Building Globalization: Transnational Architecture Production in Urban China
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Building Globalization: Transnational Architecture Production in Urban China
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Overview
Roaming from construction sites in Shanghai to architects’ offices in Paris, Xuefei Ren interviews hundreds of architects, developers, politicians, residents, and activists to explore this issue. She finds that in the rapidly transforming cities of modern China, iconic designs from prestigious international architects help private developers to distinguish their projects, government officials to advance their careers, and the Chinese state to announce the arrival of modern China on the world stage.
China leads the way in the globalization of architecture, a process whose ramifications can be felt from Beijing to Dubai to Basel. Connecting the dots between real estate speculation, megaproject construction, residential displacement, historical preservation, housing rights, and urban activism, Building Globalization reveals the contradictions and consequences of this new, global urban frontier.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780226709819 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Chicago Press |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2011 |
| Edition description: | New Edition |
| Pages: | 240 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Building Globalization
Transnational Architecture Production in Urban ChinaBy XUEFEI REN
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
Copyright © 2011 The University of ChicagoAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-70981-9
Chapter One
Space, Capital, and Global Cities: An Introduction
On the northern outskirts of Beijing, a cluster of twelve newly built, ultramodern luxury villas is hidden in the rolling mountains near the Great Wall. This place is called the Commune by the Great Wall. Although the name is borrowed from "people's commune"—a collective farming system established during the socialist period in rural China—the place evokes no memories of socialist communes. With each house designed by a prominent architect, the Commune by the Great Wall is the most upscale resort hotel in the country (fig. 1.1). It regularly hosts celebrities, business executives, and multinational corporations for company events. The main villa is the private clubhouse of the development company SOHO China, a sophisticated real estate firm well known for its extensive use of avant-garde architecture to brand its projects.
On a hot summer day in 2004, the clubhouse was packed with local celebrities, business executives, foreign expatriates, and journalists. I was among the five hundred guests invited to the gala evening celebrating the opening of the company's next megaproject—Shangdu SOHO, a high-profile mixed-use development in the central business district in Beijing (fig. 1.2). Nothing about the opening ceremony resembled a promotional event by a real estate company. Following an exotic flamenco dance performance, the developer Pan Shiyi introduced the Australian architect Peter Davidson. As the designer of Federation Square in Melbourne, Davidson is known for creating bold design images through the use of abstract geometric forms. In a talk delivered in English about his conceptualization process, Davidson made frequent references to postmodern architectural theory. A few times during the talk, the translator could not find the right Chinese words for his architectural jargon. It was unclear how many in the audience actually understood what the architect was trying to communicate. But it didn't matter much to the host, since the sole purpose of the event was to let people know that this was yet another project from SOHO China designed by a prominent international architect.
A preference for international architects is evident not only in commercial developments but also in large-scale public projects. In the past few years, the city government of Beijing has commissioned international architecture firms to design a number of high-profile public projects, including the National Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Paul Andreu (fig. 1.3), the CCTV headquarters by OMA (fig. 1.4), the National Olympic Stadium, or "Bird's Nest," by Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, and Terminal 3 of Beijing International Airport, by Norman Foster. These signature projects have transformed the image of Beijing from that of a dusty postsocialist city into that of a global metropolis. Other cities across the country have imitated the practice of organizing design competitions and inviting international architects to design public buildings. As a result, ironically, many organizations and branches of the Chinese communist party-state are increasingly accommodated in buildings designed by cutting-edge international architects.
To a large degree, market logic explains the search for international architects by private developers and national and local governments in China. For private developers, cutting-edge architectural design, especially by well-known international architects, is a marketing tool to brand and sell their projects. By associating themselves with international design firms, local developers can create a public image as sophisticated patrons of architecture rather than profit-driven speculators, thus differentiating their projects in the crowded property market. For investors, a property associated with a prominent international architect is an indisputable status symbol; and more important, investing in a "signature building" can reduce risks and yield a higher financial return. But market logic alone cannot fully explain the search for international architects by China's new urban elites. The state-sponsored megaprojects, such as the Olympic Stadium, require tremendous resources and cannot be justified in market terms. In spite of the controversies they have generated—a topic I will turn to later—the Chinese state has backed these projects both financially and politically. Under the spotlight of the 2008 Olympics, the Chinese government staged a spectacle in the Bird's Nest to demonstrate the country's rise as a geopolitical power. The search for international architects, therefore, has to be understood within a broader conception of power, one that goes beyond pure market logic.
Chinese cities are not alone in their pursuit of prominent international architects for city branding and promotion. From Bilbao to Chicago, urban governments have competed with one another to use prestigious international architects to put their cities on the map. These projects represent a fundamental change in the way urban space is produced today. In the age of globalization, urban space is increasingly shaped by transnational articulations. Transnational architectural production has become a major mode of spatial production, characterized by the involvement of a wide spectrum of actors—architects, developers, investors, media networks, and state bureaucrats—in the deterritorialized production, consumption, and interpretation of urban space.
China provides a privileged site for studying transnational architectural production, because of the scale and speed of urban construction currently taking place in Chinese cities. This book examines the role of transnational architectural production in the making of China's global cities. It explores the economic, political, and cultural logics that underlie the search for international architects by the governing urban elites in China. Based on fieldwork in Beijing and Shanghai conducted from 2004 to 2008, the book examines how the symbolic capital of architectural design is transformed into economic, political, and cultural capital by various local and translocal actors. It tells a story of China's urban revolution through the lens of the architectural metamorphoses in Chinese cities.
Transnational Architectural Production
By "transnational architectural production," I refer to the increasing participation of transnational agents in the consumption, production, and interpretation of architecture and buildings. In a globalized world, the forces that help produce a building often operate beyond national boundaries, as seen in the circulation of investment capital, the movements of built-environment professionals, and the diffusion of new design technologies. It has also become more common than before for a place to be consumed not only locally, by residents and visitors—through being there and experiencing it—but also globally, by a wider audience of spectators who watch the images of places, buildings, and architecture circulate in global telecommunication networks. Architecture and buildings are also subject to multiple—and often contradictory—interpretations and are invested with different meanings by both local and translocal actors. These competing interpretations form a critical element of transnational architectural production.
What are the socioeconomic and technological conditions that have enabled this process? Scattered practices of transnational architectural production can be found throughout history. However, the scale of such production has reached an unprecedented level in the most recent phase of globalization, since the 1970s. Globalized architectural production has matured as a major mode of spatial articulation in the context of broader structural and regulatory changes.
Here I single out four conditions of possibility that have enabled the full-fledged globalization of architectural practices: the integration of the global economy and the liberalization of trade in services, the development of telecommunication networks, the ascending importance of the symbolic economy in postindustrial cities, and the rescaling of state power at the metropolitan level.
First, the free movement of multinational capital provides financial resources for high-profile architectural projects in global cities, where the return on investment is the highest. Most urban megaprojects across the world are financed by multinational capital from a variety of sources. In its three decades of market reform, China has emerged as a new economic powerhouse and has become a major destination for foreign direct investment (FDI). Its continued economic growth has been accompanied by a construction boom, with urban areas expanding at an unprecedented speed. As host cities of the 2008 Olympics and the 2010 World Expo, Beijing and Shanghai have witnessed the construction of a large number of high-profile architectural projects, many of which were financed by domestic and international investment capital. China's current construction boom and rapid urbanization have created a huge demand for architects and planners, which cannot be met by local design workforces alone. A substantial gap has thus been created between the demand and the supply of architectural design labor, in spite of the quickly expanding architecture programs in Chinese universities that put tens of thousands of new graduates on the market every year.
The shortage of architectural design labor is eased by the liberalization of trade in services, which has greatly reduced barriers to the production and consumption of architectural services across national boundaries. Both goods and services are now distributed and consumed on an increasingly transnational scale. The production of services has become more flexible and spatially dispersed, to take full advantage of the new market and cheaper labor in various regions. The World Trade Organization (WTO) includes engineering and architectural design in the category of tertiary services, together with other intangible business services such as finance, insurance, and consulting. In 1993, the WTO member countries signed the GATS (General Agreement for Trade in Services), which became operative in 199 . The GATS framework suggests that the likely shortage of local professional knowledge can be corrected by the invisible hand of the market through the supply of international services. After China's accession to the WTO in 2001, it gradually opened its construction market to international architecture firms, while reserving some restrictions such as requiring foreign firms to partner with local firms. By the end of 200 , China had lifted most restrictions and allowed foreign-owned professional design firms to practice independently. The domestic construction and design market thus became immediately accessible to international architecture firms. Transnational architectural production taking place in China has to be understood within this larger context of the deregulation and liberalization of trade in services led by the GATS and the WTO.
Second, the innovation in telecommunication technologies has liberated architectural production from territorial domains, as graphic drawings can be transferred instantly between design centers and construction sites across the globe. Architecture used to be a local employment industry, spatially determined as a service to nearby building construction. Architects and construction managers had to inhabit the same production space, to allow design drawings to be exchanged in a reasonable amount of time. However, the changing technological context has redefined how architecture can be produced. Enhanced global connectivity, transmission speed, and network capacity have made it possible to transfer large design drawings instantly, thus providing a technological infrastructure for transnational architectural production. Physical proximity between design and construction has been made less relevant. The ability to transmit design drawings quickly across space has dispersed the production of architectural services spatially according to relative advantages. Architectural production can now move to where the market and cheaper labor are located. China has become the destination for international architects precisely because it combines the advantage of having a strong construction market and a cheaper design workforce. International architecture firms can now first produce conceptual designs in their home offices and then transfer them to local project offices in China. Local architects can quickly translate the conceptual designs to technical drawings in compliance with local construction codes and regulations. Transnational architectural production therefore exemplifies the new international division of labor and flexible production, utilizing the relative advantages of different regions for capital accumulation.
Technology and digitization have facilitated architectural globalization and helped create the genre of signature buildings. From Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao to OMA's CCTV headquarters in Beijing, with the aid of computers and advanced modeling, architects have turned previously unbuildable structures into reality. The global telecommunication network has also changed the way architecture is consumed. As images of signature buildings are commonly circulated through cell phones, e-mails, and the Internet, the consumption of urban space is increasingly taking place on a transnational scale. In the process, the visual impact of architecture has become paramount, and the image of a building is often all that matters for its visual consumers across the globe. The technological context has therefore provided a crucial condition for transnational architectural production, by changing the ways in which architecture is produced and consumed.
Third, transnational architectural production has to be situated in the context of postindustrial cities, where architectural projects have become an instrument for place promotion and urban revitalization. Following the shift from the Fordist to the post-Fordist mode of production, Western cities have changed from manufacturing and administration centers into postindustrial sites with strong business services and consumption and entertainment functions. Broader socioeconomic forces at the global, national, and urban levels are intertwined, working together to reshape the urban spaces of postindustrial cities. In the process, old urban forms have been rehabilitated to adapt to new uses, and new types of urban spaces are being created. Architectural megaprojects are examples of the new urban spaces produced in today's postindustrial cities. Urban governments compete with one another to construct high-profile architectural projects in an attempt to reorient the image of their cities and attract international investment and tourism.
Although the larger Shanghai and Beijing metropolitan areas are not yet postindustrial, deindustrialization processes have been clearly taking place in the inner-city districts. There, service industries have replaced manufacturing, and interurban competition has driven local government officials to use global architecture for place making. After Shanghai built a state-of-the-art international airport, an upscale opera house, and its flagship Pudong financial district—all from designs and master plans by international firms—Beijing followed suit and commissioned international architects to design several architectural monuments for the Olympics. These practices were also followed by Guangzhou, a megacity in the south, which invited Zaha Hadid—a regular presence in the international circuit of elite architects—to design an opera house and a stadium. The symbolic capital of architectural design has thus become an important impetus for economic development of Chinese cities in the context of deindustrialization and interurban competition.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Building Globalization by XUEFEI REN Copyright © 2011 by The University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission of THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface: Up in Flames xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Abbreviations xvii
Map of China xviii
Chapter 1 Space, Capital, and Global Cities: An Introduction 1
Transnational Architectural Production 6
Building China's Global Cities 10
The Study 13
Organization of the Book 16
Chapter 2 Transnational Architectural Production: Firms, Cities, Trends 19
World City Networks 21
The Power of Large 24
The Power of Small 33
A Typology of Cities 37
Locating Transnational Architectural Production in China 38
Ordos 100 58
Chapter 3 Architecture, Media, and Real Estate Speculation 60
From Peking to Beijing: A Genealogy of Downtowns 61
Architectural Spectacles: From SOHO NewTown to the Commune to Jianwai SOHO 71
Public Spectacles and Place Making 79
SOHO Xiaobao: From Sales Brochures to a Literary Magazine 84
Developers and Policy Making 86
The Art of Sales, the Game of Survival 91
The Divided City 96
Shifting Centers, Shifting Powers 97
Chapter 4 History, Cosmopolitanism, and Preservation 99
Deciphering Preservation in Urban China 102
From Chai (Demolition) to Bao (Preservation) 104
Xintiandi: New Heaven and Earth 110
Displacement, Relocation, and Compensation 124
Beijing Preservation 132
The New "Old" Chinese City 136
Chapter 5 Olympic Spectacles, Critical Architecture, and New State Spaces 140
Olympic Beijing 142
A National Bid for the Olympics 144
Going for Global Architecture 148
The Bird's Nest Controversy 152
Critical Architecture: A Debate 159
Architecture, State, and Political Change 164
Chapter 6 The Power of Symbol 167
Symbolic Spaces 167
Symbolic Capital and Its Transformations 169
Symbolic Power: Repositioning of Territorial Elites 172
An Urban Revolution, from Above and Below 176
Appendix: A Methodological Note on Network Analysis 179
Notes 189
Bibliography 201
Index 213