Aspects of Urbanization in China

Gregory Bracken is Assistant Professor of Spatial Planning and Strategy at TU Delft and one of the co-founders of Footprint, the journal dedicated to architecture theory. From 2009 to 2015 he was a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) Leiden where he co-founded the Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA). His publications include The Shanghai Alleyway House: A Vanishing Urban Vernacular (2013), Asian Cities: Colonial to Global (2015), Contemporary Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West (2020), and Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West (2019).

"This book offers impressive arguments on the subject of Chinese cities and their evolution. Contributions deal mostly with architectural aspects of Chinese urbanization. However, architecture is not an end in itself, for it is used by the authors as a tool to study the transformation of Chinese cities from post-colonial to global megalopolises. […] This book should be read by everyone interested in Chinese cities, and not only by architects, as it demonstrates the consequences of architectural choices on many aspects of Chinese urban society. [Sebastien Goulard on http://urbachina.hypotheses.org/1589 (November 19, 2012)|"Among burgeoning studies on urban globalization, Aspects of Urbanization in China stands out as genuinely interdisciplinary. These lavishly detailed local accounts of three major Chinese cities by experts in architectural and cultural studies produce a refreshingly intimate knowledge of global metropolitan typologies.” — Robin Visser is Associate Professor of Asian Studies at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill

• Aspects of Urbanization in China - 2 Table of Contents - 6 List of Tables and Illustrations - 8 Acknowledgements - 10 INTRODUCTION - 12 1 Aspects of Urbanization in China:Shanghai, Hong Kong, Guangzhou - 14 GLOBAL AMBITIONS - 26 2 Towards an Understanding of Architectural Iconicity in Global Perspective - 28 3 Shanghai and the 2010 Expo Staging the City - 48 4 Guangzhou’s Special Path to Global City Status - 60 CULTURAL EXPRESSION - 78 5 Repairing the Rural-Urban Continuum Cinema as Witness - 80 6 Revisiting Hong Kong Fruit Chan’s ‘Little Cheung - 102 7 Sensual, but No Clue of Politics Shanghai’s Longtang Houses - 118 ARCHITECTURAL EXPRESSION - 138 8 Urbanization and Housing Socio-Spatial Conflicts over Urban Space in Contemporary Shanghai - 140 9 It Makes a Village Hong Kong’s Podium Shopping Malls as Global Villages - 166 Contributors - 184 Bibliography - 188 Index - 200