Abstract
From the seventeenth century onwards, the systematic discovery of the lands to the east of Europe gradually established the Orient as the subject matter of representation—of illustrated travel accounts, etchings, engravings, paintings and sketches. This needs to be seen as part of a larger historical episode which has installed representation as the principal construct of knowledge in Western culture. The Orient is thereby objectified into a form of discourse, as Edward Said has brilliantly shown us, as well as into a stereotypical image for consumption and a stylistic category in architecture. Through a critique of Orientalist constructs, this paper intends to draw attention to an alternative way of looking at the Orient: one that does not turn it into an independent, frozen reality outside the self-knowing subject, but instead, enters into its world, engages with it and employs representation as a critical/exploratory vehicle rather than an affirmative/expository one. It is in this sense that the experiential sketches and scribbles of Le Corbusier in his “Journey to the East” offer us some insight the implications of which are highly significant and relevant for the current architectural culture at large.
Published Version
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