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This paper examines the modernization of Thai architecture through the establishment of Thailand’s first architecture school, its curriculum, its architecture, and the pivotal role of the first generation of Thai architecture professors, who had been educated in England and France. It demonstrates how the establishment of the Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, stemmed from the Siamese government’s growing nationalism that aimed to end foreign domination in both Siam’s construction industry and international diplomacy. The process, however, involved the adoption of a western curriculum — which was considered modern — and adapting it to be more Thai for nationalist purposes. This also required support by employing a foreign professor in architecture: Lucien Coppé, a Belgian architect who was responsible for both upgrading the school’s curriculum and the design of its first permanent building in 1938. Furthermore, some aspects of the western curriculum were not intended to be adapted but were hybridized due to the constraints of the modernizing nation. The establishment and construction of the Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University, are examples of how art, science, and education were intertwined in both national and global politics in the 1930s.

The study develops a new perspective on the historiography of architecture and technology of China based on engineering sources, laboratory methods and fieldwork. It argues that China's move towards modern ceramics involved a paradigmatic shift between two systems of knowledge from the 1840s, and that new construction activities induced the modern move. The article engages Shanghai's heyday of high-rise buildings and elaborates the Manufacture Céramique de Shanghai (1914-35), a factory under the Belgian company Crédit Foncier d'Extrême-Orient, that introduced modern manufacture of European architectural ceramics into China at a crucial moment. The case study is interwoven with rich fabrics in a broader picture. As revealed, architectural ceramics led the paradigmatic shift and the progress forwards, aided by rising efforts from Chinese engineers of diverse fields. Engineering methods were applied to porcelain and pottery studies too, leading to the birth of "Ceramics Engineering" in China.