Freeman Yeang - contributed photos

The University of Technology's (UTech) Centre for the Arts and Caribbean School of Architecture will be hosting a symposium on Caribbean modernist architecture. From February 29 to March 1, practising architects, architectural historians, and curators from 14 different countries will make presentations on various aspects of art and modern architecture.

The symposium, the first ever Caribbean collaboration between UTech and the Museum of Modern Art will be held at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston.

Topics to be addressed include regional and international legacies, preservation, environmental sustainability, and urban planning as they relate to modernist architectural history and contemporary practice.

Three keynote speakers will lead off various segments of the programme, including Dr Ken Yeang, the internationally renowned Malaysian architect and writer, best known for developing environmental design solutions for high-rise buildings in the tropics, like Jamaica.

His firm, Llewlyn Davies Yeang, is the team of architects responsible for the Norman Manley International Airport, which is currently under renovation.

keynote speakers

Mexican architect and principal of the design firm, TEN Arquitectos of Mexico and New York, Mr Enrique Norten, will also share in the symposium as a keynote speaker; so will Professor Epsy Campbell-Barr, human rights activist and economist from Costa Rica, who will speak to the subject of architecture within the context of one's living space and the impact it has on our emotional, physical and spiritual balance.

The goal of the symposium is to encourage scholarly, curatorial, and broader educational awareness of modernist architecture in the Caribbean and to assess the lessons for contemporary practice from this architectural heritage.

Additionally, the symposium and related video documentation will provide useful research resources for future exhibitions and publications on the topic.

For full details on how to participate, please visit our website at www.utechjamaica.edu.jm/moma-utech.

Dr Yeang's work.