Jiren Feng (NHC Fellow, 2025–26)

Jiren Feng is a professor of Chinese studies at University of Hawai’i at Hilo. As a scholar of Chinese art and architectural history, he received academic trainings both in China and in the West. He holds a PhD in History of Art and Architecture from Brown University, three master’s degrees—an MA in History of Art and Architecture from Brown University, an MA in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and an ME in Architectural History and Theory—and a BE in Architecture from Tsinghua University. He was also a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany. His teaching career has spanned four continents, including Peking University, Brown University, Technical University of Berlin, Victoria University of Wellington, Okayama University, and University of Hawai’i. 

His recent research interests are focused on the interplay between architecture, literature, language, and society, as well as cultural studies of classical texts on architecture. He is the author of Chinese Architecture and Metaphor: Song Culture in the Yingzao Fashi Building Manual (University of Hawaii Press and Hong Kong University Press, 2012), which received the “International Book Prize (IBP) Reading Committee Publishers Accolade for Outstanding Production Values–Humanities” at the International Convention of Asian Scholars (ICAS) Biennial Book Prize 2013 Competition in Macau. His other publications in Chinese and English have addressed the subjects of Buddhist architectural art at Mt. Wutai, restoration studies of Dunhuang Grottoes architecture based on Dunhuang documents, Northern Song imperial mausoleums and geomancy (fengshui), archaeological dating of Chinese wood-framed structures, as well as Song-dynasty architectural terminology and conceptualization.

Selected Publications

• Feng, Jiren. “技術與文化的纏結：北宋官修建築專書《營造法式》的新研究” [The Entanglement of Technology and Culture: A New Study of the Northern Song Imperially-commissioned Building Manual Yingzao Fashi]. In Zhonggu Zhongguo yanjiu 中古中國研究 [Medieval China], vol. 2, 165–89. Shanghai: Zhongxi shuju, 2018.
• Feng, Jiren, Fang Zhenning, Stephan Petermann, Rem Koolhaas, AMO, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Irma Boom. Roof. Venice, Italy: Marsilio Editori, 2014. From the Elements of Architecture boxset. A series of 15 books accompanying the exhibition ‘Elements of Architecture’ at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale. The books were edited by Rem Koolhaas, director of the exhibition.
• Feng, Jiren. “Mujing neirong yu wenxian jiazhi kaobian: Jianlun qi dui Beisong jianzhu shijian zhi shiji yingxiang” 木經 內容與文獻價值考辨：兼論其對北宋建築實踐之實際影響 (An Examination of the Content and Literature Value of the Mujing Classic of Timberwork: A Concurrent Study of Its Actual Impact Upon Northern Song Building Practice), Banben muluxue yanjiu 版本目錄學研究 (Bibliographical Studies of Traditional Chinese Texts) no. 4 (2013): 13–28.
• Feng, Jiren. Chinese Architecture and Metaphor: Song Culture in the Yingzao Fashi Building Manual. Spatial Habitus: Making and Meaning of Asia’s Architecture. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 2012.
• Feng, Jiren. “Bracketing Likened to Flowers, Branches, and Foliage: Architectural Metaphors and Conceptualization in Tenth to Twelfth-Century China as Reflected in the Yingzao Fashi.” T’oung Pao 通報: International Journal of Chinese Studies 93, no. 4/5 (2007): 369–432.