Unfolding the form from within: East and Southeast urban Asia, its postcolonial condition, and its ephemeral architectural “displayness”

ABSTRACT This paper attempts to coin a term “displayness” to emphasis the internal form of spatiotemporal display. In contemporary Asia, its displayness is argued to be the critical dynamics. Noticeably, this displayness implies a postcolonial perspective to question contemporary Asia’s complicated built heteroglossia. In other words, due to the inescapable marriage between the external cultural politics and the local essence, the Asian built environment showcases not only a binary identification of these two forces but also an emergent new identity in between, which, arguably, is identifiable of being urban Asian. The commercial exhibitions temporarily built along or within major shopping centres are the examples. This paper intends to face and analyse these temporary and seemingly superficial built objects as representations of the registered historicity of contemporary Asia. This paper analyses selected cases of temporary commercial exhibitions in Singapore and Taiwan which reflect the economic-political intervention into the Asian built environment, both as architectural landmarks and from the collective sense of urbanism. As a methodology, the architectural manifestations delivered as a form of understanding are analysed from the assistance of these temporal exhibitions’ ephemeral character, and this form is argued as a display of contemporary Asia’s postcoloniality reflected through its built historicity.


Introduction
This paper examines the built environment in contemporary urban Southeast and East Asia from a postcolonial perspective. As a methodological design, the notion of "displayness" which emphasises an internal form of architectural display is argued to analyse the contemporary Asian built environment in which the visual and formalistic representation has conspicuous impact from external culture-political forces. In this sense, the displayed identity construction of the built environment in contemporary Asia shows the absence of its past and possible future into the present. It is my argument that the notion of displayness suggests the critical dynamic of contemporary Asia that potentially is able to unfold this identity dilemma which is trapped into a binary approach that only sees architecture and urbanism from either a genius locus or the zeitgeist. This conventional but Eurocentric method explains architecture and urbanism mainly from a position of being the authorities, or, a coloniser's position in a broader context of colonialism in an age of globalism, in a relationship of domination to suggest the identification of a place at a certain moment. As examples, the spatial application of tropicality that kicked off the architectural development in most former colonies in Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia as a form of the colonial modernity stands for the former instance, and the Eiffel Tower that showcases steel as a new material that represented the nineteenth century Industrial Revolution in Europe supports one viewpoint of the zeitgeist. However, this approach reveals a state of problematic when it is applied to an Asian built context which its postcolonial condition suggests various processes of cultural-political hybridisation (Lin 2017, 7). This problematic situation happens when an intersubjective form of an antinomy is detected from the display of Asia's spatiality. For example, the iconic local buildings in Asia often are exotic showing cultural-political intervention from the contexts outside Asia, and the very secular and authentic urbanism and built objects are often also rooted in foreign culture. That is to say, in Asia often the formalistic non-native is recognised as the native -this can be regarded as a form of Asia's postcoloniality resulted from the characteristic hybridisation and implies an emergent new identity that brings together the native and external features into a subtle alternative.
Architectural form, from a conventional perspective, implies the influence of collective values upon individual subjectivity of the designers. Suggested by Mark Gelernter, in current scholarship, dominant Eurocentric theories about the source of architectural form were developed mostly to help govern architectural practice; vice versa, much practice subsequently derived from these theories (Gelernter 1995). In other words, the theorisations for generating and legitimising architectural form by no means are built upon nothing but rather inherited from their cultures, attitudes, methods and even philosophies that shaped the ideas about the source of form. Amongst all, some of these theorisations of architectural forms take ideas from the theories of knowledge or epistemology, with which they were contemporary; some borrow from epistemology, especially from conceptions of subjectivity and its processes; and some react against their society's dominant conception of knowledge. This intrinsic essence of architectural form, therefore, provides insight into some typical and traceable starting points of architectural form.
First, architectural form comes from its considered function. That is to say, theorisations that echo this perspective believe the ideal form is already potentially taken in the knowledge about demands, environmental conditions, social values, so on and so forth. Christopher Alexander's argument that homologises the built form and science with a view avoiding preconceptions but gathering objective certainties about involved issues and problems can be an example (Alexander 1974). Second, architectural form is created within the innovative power. To rephase this, a built form is originated within the inner resourcefulness or intuitiveness of individuals. As an example, Robert Venturi's contention of "modern mannerism" based on his reinterpretation of the method characteristic of the late Renaissance to formulate the philosophy of postmodernism in architecture can be regarded as one such theorisation (Venturi 1977). Third, architectural form is in some aspects related to the prevailing zeitgeist. In other words, every age has a certain spirit, or a set of participatory viewpoints, which passes through all its socio-cultural and political actions and gives a specific mark on its expressive formations. Nikolaus Pevsner's argument of modern design that dismisses the continuity of classical design methodologies is based on this type of theorisation by centralising an emerging twentieth century architectural "spirit" (Pevsner 1974). Architectural form also in some aspects is related to the general socio-economic conditions, but dissimilar to what the zeitgeist causes, the influence of this interrelation is more to material conditions that can be more directly sensed in immediacy. Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin who proposes Gothic architecture as the representation of Catholicism in Contrasts (Pugin 1841) to systemise the nineteenth century urban chaos in Europe imposed by the consequences of the Industrial Revolution can be regarded as a typical example. Lastly, architectural form in a large number of traceable references suggests a source coming from timeless principles that transcend specific individuals, cultures and geostrategic conditions. The orders regulated by the classical language of Western architecture certainly belongs to this type of theorisation; however, in modern design theories that have attempts to shape universal principles of abstract visual form, such as rhythm, scale, contrast or colour, continue the development of such philosophy (Garrett 1967). Arguably, Le Corbusier's modernist work Toward an Architecture provides a standpoint based on this direction of form generation by looking at the traces/inspirations of the "regulating lines" (Corbusier 1923) which is an alternative of the form/function dichotomy usually analysed between the classical and modern languages of architecture. In contemporary scholarship, although the scope and centres of discoursing architectural form's sources have already made a breakthrough of the West/Eurocentric boundaries but addressed the global geopolitics, the consensual idea of form's production still implies that all individual efforts fall under the collective influence of shared forces. Clearly, theorisations about form today register more complicated matters and, in most scenarios, suggest indirect even interweaving involvement with the above-mentioned standpoints. The antinomy detected from the display of Asia's urban spatiality, which I contend in this paper, presents a representation of such sophistication.
The constructions for commercial exhibitions temporarily built along or within major shopping areas in Asian city centres can be the exemplars of such antinomic phenomena. Normally, these commercial spaces are placed as forms of dynamic anxieties and conflicts that in the end would come towards stability. The anxieties refer to the worship and mimicry of the globalist fashion, and the conflicts illustrate the absence of such fashion domestically in a context of urban Asiathese two concerns suggest the admittance to the impact from globalisation, and the imagery stays as being exotic while these commercial spaces are continuously built and rebuilt. However, it is my argument that these spaces identify, in a postcolonial sense, flowing and complicated phenomena of Asia's contemporary and immediate historicity and can be regarded as the registered postcoloniality of contemporary urban Asia. In order to elaborate this argumentation, in this paper I analyse particular cases of temporary built objects which reflect the economic-political intervention into the contemporary Southeast and East urban Asian built environment, both as architectural landmarks and from the collective sense of urbanism. These empirical cases are strategically selected from Singapore and Taiwan where spatial and culturalpolitical identity constructions are influenced seriously by external forces, and the discussion is unfolded in terms of representation, epistemology and power/ knowledge manipulation.

The notion of displayness
In museological terms, display is a notion that integrates spectacle and exhibition. As a sign that showcases certain issues, spectacle linguistically represents more to the signifier which is the form of the essence, whereas exhibition has the implication towards the signified which indicates the meaning. Display, however, suggests both, as it underscores both instrumentality and ideology. 1 Provided by Ellis Burcaw, the definition of display registers an intention of not only presenting objects to the viewers but also one of arising interest from the objects that attracts viewers' attention (Burcaw 1997, 15). That is to say, these terms share a similar context literally but are different in degrees involved in the fact of implementing demonstration. This study extends the idea of display and uses the term "displayness" to highlight the quality of architectural display in a particular time-space situation of Asia. In other words, displayness is a notion used to highlight "Asianness" from the built environment in contemporary Asia in terms of the ideological identity construction that is visually reified to the public.
In this sense, the notion of displayness shares the basic premises of noticeable display but extends the implication to a broader context of architecture and urbanism. As Burcaw suggests, the premises at least should include: one, the attraction of viewers' interest in the targeted object; two, the authority of the targeted object's authenticity; three, the providence of the targeted object's value; and four, a consensual form of reception in showing the targeted object (Burcaw 1997, 30). It is my argument that displayness registers this implication to characterise Asian architecture and urbanism which is different to the Western model. The Asian displayness hence is argued to: one, attract the public and create the perception of Asianness; two, authorise the Asian historicity to be registered in architecture; three, expose the exchange and symbolic value of architecture being "Asian"; and four, confirm the acknowledgement of Asian architecture without the dispositif of it as the Other in relationship to the dominant epistemology of Eurocentric architectural discipline. This argumentation is based on a postcolonial methodology that, in order to subjectify the Other, the dominant subject that shapes this Other should not be totally rejected but admitted. That is to say, in order to identify Asian architecture along with its postcolonial condition, to accept the acknowledgement of architecture as a discipline is a product of Western intellectualism is necessary and essential rather than to radically force the ignorance and rejection in order to create a new context and knowledge basis. This acknowledgement, to a certain extent, is the platform for contemporary Asian architecture to activate the subjectivation in respondence to the postcolonial condition that Western architectural knowledge has inescapably involved.

The postcolonial condition of contemporary urban Asia
Contemporary Asia, observed from its urban built environment, has registered a postcolonial concern with the subject position when architecture is regarded as a form of historiography. In recent decades, the rise of Asia has been phenomenal, which its political, economic and cultural involvement in a worldwide context shares the critical inquiry into the cultural-political analysis of colonialism since colonial regimes began to topple after World War II (Tyson 2006, 418). As a particular part that identifies Asia, this postcoloniality is both a subject matter and a theoretical framework. That is to say, the rise of Asia emphasises not only the change of subject position of Asia from the otherness to selfness that suggests a noticeable process of subjectivation (Lin 2015, 62-93) but also how the notion of "Asia" performs in a relationship of domination to suggest a broader interplay between control and resistance.
In terms of being a subject matter, the postcolonial condition of contemporary Asia is clear. The subjectivation implies an Asian centred discourse against Eurocentrism and universalisation. Architecturally, this intention is suggestive of the application of critical regionalism that was proposed by Frampton (1983aFrampton ( , 1983b The exposure of certain Orientalist 2 production of ideology by the local architects, the Singaporean architect William Lim's criticism against the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas's power/knowledge projection about Singapore as a place with no history and as a field of tabula rasa (Koolhaas, Mau, and Sigler 1995) is an example. In terms of the being as a theoretical framework, however, the postcolonial condition becomes subtle and sometimes antinomic. In other words, the representation of control and resistance in Asia is in circumstances of being either role or even showing both. The main reason still goes to the phenomenal rise of Asia itself, as Asia that used to be regarded as being belonging to the side of the colonised nowadays has gained itself the empowerment of playing a role as a kind of coloniser, cultural-politically and economically, participating in the trend of globalisation.
That is to say, Asia nowadays, through the awareness of the postcolonial condition, is characterised by playing both a role of generalising resistance against former and external "Western" forces' colonisation and a role of the opposite -the one that performs colonial deeds, externally or internally, to control over the worldwide context. Architecturally, the so-called control and resistance hence are interchangeable once the involvement of form, modernity and cultural tradition is examined as a point of contact. Theoretically, if the notion of critical regionalism is borrowed as a standpoint, the impact of the International Style and the universal penetration of modernity represent the control globally over Asia, whereas the careful mediation and moderation done between this controlling imposition and the persistency in regional built tradition represent the opposite. However, this deduction that binarily divides the built textualities in an Asian context into two parts, which echoes Said in the notion of Orientalism sorting scenarios clearly into the side of a coloniser and the one of the colonised, becomes problematic. As evidence, the Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman's Rubber Duck urban installation art which was displayed in Kaohsiung harbour, Taiwan, in 2014 ( Figure 1) can be an example that both the internationalism and the highlight of Kaohsiung's maritime regional character emphasised by the Duck played the role of the coloniser in different hierarchical positions but, visually, the subject "Kaohsiung" was ideologically absent and became problematic which it was supposed to be identified as a "colonised" that was subject to the visually centralised and ideologically internationalised imagery of the Duck. That is to say, the colony character of Kaohsiung's maritime culture and the externally introduced image, the Duck, which implied internationalisation/universalisation as a matter of fact form a relationship of conspiracy to suggest deeds of colonisation to the "native" built environment of Kaohsiung.
As Homi Bhabha suggests, "colonial mimicry is the desire for a reformed, recognisable Other, as a subject of difference that is almost the same, but not quite" (Bhabha 1994, 84); the act of mimicry actually creates a new cultural entity which belongs neither to the side of the coloniser nor to the colonised. Hybridity is an inevitable scenario once two different cultural forces encounter in one same context, and mimicry is an act that Bhabha, inspired by Ashis Nandy's notion of the colonial culture that is reciprocally formed through a process of ideological, signature and regulating learning Nandy (1983), argues as one possible key change during the process of hybridisation. In other words, this scenario suggests that the postcolonial condition in contemporary Asia sometimes cannot be fully comprehensive if the examination is performed from a binary perspective.
In this sense, the registration of modernity is converted into colonial modernity that can be considered as a form of repositioning the subject of Asia, and the use of regional built tradition is also converted as an emanant gesture of displaying this repositioned subject construction. For example, in the modern Japanese built environment, the Giyofu (擬洋風建築, ぎようふうけんちく) 3 which is widely regarded as applying mimicry of Western architectural languages nowadays interestingly displays a unique and strong sense of Japaneseness -the imperfect presentation of modernity or the compromise of it hybridising traditional Japanese built details becomes a third identity construction of modern Japanese architecture from the essence of the style itself avoiding choosing either end of the colonisation spectrum. Inevitably, this postcolonial condition of urban Asia shows a colony character that redefines the conventional and binary viewpoint in architecture. This alternative and emerging character of the contemporary built environment in Asia can be called as 'colony architecture' 4 or be argued as showcasing a sense of the Asian displayness.

The commercial exhibitions
In recent years, there is a type of temporary commercial exhibition which has been popular amongst a good variety of commercial brands across areas of high-end products, popular cultural and fashionable products as well as quotidian necessities. This type of commercial exhibition, arguably, was led by the showcase of the Apple company's flagship stores across the world. Mostly in a permanent setting, the Apple flagship stores have drawn the public attention based on the refreshing form of the stores when compared to the surrounding built objects in order to highlight the branding and the special quality of Apple itself. The exhibition itself hence does not only showcase the building itself but also converts the building into a transparent "container" that cabinets the selling products inside as the subject to be exhibited. This type of commercial exhibition, which uses this strategy, when it is mimicked and placed temporally in an Asian context, however, demonstrates a hint at contemporary Asian metropolitan architecture's mediation and moderation between anxieties about identity construction and the impact from external cultural-political forces.
It is my argument that contemporary Asian architecture represents a spatial platform that a good variety of architectural ideas are placed together heterglossically showing the multiplicity of contemporary Asia's postcoloniality. Not as simply as the idea of eclecticism suggested in a broader context of architecture, the inter-marriage amongst different architectural thoughts that reflects in contemporary urban Asian architecture, I argue, has involved complicated postcolonial hybridisation which can be physically resulted in different degrees in terms of the subject(s)-object(s) interaction, resulted consequences and involved psychological willingness. 5 In other words, built works that in this circumstance usually not only shows eclecticism from the surface but sometimes suggests semiotic or postmodernist exaggeration through a sense of ideology manipulation. Particularly, taking the typology of the shopping centre as an example, the stylistic representation often is clearly internationalist or revivalist -the postmodernist intention of emphasising certain essence of high culture or the globalist trend is clear. The venues of the temporary commercial exhibitions in which their constructions usually are located in the front plaza or the central atrium become the foreground of this built complexity. The exhibition that borrows a simplistic form suggested by the Apple flagship stores, hence, becomes a form of heterotopia that reflects and mediates the identity struggle and the competition with the global fashion (Figures 2 and 3). 4 Colony Architecture is a notion that I propose to unfold the complexity of Asian architecture which is driven by a broad colony character that holds positions across imperial colonisation and globalism. Colony architecture hence has an intention to be differentiated from colonial architecture used in current scholarship. More information can be sourced in Lin (2017, 101-137). 5 The results of hybridisation in a postcolonial context can be different in terms of the involved degrees and modes, e.g., types such as diaspora and creolisation are two obviously different results of hybridisation. More information about different types of postcolonial hybridisation can be sourced in Lin (2017, 71-100).
The cases in Singapore and Taiwan, where the locations of two branded and temporary commercial exhibitions are in front of known shopping centres in the most popular shopping districts (the Orchard Road Area in Singapore and the East area of Taipei city in Taiwan respectively), both show a clear contrast in style either between a revivalist form and a simplistic form or between an internationalist form and an iconic branded image. In either case, the temporary constructions utilise the ideology of instrumentality and the brand image to highlight the space without any further architectural members, the built imagery is seemingly and relatively "neutral" when compared to the complicated background. The combination of the two built images can be regarded as a "decorated shed" argued by Venturi, Izenour, and Brown (1977) the only difference is that the pure and geometric built mass in the contemporary Asian cases represents the frontality instead. Venturi argues that in a postmodernist manner signs and décor can be added to denote the purpose of architecture; whereas, I argue, these constructions of commercial exhibitions are added in a postcolonial manner to phenomenologically 'bracket' 6 the historicity. The historicity of Asia is normally complicated and unclear when it is examined by a view of Western intellectualism that does not accurately fit into the Asian scenarios; the "bracketing" phenomenon, however, helps unveil the surfaced complexity and reveal the essence of the historical authenticity.

Registered Asian historicity
The spatial displayness implied by the temporary commercial exhibitions hence suggests the registration of Asia's historicity in different urban localities. This specific typology here is used to open thinking to a much broader set of issues which identifies the historical tension produced by Western intervention historically in Asia to deconstruct the duality, contradictions, complexities, and a potential hybridity between Western notions of space and their applicability to the contemporary urban Asian built environment. Most importantly, the postcolonial perspective suggested by the examination provides alternative and useful insight into mapping Asia's cultural-political identity which the current state still shows not only a veiled but also an on-going and floating status.

Singapore
The notion of historicity, in a simple way, refers to the present representation of historical authenticity. The historicity observed from different geographic entities therefore hints at the essential composition that comprises the variety of identity construction. In Singapore, as a city-state, the density of its population and the limited space are the premises that the Singaporean built environment is conditioned. As a top-down strategy, a void philosophy (Goh 2005) has been enacted to reify the open market economy that demands not only spatial transparency but also spatial flexibility. In this sense, a seemingly "neutral" void 7 which is flexible in different time periods on different occasions to accommodate multi-functional and multi-cultural activities implies the basic historicity that the temporary commercial exhibitions can be observed in Singapore (Figure 4).
The Promontory at Marina Bay, for example, is one of the city-state's favourite outdoor sites as it is located in the heart of Singapore's prosperous financial hub and is surrounded by water and gardens. This site is a greenfield opened to the public as a basic function, whereas it is often used as a site for temporary commercial exhibitions such as the carnival for festival occasions. The spatial displayness created by these temporary constructions for exhibitions and the character of the site, even though they are varied in terms of purposes and contents, have echoed the void philosophy as this city-state's postcolonial historicity that strives for being sustainable in a context of the inevitable open-market environment. To a certain extent, this seemingly "neutral" imagery of being voided shows a unique construction of Singapore's contemporary representation of nation-building, which is not neutral at all but a reification of the state apparatus.

Taiwan
Taiwan's current state of its cultural politics in space, when compared to the historicity shown in Singapore, is characterised by a form of in-between-ness due to the arduous cultural-political competition with China (Lin 2015, 40-61). This situation, as the representation of Taiwan's spatial postcoloniality, has caused a chronic struggle with identity construction. In addition, very similar to Singapore which geographically is independent and individual yet cultural-racially implies sophisticated multiplicity, Taiwan's nation-building through architecture is always veiled by a good variety of impacting issues, such as the postcolonial modernity brought externally from the imperial period to the present globalist age, and hence architecture often displays images of either internationalism or instrumentalism ( Figure 5).
The High-Speech-Rail Tsoying Station in Kaohsiung is one conspicuous example that a building becomes a landmark and helps identify the locality of the adjacent neighbourhood because of the registered images of technology and instrumentality to the building. The temporary commercial exhibition displayed inside the waiting hall, interestingly, becomes the main source that the station can be culturally and geopolitically traced. These commercial exhibitions similarly adopted the simple, temporary and transparent built form but the software that installed into the constructions becomes very staring in terms of the implied senses of tradition, culture, localities and humanism. Arguably, to a certain extent, it is due to these constructions for commercial exhibitions, the identification of the station from the waiting hall can be differentiated from those known high-speed railway stations mapped in Europe.

The implied Asian displayness
Through the cases analysed above within an Asian urban built context, it is my argument that the urban built environment in Southeast and East Asia today has implied a unique sign of urbanism that can be regarded as the Asian displayness. This architectural sign of Asia, arguably, is enlarged and hence becoming increasingly noticeable due to the representation of its implied form and meaning. As a semiotic idea, Ferdinand de Saussure proposed a way of unfolding sign to be more understandable into two sides: one is called the signifier and the other is called the signified (de Saussure 2011). According to Saussure, the signifier refers to the sound-image of a sign, whereas the signified alludes to the concept of a sign. The sound-image is surfaced and visible, it thus suggests the external appearance of a sign; while the concept is internal and abstract, it hence hints at the meaning of a sign. To follow this logic, the Asian displayness as an architectural sign of Asia showcases a form of Asia both from its external appearance and internal essence. The appearance usually is visible and more approachable; whereas the essence is considered being more authentic and reflecting more meaningfully the entity, although it has commonly the difficulty of decoding its registered abstractness.
Through this methodological unfolding, a discursive perspective made from a comparative examination of contemporary urban Asia's built environment and Asia's postcolonial condition is argued here as a strategy that is able to trace the internal essence of the Asian displayness and further to regard it as a form from within. Architecture and the postcolonial condition of Asia have the capacity to help do so because that both suggest a phenomenal conversion that formalistically embodies the internal essence in their visual and ideological representation. Architecture, of course, has a good deal of definitions; it, however, is inevitable to be interrelated with human beings and the reflection of human thoughts. To reveal this form of consensus, Norman Foster has suggested that "Architecture is an expression of values -the way we build is a reflection of the way we live" (Rosenfield); that is to say, architecture reifies human thoughts about values and living styles as tangible built objects. The postcoloniality, from a different area of academic discipline, is particularly defined as a platform of helping people see connections amongst all the domains of our experience -the term postcolonial showcases an emphasis of the flowing relationship of domination to suggest a broader interplay between a coloniser and the colonised (Tyson 2006, 417-449). The postcolonial condition of contemporary Asia reminds people that the phenomenal rise of Asia from an imperial gesture that attempted to reposition Asia's status in an Eurocentric context, such as Japan's ambitious outlook on the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (大東亜 共栄圏, だいとうあきょうえいけん) in the 1940s, to the participation in a global context being as a powerful and unique political-economic body, such as the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), has gradually reified the ideological subjectivation in different aspects. Similarly, the idea of the Asian displayness shares the homology with these discursive products that make the internal essence be traceable and examinable.
The implied Asian displayness hence suggests two indicators that meaningfully help identify the built environment in contemporary Asia, especially within the metropolitan areas (Figures 6 and 7). First, through the simplistic and transparent spatial definition of the exhibitions, the surroundings which comprise complicated built elements and with high reception of architectural styles that entitled to be "Asian" can be integrated and be associated with a centre. This centre functions not tangibly but ideologically; most importantly, this centre provides an approachable space that various Asian elements can be placed and sorted out without being misunderstood as disorder. Second, through the direct mimicry of the exhibitions from the specific imagery, such as a brand, a locality or a form of tradition, the visual surface that reflects the impact from the internationalism and Western intellectualism can be mediated, moderated and deconstructed to the relocated disposition of its original cultural-political location. The notion of "Asian" hence begins to be meaningful and indicative rather than being shaped as a superficial umbrella term. In this sense, the inductive analysis of this study by theorising Asia in order to both integrate and remind the heterogeneity that exists in individual Asian entities (including various Asian countries, regions, cultures, religious, races and political-economic scenarios) arguably becomes a contributory piece in studies of Asian architectural historiography and theorisation.

Conclusion: a form from within
The Asian displayness argued in this paper, exemplified by the temporary commercial exhibitions as one visual representation, therefore functions as a rather abstract form of mediation and moderation that communicates and articulates a good variety of Asia's visual built representations which cannot and often  failed to be comprehended by a dominant but Westoriented epistemological system of architecture. This epistemological failure often is accused from a standpoint of seeing the state of contemporary Asian built environment as a space of disorder and underdevelopment based on the Western logic of planning and design principles; it is also frequently accused by a mindset that determines Asia as a neutral geographic term and that the heterogeneity of individual Asian entities within this regional context is represented in multiplicity which cannot be and never will be integrated in an analytical system as a whole. As a central argument here in the paper, however, the Asian displayness attempts to contour an abstract and untouchable form coming from the essence of architecture, which regulates the understanding of the contemporary Asian built environment; and it showcases the quality of Asian architectural manifestations to the general public ideologically rather than physically. The above-analysed empirical cases as well as scenarios, therefore, can be integrally explained through the difference between a typical West-oriented epistemological model of communicating architectural form to a broader relationship between a so-called addresser and the addressee (Type A) and an Asian mutation (Type B) under the argument of this paper (Figure 8).
In a typical model, an addresser and the addressee are regulated binarily by a subject-object relationship, and, no matter whether the knowledge system is represented tangibly or intangibly, it plays mainly as a contextual platform. Through a complex of such combination, architectural manifestations of contexts, messages, different media and even codes are delivered by the addresser, who acts as the subject (S), to the addressee, who is addressed as the object (O). In this mode, architectural form is a direct bridge between the subject and the object. However, in the Asian mutation, it is my argument that the intangible knowledge system, in a way, is dissimilar to the tangible and material platform becoming an ideological barrier between an addresser and the addressee, and this ideological intervention shapes a potential form of intersubjectivity that empowers the addressee as also the subject. As a consequence, the conspiracy argued in the beginning of the analysis is framed. Through this building of conspiracy, the object is represented through rather intangible manifestations, and with the concentration of the intangible knowledge system, the communication between an addresser and the addressee is built upon a form from within, which is the displayness I have argued in this study.
This difference made from the typical model to the Asian mutation can be further elaborated as the analytical integration of the empirical cases and scenarios mentioned above. First, because of the postcolonial condition imposed ideologically into the urban Asian built environment, the once dualistic relationship between a coloniser and the colonised becomes problematic, as the process of colonisation now implies not only colonial subordination but also anticolonial subjectivation. This change explains why the international imagery (the Duck) works with the local maritime characteristics to form the native Kaohsiung-ness. Second, because the formalistic external symbolism (the postmodern patterns of architectural methods registered in the Ngee Ann City shopping centre and the SOGO shopping centre) is phenomenologically bracketed by an intangible void form (the Samsung and Tiffany commercial exhibitions), the direct and material information sent by the postmodern patterns further display the absence of the native-ness (the Asianness), which, by contrast, its being as a form of contemporary Asia's postcoloniality is reminded and Figure 8. Two epistemological models of communicating architectural form to addressers and addressees (Source: the author).
magnified. Third, the void imagery emerges from the previous observation which is reified through the cases of temporal commercial exhibitions, such as the multifunctional usage of the Promontory and the unfixed settlement of the commercial exhibition booths built inside the HSR Tsoying Station, underscores the ephemeral character of such form from within, which is indirect, dynamic and unstable when compared to the permanent and material form manifested. Finally, although this ephemeral character of the void image is seemingly neutralised by the global and timely fashion of simpleness, such as the building frame built inside the Scotts Square, the strategic mimicry suggested by Bhabha's argument, such as the Southeast Asian hawker reconstruction in the food court of the Universal Studio, exposes the resistant and reactive intention of Asian subjectivation. As a consequence, this form emerged from within speaks for the intangible yet sensible Asian architectural displayness.
In a different context of the power and knowledge interaction, the Asian displayness implied by these constructions for commercial exhibitions registers a sense of intersubjectivity that Michel Foucault argues in Discipline and Punish. Foucault argues that, exemplified by the Panopticon, the idea of spectacle can be suggestive to an ideology of surveillance (Foucault 1991). In the case of contending contemporary Asia's spatial displayness, the spectacle of the temporary commercial exhibitions analysed in this paper also is suggestive of an ideology of surveillance, this sense of surveillance is formed by the seemingly "neutral" simplicity and transparency of those temporary and commercial constructions. This implied form from within, arguably, is able to phenomenologically bracket the complicated and veiled representation of the state of contemporary urban Asian architecture that its identity construction is covered and marginalised by such a clear and powerful image showing the Westerncentric essence of the trend of modernisation and internationalisation. It is also able to mediate and moderate this anxiety about identity construction that competes against the internationalist-built fashion from a postcolonial perspective that focuses on the flowing roles of a coloniser and the colonised in a broader relationship of colonisation, or, power/ knowledge manipulation conducted in contemporary Asia and its urban built environment. As a conclusion and reemphasis of the central argument of this paper, this relatively internal, abstract but pure form suggested by the temporary commercial exhibitions helps further unfold the understanding the current state of urban Southeast and East Asian architecture's contemporary identification process which often is misunderstood as disorder and underdevelopment but essentially is "original and yet untheorised" form of culture (Abbas 1997, 7). Although often these temporary and commercial built objects observed in the contemporary urban built environment in Asia are associated with issues of informality, profit-driven instrumentality and placeless building types, it is the intention of this study that positions from an angle of seeing Asia's postcolonial condition, these built objects' hidden meanings to contemporary architecture that registers unique Asian historicity can be revealed in the theorisation and subjectivation of Asian architecture without being treated as the Other of the West but as a subject in good standing of a global context.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor
Dr. Francis Chia-Hui Lin is an architectural historian, theoretician and curator. He is currently an assistant professor at National Taiwan University. His areas of expertise lie in the critical discourse on architecture and urbanism within a wider framework of history and theory. Amongst his interests, a particular focus is examining the immediate historicity of postcoloniality in the Asia Pacific region that is resulted from the inescapable marriage with the prevailing Western epistemology. He publishes and reviews academic works in cross-national and transdisciplinary communities. His books include Heteroglossic Asia (2015), Architectural Theorisations and Phenomena in Asia (2017) and The Postcolonial Condition of Architecture in Asia (2022). In 2019, Francis was awarded the Ta-You Wu Memorial Award-the outstanding research award for young researchers in Taiwan.