In 2011, incoming Preservation Studies Program doctoral student Ying Xu traveled to China with students and faculty from UD's Center for Historic Architecture and Design to meet with the leadership of the Sichuan Province Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute (Chengdu) and the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City (Beijing). This past spring, UD representatives signed an agreement with these two institutions designed to foster collaboration in the fields of historic preservation, art and architectural history, anthropology, and history of craft technologies.
From the June 21, 2012 UDaily article by Fariba Amini:
These agreements were the result of discussions that began in 2008, during a conference on Tibetan art and archaeology held in Beijing. UD's Chandra Reedy, professor in the Center for Historic Architecture and Design (CHAD) and the School of Public Policy and Administration (SPPA) and a specialist in Tibetan art history who holds an appointment in the Palace Museum’s Research Center on Tibetan Buddhist Heritage, was intrigued by new discoveries reported by Wenhua Luo, a Palace Museum specialist in Tibetan paintings. In spring 2011, after a 10-day visit to potential research sites in China, Reedy along with CHAD Director David Ames, CHAD Associate Director Rebecca Sheppard, graduate student Leah Kacanda and a recent alumnus, Ying Xu, met in Chengdu with the leadership of the Sichuan Research Institute, following a brief meeting at the Palace Museum in Beijing. At the end of this meeting, UD representatives and their Chinese partners outlined a 10-year plan for joint research, field schools, workshops and publications. . . . As Reedy explains, “We will be working on joint projects for the preservation of historic towns in Sichuan, the study of temple and vernacular architecture of Sichuan, study of additional Tibetan temples and mural paintings found in Sichuan, study of intangible cultural heritage, and professional exchanges to discuss the similarities and differences in historic preservation theory and practice between China and the United States.” The students will be involved in all of the fieldwork projects to be done under the agreements. A periodic historic preservation field school will be run in Sichuan province, which will include both UD students and students from Sichuan University.
To read the full UDaily article, click here.
