Poy Gum Lee, AIA

CONSTRUCTING NEW YORK’S CHINATOWN, 1882-1965: TRANSNATIONAL POLITICS, IDENTITY, AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF POY GUM LEE

DOCTORAL THESIS

BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON

2023

This doctoral thesis narrates an architectural history of New York Chinatown and Chinese transnationalism in relation to the history of immigration legislation in America and the development of the modern Chinese nation-state, interweaving histories of immigrant experience and social organisation with an examination of their manifestations in built environment. Embedded within this larger history is a micro-history of Chinese American architect Poy Gum Lee (1900-1968), one of the central figures in the development of Chinese architecture in the Republican Era (1911-1949), who is placed at the centre of the inquiry into the representative power of buildings in both Republican China and post-war Chinatown. While architectural modernity in China has been well studied, Lee’s contributions to the development of modern Chinese architecture and architectural professionalism in Republican China have never been subject to detailed scholarly inquiry until now. Similarly, no work of scholarship to date has examined the evolution of New York Chinatown’s built environment, or Lee’s impact in the post-war era, in the context of Chinese nationalism and transnationalism. This thesis provides new historical, sociological and cultural insights on architectural developments in both China and New York’s Chinatown. It also offers the first in-depth study of Poy Gum Lee’s transnational life and architectural career.

Recipient of the Overseas Research Scholarship & Graduate Research Scholarship