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Shanghai contemporary : the politics of built form

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dc.contributor.advisor Stanford Anderson and Yung Ho Chang. en_US
dc.contributor.author Arkaraprasertkul, Non en_US
dc.contributor.other Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2008-05-19T16:15:23Z
dc.date.available 2008-05-19T16:15:23Z
dc.date.copyright 2007 en_US
dc.date.issued 2007 en_US
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41761
dc.description Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2007. en_US
dc.description Vita. en_US
dc.description Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-129). en_US
dc.description.abstract This thesis is an attempt to integrate research, architectural knowledge, and fieldwork to understand the phenomenon of the urban transformation in Shanghai, one of the fastest growing cities in the world. Having once been a lucrative treaty port city, Shanghai has re-embarked on the mission to become an economic global city through a combination of assimilated industrialized cityscape and the startling industriousness of Chinese pragmatism from 1980 onwards. Driven by the momentum of free-market capitalism within the politics of a state-controlled quasi-communist socialist entity, Shanghai's built form and environment have been conceived as a cultural construction of the conspicuous consumption of global financial marketing and of ostentatious expenditure of the elite. Nostalgic hearkening back to the glory days of foreign occupation does not adequately explain the phenomenon that exists today. Central to the aim of this thesis are the questions on how the global market was utilized, what internal and external forces were at play, and the importance given to the perception of values. By critically examining the history of the city's planning process and the reality of its urbanism, this thesis outlines the city's pragmatic developments dominated largely by its politics. The New Shanghai is a production of image, as it has always been the facade of China by virtue of its strategic location for international trade. The mediation between the representational built form, through politics, and the internal social transformations, by means of its soft cultural infrastructure, has created a cosmopolitanism unlike anything else in the world. en_US
dc.description.provenance Made available in DSpace on 2008-05-19T16:15:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 226237758.pdf: 12524317 bytes, checksum: 22de9649e00a02b5b23cbd13ece4ca12 (MD5) 226237758-MIT.pdf: 12524129 bytes, checksum: bd79ca2e74f3d55a5da97890d828d46a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 en
dc.description.statementofresponsibility by Non Arkaraprasertkul. en_US
dc.format.extent 130, [1] p. en_US
dc.language.iso eng en_US
dc.publisher Massachusetts Institute of Technology en_US
dc.rights M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. en_US
dc.rights.uri http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 en_US
dc.subject Architecture. en_US
dc.title Shanghai contemporary : the politics of built form en_US
dc.type Thesis en_US
dc.description.degree S.M. en_US
dc.contributor.department Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. en_US
dc.identifier.oclc 226237758 en_US

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