Walking Macao, Reading the Baroque

Walking Macao, Reading the Baroque is a guide-book with a difference. It brings to the reader the art and architecture of Macao and the baroque treasures that make the territory so attractive. Lavishly illustrated, Walking Macao, Reading the Baroque helps the reader who wants to understand the complex history and layout of the city as a Portuguese ex-colony founded in the sixteenth century, and as a modern Chinese city. As the authors consider the special nature of Macao’s baroque, they discuss whether its Chinese architecture--its temples, gardens and houses--is also baroque; and what is the importance of the new casino architecture, much of which imitates ’the baroque’ in its postmodern character. Weaving discussion of Camões’ epic poem, The Lusiads, about Portuguese imperialism, and Chinnery’s paintings into the exploration of Macao’s present buildings, the book contains 125 original photographs that add to the unique perspective that it provides for the thoughtful visitor or the longstanding lover of the city. To create this new way of looking at Macao, the authors draw on critical, cultural and ’postmodern’ theory inspired by the baroque, discussing in particular what the ideas of Walter Benjamin, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze can bring to our understanding of Macao and the baroque. The book gives a sophisticated reading of contemporary literary and cultural theory, and theory about cities, and helps the student understand this through the detailed reading it gives of the streets of Macao as a specific postcolonial and postmodern city. This original and stimulating book examines Macao’s heritage, and asks as much about the cultural memories stored up in the city as it does about its new and exciting architecture.

Jeremy Tambling is professor of literature at Manchester University, and author of several books, including Madmen and Other Survivors Reading Lu Xun’s Fiction (Hong Kong University Press, 2007), and REVerse Turning Towards Poetry (Longman, 2007). Louis Lo is assistant professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Shue Yan University, Hong Kong, and author of Male Jealousy Literature and Film (Continuum, 2008). He collaborated, with photographs, on Jeremy Tambling’s Going Astray Dickens and London (Longman, 2008).