Placing nothingness: An investigation of cross-cultural philosophical encounters centred on the architecture of courtyards

Nothingness or void is a key concept in East Asian philosophy. For the ancient Chinese it permeated every aspect of culture and was integral with senses of being rather than a quality antithetical to being as such. Key in this study is the manner through which traditional Chinese courtyard architecture is similarly a bearer of nothingness or void, a quality shown in the heightened concern with a harmonious interplay between solid and void, and this harmonious interaction is more specifically reflected in rhythm and ambiguity. While this interplay in China across many centuries has linked the intimacy of traditional dwelling with a remote immensity indicative of nature, contemporary urbanization has seen an abandonment of this crucial interplay. As such, this research asks, firstly, in what ways nothingness can be seen as a crucial dimension defining courtyard dwelling, and secondly, how this dimension might further find contemporary urban application? To understand how nothingness can be grasped in the Chinese context, a comparative approach is employed to better importune from void a potential role in contemporary urban China. Francois Jullien’s thought helps to outline the uniqueness of eastern nothingness by comparing it with western philosophy. Heidegger’s ideas of ‘clearing’, ‘openness’ and ‘gathering’ have a special resonance with eastern nothingness and underpin his appeal to fourfold presence. For Merleau-Ponty, corporeality entails a complex and ambiguous interplay with environments, while his later development of an ontology of ‘flesh’ in The Visible and Invisible (Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968), and its intertwining or chiasmic weaving of differences into unity is strongly suggestive of eastern quests for a harmonious play of the perceptible and the imperceptible (Jullien, 2022). To bring this comparative resighting back into architectural consideration, an investigation of three case studies of recent urban architectural projects is undertaken to better grasp how a reworking of courtyard sensibilities may begin to find place in city-scaled contexts. Via these case studies and a broader grasp of links between courtyard architecture and aesthetic and philosophical deployments of nothingness, the research aims to identify ways in which urban environments in China may provide richer senses of inhabitation.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Architecture

Grantor dc:publisher

ResearchSpace@Auckland

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Liu, Xiaoli

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Douglas, Andrew

Statement dc:rights

• Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2292/72981

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:researchspace.auckland.ac.nz:2292/72981