Page 138 - JCAU-6-4

Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism Socialist urbanism and cultural infrastructure facilities

Library Building Award for “a global architecture that… institutes, plan, engineer, and construct architectural
maintains a compelling sense of place…and execution projects in contemporary China.
that equals the best of international architecture” (ALA,
2007). Shunde developed a pragmatic plan “without 5. Conclusion
any site context” based on “minimalist design…and If the rectilinear plan on a north-south axis reproduces
tight budget” (P&T Group, 2008, p. 235) – sending a the layout of the classical Chinese city, with its assured
message about responsible development to the over- symbolism of millennial power, the new city center
sized city center project on the other side of the delta. confidently overlays it with monumental state space,
A plaque on the exterior of the Shunde performing arts symbolizing the socialist tabula rasa with utopian elements
center records the four danwei construction institutes that places at its core iconic cultural infrastructure facilities
involved in developing and constructing the building. in which to house and display party-approved information
They demonstrate three levels of state participation and events. The continuity of cultural infrastructure
above Shunde, namely, Foshan City, Guangzhou as facilities in the reform era, after 1978, demonstrates the
the provincial capital, and the national or central state PRC’s enduring commitment to socialist construction and
construction and engineering bureau (Figure 8). Such the construction of space for party-led articulation and
firms, contemporary legacies of the historic state design production of cultural knowledge.

A historical approach to cultural infrastructure
facilities, re-establishing the exchange between the PRC
and the Soviet Union and its basis in socialist general
planning, allows us to discern the continuity of state
cultural infrastructure facilities in contemporary built
environments of new city center projects. Dominated by
monumental government buildings and edifices dedicated
to state-defined culture and history, at their cores, these
centers symbolizes the relationship between politics and
culture and its correct trajectory. Not business districts,
not CBDs, new city center cores are party-state cultural-
political precincts, reproducing contemporary versions
of socialist urbanism. In these formal landscapes of new
cultural infrastructure facilities, commercial activity is
Figure 7. Shunde Library left and Shunde Performing Arts Center, 2005. nowhere on view.
Source: Photo by the author
In reform-era China, iconic edifices of cultural
infrastructure facilities affiliate with the appearances of
international design and global capitalism – they stand
up to the appearances of iconic buildings in other world
cities. Yet they reproduce the meanings and functions of
socialist urbanism, ever-updated for the transformational
future. The socialist aesthetic of reform and opening is
economic and international. Perhaps more than any other
city, Shenzhen symbolizes this reality. Shenzhen, city
without history – outstanding tabula rasa – simultaneously
led market reform and new construction of cultural
infrastructure facilities, reproducing relational space of
political power and its oversight of cultural functions.
Raising a contemporary international profile
through urban construction and competing with rapidly
transforming younger cities in its regional backyard,
Figure 8. Shunde Performing Arts Center construction and design
danwei, plaque mounted on exterior façade, 2005. Source: Photo by the Guangzhou commissioned for cultural facilities
author architectural firms from London, Boston, Tokyo, and

Volume 6 Issue 4 (2024) 11 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.1995