At first glance, Los Angeles might seem like the last place anyone would visit for architectural inspiration: Patchwork quilts of parking lots and strip malls alternate with vast carpets of matching faux-Mediterranean subdivisions, all knit together by a web of eight-lane freeways.
  But look closely and you’ll see daring architecture dotting the scrubby hillsides. There are Frank Lloyd Wright homes that resemble Mayan temples, John Lautner’s UFO-inspired residences from the space-obsessed 1960s, and turn-of-the-millennium deconstructions, such as Frank Gehry’s luminous Walt Disney Concert Hall.
  That [trend] is, more and more, coming from the other side of the Pacific. Last year, both the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and its crosstown rival, the University of Southern California (USC), named new directors to their architecture programs— and both come from Asia. Hitoshi Abe, UCLA’s new chair, hails from Sendai, Japan, while USC’s dean, Qingyun Ma, keeps offices in his native Xi’an, China, and in Shanghai...

Discussion Questions:
29. What is the significance of naming two architects from Asia to head the architectural and design schools of the two American universities?
Do you think Ma’s idea of “the impermanence of architecture” is a creditable core value? Why or why not?

30. In your opinion, how might “preservation” of the past and “progress” into the future be balanced?
What “issues of environment” primarily concern Hitoshi Abe? Why are these important?

31. What are some of the long-term goals of Abe and Ma?
How does L.A. provide a “real sympathy” for what Ma and Abe are doing?