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Learning Chinese: Walter A. Taylor, an American Architect in China (1923–27)

Burette, Stephanie

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Authors

Stephanie Burette



Abstract

The American architect Walter A. Taylor, who was an Episcopal missionary in China from 1923 to 1927, intended to ‘desig[n] churches and other buildings that were Chinese and belonged to China’. Taylor found himself at a crossroads, between Christian architecture in his home country, the USA, which was experiencing a time of transition, and the birth of the Chinese Republic and its strong rejection of Western hegemony. This article investigates how Taylor tried to undertake his task, where he found inspiration and what this indigenized architecture looked like. I argue that, although his work aimed at participating in the shift towards indigenization, it bore the signs of Chinese culture as seen through the eyes of a Westerner and imperialism.

Citation

Burette, S. (2022). Learning Chinese: Walter A. Taylor, an American Architect in China (1923–27). Journal of Anglican Studies, 20(1), 40-66. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1740355321000061

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date May 17, 2021
Publication Date 2022-05
Deposit Date Aug 13, 2021
Publicly Available Date Aug 13, 2021
Journal Journal of Anglican Studies
Print ISSN 1740-3553
Electronic ISSN 1745-5278
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 20
Issue 1
Pages 40-66
DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/s1740355321000061

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Published Journal Article (Advance online version) (1.4 Mb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Advance online version This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press




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