Western Architecture in Urban China - Essay Example

Research Proposal Working The Impact of Western Architecture on Urban China: Should the Culture of Architecture be saved Problem ment: Few capital cities in the world, barring those destroyed by war or other calamity, have undergone such a rapid change in such a short space of time as Beijing, China (Economist ed 2004). From the rubble of old alleyways and decrepit apartment blocks are sprouting gleaming office towers and shopping malls, colossal stadiums and lavish government buildings, the Western influence can be seen (Economist ed 2004). This is part of an orgy of construction across urban China that is providing unparalleled opportunities for foreign architects to fulfil their wildest dreams (Economist ed 2004). China's spending on construction ranks only behind the United States' and Japan's and is growing the fastest of the top ten spenders, at 8-9 percent annually. Remarkably, given China's cultural pride, most of the highest-profile projects now underway in Beijing were designed by foreign celebrities (Economist ed 2004). It becomes important to examine how the impact of another culture, in this case Modern Western culture, can change the buildings and homes of another. This will allow the research to study architecture as a cultural discipline in which issues of practice, of the multiplicity of social formations in which buildings exist, and of changes with the subject matter of building design - construction, space, material. Architecture arises from the aspirations those diverse individuals and groups have for their physical environment and from the social enterprise of designing and fabricating the landscape people inhabit. Understanding how one culture can impact another will develop better knowledge of the changing world around us. It is important to note that, for the purposes of this research, Western includes America and Western Europe. Aim: The aim is to utilise historical and archival evidence to explore the impact of Western architecture in urban China. Objective: Primarily, this research will describe the impacts of Western architecture on urban China. This objective includes an understanding of the impact of Western architecture and how (or if) China has altered the style to preserve its traditional architecture. A secondary objective is to understand the impacts of these architectural designs on the cultural aspect of Chinese architecture. Key Questions: 1) How has Western architecture influenced the designs of urban China 2) Should traditional Chinese architecture be preserved in the urban sprawl of high growth areas Literature Review: In the last 10 years, research on Chinese urban form has grown rapidly both in China itself and in other parts of the world (Whitehand and Kai 2006). At the same time Chinese cities have undergone unprecedented growth and transformation, presenting great challenges for the comprehension and management of urban landscape change (Whitehand and Kai 2006). In planning future urban morphological research during this period of exceptional flux, an important first step is to take stock of past research, especially that of the recent past (Whitehand and Kai 2006). Research on Chinese urban form across a range of disciplines, including architectural history, urban planning, archaeology and urban geography, has tended to be descriptive and has contained scant comparison, either of findings or methods, with that on towns and cities in other parts of the world (Whitehand and Kai 2006). This exemplifies that little architectural research focuses on the cultural and global influence perspective of urban planning, which relates to the larger and more holistic approach that, as the world grows, architectural design should begin to focus on. The contemporary Asian city is moulded on images of the modern Western city. As Asian countries follow similar economic and developmental models, cities in China, Malaysia, Korea and Indonesia, for example, will also follow those models. Although Asian cities are beginning to look more and more like Western cities they struggle to maintain their own local characters and forms. Jeffery Cody (1996) examines the historical impact of Western architecture in modern China, citing that after 1911 American planners and Chinese municipal experts trained in American universities initiated significant planning schemes in several Chinese cities. Cody's (1996) research is based on empirical evidence of archaeological history and archival urban planning evidence. Cody's (1996) description of the historical influence marked a crucial change in Chinese city planning. He (Cody 1996) examines that from the mid-19th century to 1911 it had primarily been British, French or German planners who had exerted foreign influence on Chinese urban form, particularly in the treaty ports of eastern China, such as Beijing (Cody 1996). Cody contends that the best examples that demonstrate this shift of emphasis to American-based ideals of municipal progress are the plans for Guangzhou (Canton) in the early 1920s, the new capital plan at Nanjing (Nanking) and the greater Shanghai plan in the late 1920s. Cody (1996) argues that Guangzhou was a first testing ground where Chinese politicians, within a decade after the first American city planning conference of 1909, consciously tried to apply up-to-date American planning principles associated with the 'city functional', the 'city scientific' or the 'city efficient' to a Chinese city that they perceived as inefficient. The problem Cody (1996) addressed was the influence of Western architecture in urban China using archival political document evidence. However, after reading the study, it has a stronger anti-political feel than an unbiased and empirical evidence context. It is possible that this is a methodological flaw due to bias, and it is therefore important to note that future research studies attempt to remove political and social viewpoints from the analysis. Lee Ou-fan Lee (1999) focuses on urban culture in Shanghai, China and the modernity in the country in the 1930's. Lee's (1999) examines the changing architecture of China's passage to modernity with an analysis of the characteristics of architecture and urban space in Shanghai and description of the significant public structures and places of leisure and entertainment. These scholars establish the influence of Western architecture in urban China as having a historical and political context. This study used correlative evidence between Westernized urban planning and Asian urban planning, again through qualitative analysis. There is a repeating pattern here, that much research is highly qualitative and emphatically not quantitative. Urban China faces many issues in development. The nature of strategic spatial planning, as exemplified in the planning literature and in examples from Vancouver, Hong Kong and China more generally (Friedmann et al 2004). The primary author, John Friedmann, argues that too much attention in planning practices has been given to the production of strategic plans and too little to locally-based studies of the dynamics of urban socio-spatial development (Friedmann et al 2004). This correlates to the research proposal in that there is a need to establish the social and cultural space over the urban planning. This study examined commentaries from the perspectives of planning academics and practitioners from different parts of the world, the discussion is enlarged to link the spatial planning discussions to the management literature on strategic planning (Friedmann et al 2004). This stresses the well-established process emphasis in much contemporary strategic spatial planning work, and the authors raise some positive roles for formal plans in planning processes and to highlight recent European experiences in China (Friedmann et al 2004). Again, however, the methodology is highly qualitative and experimental. In Shanghai, China has been effected by evolving property rights over urban land, in the context of gradualist reforms where problems relating to property rights are intensified by the economy of real estate development and investment (Zhu 2002). A bold political decision to initiate economic reforms towards a market-oriented economy has brought China's urban development into a new era, along with profound institutional change and organisational transformation (Zhu 2002). Property rights are the bundle of rights that link an economic system with a political structure and a legal regime, and China has set up centrally controlled economic system under which property rights over resources were nationalised. A unique socialist institution came into existence as a system of state owned and state run units where all most all urban residents were employed to work. The absolute state ownership of urban land under centrally controlled system excluded the land market from mechanisms of resource allocation (Zhu 2002). This explains the influence of the China Republic government on the urban sprawl throughout China as being both development and design as well as economic. This new era is heavily influenced by policy and economy, yet the culture and social history is failing to be recognised. Zhu (2002) examined the property right laws and distribution to describe the problem of space in urban China. This research methodology did not pass judgement on the political decisions, but examined the relationship between urban planning and cultural space designations. This seems to have a more valid approach as the study focused on both qualitative (history) and quantitative (property dispersal) rather than solely qualitative measures to form the conclusion. China's biggest cities are struggling to balance modern design with their historical structures (Mcguigan, Lin-lui and Mooney 2003). Many areas of both Beijing and Shanghai have changed beyond recognition, losing the traditional Chinese forms and incorporating more global influences and talents who have been drawn to China in the building effort of Beijing officials China's biggest cities are struggling to balance modern design with their historical structures (Mcguigan, Lin-lui and Mooney 2003). Exposure to global architecture and ideas is creating a more sophisticated design culture in China and strongly influencing Asian architects, causing disputes over planning and historical preservation (Mcguigan, Lin-lui and Mooney 2003). The Mcguigan (et al 2003) study examined the issue using triangulation (as Zho above) of quantitative and qualitative measures. They examined the number of Western influenced designs and classical Asian architecture with the empirical evidence of disputes to form their analysis. Even the changes of the dwelling system of urban China is under suspect, where dwelling forms have changed to two types of lilong neighbourhoods, in which two housing types are involved respectively: one is changed the urban neighbourhood: including its early multi-bay model and a later double- to single-bay model, which are believed to derive from a more native dwelling concept and value system; the other is the so-called new-style neighbourhood, which is believed to have its origin in Western architecture dwelling culture brought in by foreign sojourners and welcomed by locals (Zhao 2004). Based on a combined historical and typo-morphological reading, changes in both types can be identified at housing unit level and neighbourhood level in relation to a larger urban block, a dual structure of 'outside shops and inside neighbourhoods ( waipu-neili )' was commonly adopted in shikumen neighbourhoods that helped to integrate those pocket-like houses into the fast-modernising urban environment through a mixed land-use pattern, while a more pure residential environment was created in the new-style housing neighbourhood where very few or none shop houses were to be found as 'mediators' between the neighbourhood and the urban (Zhao 2004). Differences in unit plans also revealed a shift from a more metaphoric layout to a more functional layout, from the clan/family-based courtyard-centred living to the community-based alley-centred living, and from a self-contained traditional living style towards a more open, more independent modern urban living style. This expresses the influence of Western architecture on the social context of dwellings (Zhao 2004). This study by Zhao (2004) stated the central purpose as being highly cultural and social in nature, specifically towards the spatial dominion of the family and community. His (Zhao 2004) research used quantitative measures for traditional housing vs. urban planning housing to find that there is a loss of the traditional and cultural aspect of architecture in urban China. This study could have been emphasised more by specific quantitative evidence of the Western influence, however, it does strongly show the relationship between urban planning in China and Western architecture as negating the classical and cultural representations of traditional Chinese architecture. The problem with the Western architecture in the construction boom of the past two decades, that has been primarily funded by the private sector, has engendered fierce aesthetic conflicts due to intense competition for limited space in rapidly modernising Beijing (Visser 2004). Contemporary Chinese artists both protest the commercial exploitation of traditional cultural sites, and appropriate market devices for their ends (Visser 2004). The aesthetic strategies employed in experimental art, film, and fiction, which grapple with the tensions inherent in globalisation and urban culture in late twentieth-century Beijing (Visser 2004). Examples include installations protesting the forced relocation of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1994 to develop a 'City of Commerce' in its place, and renting the Imperial Ancestral Temple in the Forbidden City to exhibit domestic experimental art, as a foil to the Oriental productions promoted at this site (Visser 2004). While much contemporary Beijing cultural production shares a realist, documentary drive to address urban, post-industrial anxieties relative to dislocation, Chinese artists deconstruct the present with a conspicuous absence of nostalgia (Visser 2004). As an aesthetic strategy, disappearance is a form of hybridise that resists delimiting not only temporal, but also conceptual and normative frames of reference. By highlighting hybrid effects rather than merely conceptualising the tensions inherent in the global city, an aesthetics of disappearance functions as a site of resistance while also working to reposition artists at the centre of commercial culture (Visser 2004). Visser's (2004) study is highly interpretative of the Chinese communities perception of the changes in urban China, and is strongly anti-political in regards to the ruling China Republic. Regardless of these seemingly territorial and political concepts, Visser's (2004) analysis examines the discontent with the current Western influence (and land re-allocation) in urban China. The fact that there is a certain amount of discontent with land use in urban China comes not only from Visser, but also from nearly every research above. These studies, in general, have a negative political feel to them, which is a preconcieved bias that will be removed in the research dissemination. Furthermore, little quantitative evidence is shown. No researcher from any of the literature found states that more people find the cultural implications more important that the economic impact of the Western architectural influence as it encroaches on urban China. Therefore, the research proposal will examine this impact with a strong relationship to the cultural value of architecture and the changes urban China is undergoing. A tertiary concern of this research is to establish if there is a link between urban culture and urban architecture in China, and if, historically, that relationship is being torn down and rebuilt to the detriment of classical design structure and, importantly, to the detriment of the community. Outline Methodology: Much of the literature review focuses on the impact of Western architecture in a socio-political and economic development, yet little research examines the historical perspective as well as the perceptions of people in regards to the importance of culture in architecture. Using China, especially high growth areas such as Beijing and Shanghai, the impact of Western architecture from a historical perspective can be examined. However, this negates the perceptions of people in general. Therefore, the methodology is to triangulate archival evidence of the impact of Western architecture in China with evidence from distributed survey questionnaires regarding the impact of architecture on culture in regards to the question of preservation. If it can be proven that these two components are related, then it can be shown that the changes in urban China are less divulged from the economic and political unrest, but that the mingling of the East-West cultural divide strongly influences the cultural perceptions of architecture. Work plan: This should be a simple timetable indicating what you intend to do and when. References Booth, Robert (2004) China's crisis of conscience. Building Design, 8/13/2004 Issue 1638, p11-11, 1/3p; Abstract: Editorial. Cody, Jeffrey W (1996) American planning in republican China, 1911-1937. Planning Perspectives, Oct96, Vol. 11 Issue 4, p339-377, 39p Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar ed. (2001) Alternative Modernities Published by Duke University Press Economist, editorial (2004) Cultural revolution. Economist, 2/14/2004, Vol. 370 Issue 8362, p63-63, 2/3p, 1c; Friedmann, John; Bryson, John; Hyslop, John; Balducci, Alessandro; Wiewel, Wim; Albrechts, Louis; Healey, Patsy (2004). Strategic spatial planning and the longer range. Planning Theory & Practice, Mar2004, Vol. 5 Issue 1, p49-67, 19p Fu Xinian, Xinian Fu, Daiheng Guo, Xujie Liu, Guxi Pan, Yun Qiao, Dazhang Sun, Liu Xujie, Pan Guxi, Guo Daiheng, Qiao Yun, Sun Dazhang (2003) Chinese Architecture. Published by Yale University Press Gyula Sebestyen, Christopher Pollington (2003) New Architecture and Technology. Published by Architectural Press Havich, Michelle M (2001) U.S. urban designer to create Beijing's new CBD. National Real Estate Investor, Jun2001, Vol. 43 Issue 6, p26, 1/3p, 1c; Havich, Michelle M (2001) U.S. urban designer to create Beijing's new CBD. National Real Estate Investor, Jun2001, Vol. 43 Issue 6, p26, 1/3p, 1c; Lee Ou-fan Lee (1999) Shanghai Modern: Reflections on Urban Culture in China in the 1930s. Public Culture, 1999, Vol. 11 Issue 1, p75, 33p; McGuigan; Lin-Liu, Jen; Mooney, Paul (2001) Building Up. Newsweek (Atlantic Edition), 10/20/2003, Vol. 142 Issue 16, p56-58, 3p, 1c; Visser, Robin (2004) Spaces of disappearance: aesthetic responses to contemporary Beijing city planning. Journal of Contemporary China, May2004, Vol. 13 Issue 39, p277-310, 34p Whitehand, J. W. R.; Kai Gu. (2006) Research on Chinese urban form: retrospect and prospect. Progress in Human Geography, Jun2006, Vol. 30 Issue 3, p337-355, 19p Zhao, Chunlan. (2004) From shikumen to new-style: a rereading of lilong housing in modern Shanghai. Journal of Architecture, Spring2004, Vol. 9 Issue 1, p49-76, Zhu, Jieming (2002) Urban Development under Ambiguous Property Rights: A Case of China's Transition Economy. International Journal of Urban & Regional Research, Mar2002, Vol. 26 Issue 1, p41, 17p, 7 charts, 1 map; Read More