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Four Urban Models in China’s Accelerated Urbanization: Local Public Space Implications
United Kingdom Architecture News - Jun 30, 2014 - 14:01 2697 views
X-Talk
Tuesday, June 3, 2014 @7:00pm
Studio-X Beijing
X-Talk 025: Four Urban Models in China's Accelerated Urbanization: Local Public Space Implications
Lecture by David Grahame Shane
Adjunct Professor, GSAPP, Columbia University
Conversation to Follow with:
WANG Hui, Principal Architect, URBANUS
Time: Tuesday, June 3, 2014, 19:00
Venue: Studio-X Beijing, GSAPP, Columbia University
Address: A103, 46 Fangjia Hutong, Andingmen Inner Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing
Graduated from the Architectural Association in 1969, David Grahame Shane now is an authoritative architecture historian. Grahame has taught design at the Architectural Association, Bennington College, Cornell University, Rice University, Columbia University, and the University of Pennsylvania. He has lectured extensively in Europe, the United States and Asia on architecture and urbanism. He is the author of Recombinant Urbanism: Conceptual Modeling in Architecture, Urban Design and City Theory (Wiley, 2005) and is co-editor of the Architectural Design Special Issue Sensing the 21st Century City: Upclose and Remote with Brian McGrath (2005). Together with McGrath he edited Volume 8; Contemporary Urban Theory in The Handbook of Architectural Theory (Sage, 2011).
At this time, he will give a public lecture at Studio-X Beijing. Also, a panel discussion will accompany this lecture, in which WANG Hui from URBANUS will introduce and discuss the Urban Models in China's Accelerated Urbanization and public space.
China's accelerated urbanization juxtaposes many local and global urban models in the contemporary urban space of the mega-city/metacity region.
Since 1945 the global and local discourse on urban design and development has been dominated by four conceptual models. These four models, the metropolis, the megalopolis, the fragmented metropolis and the megacity/metacity have appeared in Asia with local characteristics and with special, hybrid characteristics. China's rapid urbanization has been based on an equally rapid industrialization that has telescoped the historical development pattern of western nations into 60 years.
While the agricultural base was modernized and maintained, new factory towns provided both homes and work for the new urban population creating the modern, industrial metropolitan urban region, without regard for environmental costs. Later the system of Special Economic Districts and Special District Zoning allowed the Fragmented Metropolis to emerge, as in Shenzhen or Pudong. Simultaneously the construction of highway infrastructures and the local manufacture of automobiles set in motion the Megalopolis model, but with specific Chinese characteristics in terms of a dense high-rise morphology.
There is inevitably uneven development in such an accelerated dynamic systems, creating a city of dynamic patches. The survival of urban villages inside the city, for instance, as well as historic preservation, ecological remediation and the de-industrialization of factory towns present opportunities to provide a variation in patch scale, reconditioning the dominant residential or commercial megablock enclaves.
China's accelerated urbanization juxtaposes many local and global urban models in the contemporary urban space of the mega-city/metacity region.
Since 1945 the global and local discourse on urban design and development has been dominated by four conceptual models. These four models, the metropolis, the megalopolis, the fragmented metropolis and the megacity/metacity have appeared in Asia with local characteristics and with special, hybrid characteristics. China's rapid urbanization has been based on an equally rapid industrialization that has telescoped the historical development pattern of western nations into 60 years.
While the agricultural base was modernized and maintained, new factory towns provided both homes and work for the new urban population creating the modern, industrial metropolitan urban region, without regard for environmental costs. Later the system of Special Economic Districts and Special District Zoning allowed the Fragmented Metropolis to emerge, as in Shenzhen or Pudong. Simultaneously the construction of highway infrastructures and the local manufacture of automobiles set in motion the Megalopolis model, but with specific Chinese characteristics in terms of a dense high-rise morphology.
There is inevitably uneven development in such an accelerated dynamic systems, creating a city of dynamic patches. The survival of urban villages inside the city, for instance, as well as historic preservation, ecological remediation and the de-industrialization of factory towns present opportunities to provide a variation in patch scale, reconditioning the dominant residential or commercial megablock enclaves.
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