THE REVERSAL OF BABEL

SCATTERED AGENCIES IN CHINATOWN

Manhattan’s Chinatown is the first foothold to the society of America for Chinese immigrants in New York. There is a type of people in Chinatown called the marginal men. They are the initial immigrants arriving America who have stayed in Chinatown until now. They have accepted the American culture, however they still carry a lot cultural baggage of their previous world.

Chinatown agencies have been struggling with their self-identification. However, they play a significant role in creating connection between Chinese culture and American culture.

I try to find symbols for each side to represent the cultures and combine them in an architectural way using collage method, which is a metaphor that two widely different culture can be brought together and create precious things for the future

The Tower of Babel narrative in Genesis is an myth meant to explain why the world's people speak different languages. Yahweh, confounds people's speech so that they can no longer understand each other, and scatters them around the world. The same condition occurs in Manhattan's Chinatown where many immigrants from China cannot speak English and find it hard to fit in American culture and society. Additionally, the agencies between them are scattered and chaotic.

In this project, I managed to create a high-rise building in Chinatown for intermediary agents, new immigrants and native Americans to communicate and interact. High-rise buildings have a natural sort of advantage of intergration, management and supervision since they are intensive and well regulated, there are good examples like hotels, apartments and office buildings. Using this type of space to solve the problem, the resources can be integrated as a whole which is easy to regulate and supervise. Besides, as a landmark, the building is easy to identify, and the interior space will be like a reversed tower, a metaphor that people from different races can combine with each other again.