Building Globalization

From the years 2004 to 2008, Beijing and Shanghai witnessed the construction of an extraordinary number of new buildings, many of which were designed by architectural firms overseas. Combining ethnographic fieldwork, historical research, and network analysis,Building Globalizationclosely scrutinizes the growing phenomenon of transnational architecture and its profound effect on the development of urban space. 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 Globalizationreveals the contradictions and consequences of this new, global urban frontier.

Xuefei Ren is assistant professor of sociology and global urban studies at Michigan State University.

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Preface: Up in Flames	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Abbreviations	p. xvii
Map of China	p. xviii
Space, Capital, and Global Cities: An Introduction	p. 1
Transnational Architectural Production	p. 6
Building China's Global Cities	p. 10
The Study	p. 13
Organization of the Book	p. 16
Transnational Architectural Production: Firms, Cities, Trends	p. 19
World City Networks	p. 21
The Power of Large	p. 24
The Power of Small	p. 33
A Typology of Cities	p. 37
Locating Transnational Architectural Production in China	p. 38
Ordos 100	p. 58
Architecture, Media, and Real Estate Speculation	p. 60
From Peking to Beijing: A Genealogy of Downtowns	p. 61
Architectural Spectacles: From SOHO NewTown to the Commune to Jianwai SOHO	p. 71
Public Spectacles and Place Making	p. 79
SOHO Xiaobao: From Sales Brochures to a Literary Magazine	p. 84
Developers and Policy Making	p. 86
The Art of Sales, the Game of Survival	p. 91
The Divided City	p. 96
Shifting Centers, Shifting Powers	p. 97
History, Cosmopolitanism, and Preservation	p. 99
Deciphering Preservation in Urban China	p. 102
From Chai (Demolition) to Bao (Preservation)	p. 104
Xintiandi: New Heaven and Earth	p. 110
Displacement, Relocation, and Compensation	p. 124
Beijing Preservation	p. 132
The New ôOldö Chinese City	p. 136
Olympic Spectacles, Critical Architecture, and New State Spaces	p. 140
Olympic Beijing	p. 142
A National Bid for the Olympics	p. 144
Going for Global Architecture	p. 148
The Bird's Nest Controversy	p. 152
Critical Architecture: A Debate	p. 159
Architecture, State, and Political Change	p. 164
The Power of Symbol	p. 167
Symbolic Spaces	p. 167
Symbolic Capital and Its Transformations	p. 169
Symbolic Power: Repositioning of Territorial Elites	p. 172
An Urban Revolution, from Above and Below	p. 176
Appendix: A Methodological Note on Network Analysis	p. 179
Notes	p. 189
Bibliography	p. 201
Index	p. 213
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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Building Globalization

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