Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.

Architectural Encounters in Asia Pacific explores the architecture of colonial trade and industry, revealing a complex network of transnational connections across the built heritage of the world's most dispersed and culturally diverse region. A wide-ranging collection of case studies uncover these forgotten connections, drawing together stories of migratory architects, imperial commodities, and indentured labour. From Iran to Tasmania, Japan to Java, and Imperial China to the Pacific Islands, the chapters reveal how remnants of colonial trade and industry shed light on the many multi-faceted mobilities of the imperial age, and their enduring legacy in the postcolonial built environments of Australasia, the Pacific, Southeast Asia and beyond. The chapters also reveal deep strands of cultural influences and material imprints long neglected by national histories of architecture, and showcase new methodologies to analyse the interconnectivities and bordering practices which are shaping our experiences of the 21st century. With almost every chapter arising from new archival sources, this richly interdisciplinary volume brings together the work of architectural historians, geographers and heritage practitioners to provide a new understanding of the rich and contested history of this region.

“For the first time, fish became our companions and a corner of many a Victorian parlour was given over to housing tiny fragments of their world enclosed in glass.” The experience of seeing a fish swimming in a glass tank is one we take for granted now but in Victorian England this was a remarkable sight. People had simply not been able to see fish as they now could with the invention of the aquarium and everything that went with it. Goldfish in the Parlour looks at the boom in the building of public aquariums, as well as the craze for home aquariums and visiting the seaside, during the reign of Queen Victoria. Furthermore, this book considers how people see and meet animals and, importantly, in what institutions and in what contexts these encounters happen. John Simons uncovers the sweeping consequences of the Victorian obsession with marine animals by looking at naturalist Frank Buckland’s Museum of Economic Fish Culture and the role of fish in the Victorian economy, the development of angling as a sport divided along class lines, the seeding of Empire with British fish and comparisons with aquarium building in Europe, USA and Australia. Goldfish in the Parlour interrogates the craze that took over Victorian England when aquariums “introduced” fish to parks, zoos and parlours.