2026-09-19T02:39:42Zhttps://dspace.mit.edu/server/oai/requestoai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/417612022-01-13T07:54:12Zcom_1721.1_7582com_1721.1_7581col_1721.1_131023
Stanford Anderson and Yung Ho Chang.
Arkaraprasertkul, Non
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture
2008-05-19T16:15:23Z
2008-05-19T16:15:23Z
2007
2007
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41761
226237758
Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2007.
Vita.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-129).
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.
by Non Arkaraprasertkul.
S.M.
130, [1] p.
eng
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
Architecture.
Shanghai contemporary : the politics of built form
Thesis
application/pdf
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Publication
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