Bo Bian

Education

Southeast University, China, B.Eng. in Urban Planning
Southeast University, China, M.Eng. in Urban Planning
Cornell University, M.A. in Historic Preservation Planning
University of Virginia, PhD in the Constructed Environment (ABD)

Biography

Bo Bian is a Ph.D. candidate in the Constructed Environments. Before coming to UVA, he earned an M.A. in Historic Preservation Planning at Cornell University in 2022. Bo received a B.Eng. in Urban Planning in 2017 and an M.Eng. in Urban Planning with a focus on urban history and preservation in 2020 from Southeast University, China. He was a visiting student at Iowa State University in the Urban Design program during Spring 2017. He has been involved in plenty of China and international heritage preservation projects, many of them related to UNESCO World Heritage.

His dissertation examines how China has interpreted and implemented the concept of authenticity in heritage preservation since its accession to the UNESCO World Heritage Convention (WHC) in 1985. Moving beyond the early distinction framing that positions Chinese and European approaches to authenticity as fundamentally opposed, this research demonstrates how China's engagement with authenticity has evolved through dynamic processes of negotiation, adaptation, and innovation across different scales and time periods.

He is a lecturer in the Architectural History department teaching historic preservation theory and methods.