches and the Western palaces in the Yuánmíng Yuán garden as an example of cultural dialogue in the context of the Enlightenment. The study is based firstly on archival sources from different institutions from around the globe, using Big Data to manage them. Secondly, it places increased emphasis on architectural remains, preserved both in international collections as well as at archaeological sites. To take advantage of these remains, some were recorded using close-range photogrammetry. Digital sunlight analyses of the buildings’ interiors were also carried out. From these emerging technologies, as well as written sources, it becomes possible first to reinterpret Beijing as an imperial capital where religious tolerance and cosmopolitanism were increasing, and second to re-evaluate the entire Yuánmíng Yuán Garden complex as a miniature version of Beijing. This approach makes for easier subsequent comparisons with other imperial capitals of the time, such as London, Paris and Istanbul. As such, this study reveals a largely neglected chapter in the global history of architecture, while simultaneously offering a crucial re-examination of the existing architectural remains.

This book aims to give a new perspective on the architecture and its global reference developed in Manila during the Iberian Union (1580–1640). More specifically, it focuses on the building processes of convents inside Intramuros, including the structures built by the same religious provinces in Mexico. The research is based both on the review of new archival sources from around the world and on fieldwork at the construction remains in Manila, concluding that, for the various traditions significantly contributing to its architecture, the city must be considered as an example of global hybridization during this period. The convents of Manila are not just a marginal consequence of the New Spanish traditions but a phenomenon of globalization, part of Philippine history.