Page 139 - JCAU-6-4

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

Hong Kong. The cultural facilities on the Zhujiang New Research Award, Hong Kong Baptist University, 2005 – 06.
Town axis symbolize the reform era’s bold opening to the
world. They adapt globalizing design aesthetics, while their Conflict of interest
formal layout and functions continue principles of socialist The author declares no competing interests in this paper.
urbanism for the new experimental city, in which a new
city center represents renewed urban ideals. Author contributions
The core landscapes of new city centers represent and This is a single-authored article.
reproduce many of the forms and processes of socialist
urbanism. Blank-slate development sites, state design and Ethics approval and consent to participate
construction firms, superblocks, acceleration and speed, Not applicable.
aesthetics of optimism, and futuristic designs, all continue to
characterize the process of realizing the built environment Consent for publication
of the new city in China. Cultural facilities are state-built
and state-building infrastructures, part of the material Not applicable.
reality of the PRC’s enduring commitment to constructing Availability of data
futures. Economic reform did not witness the end of cultural
infrastructure facilities, just as cultural facilities have The author confirms that the data supporting the findings
changed in architectural form but not function in the PRC. of this study are available within the article.
Socialism changes with the dynamics and priorities of Further disclosure
communist parties, replete with evolving contradictions that
challenge any complete definition of socialist urbanism. As A preliminary version of this article was presented at
Kotkin observes, what was named Stalinism in the world at the “Second China Made Workshop: China’s Domestic
large was socialism inside the Soviet Union. The PRC has Infrastructure,” led by Tim Oakes and Alessandro Rippa,
maintained a dedication to socialism while it is common to which took place at the University of Hong Kong on
nominalize urbanism based on historical periods. The reform January 9 – 10, 2020.
era generated new economic regimes of urban development, References
yet the role of the state in the cultural and information spheres,
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Party committees have continued to deliberate and select Library for the City Construction and Development Center
architectural designs, both domestic and international, for of Shunde District, Foshan, China, by P&T Architects and
Engineers Ltd. ALA Library Leadership and Management
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new urban landscapes that they distinguish also depends on ala.org/news/news/pressreleases2007/april2007/
seeing like the party-state, unobscured by and disentangled aiaalalibrarybuilding [Last accessed: 2024 Sep 27].
from discourses of capitalist spectacle that identify and
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Acknowledgments China Learns from the Soviet Union, 1949-Present. Lanham:
Lexington Books, pp. 1-23.
Fieldwork in Guangzhou, Dongguan, and Shunde, in 2005 Bray, D. (2005). Social Space and Governance in China. Stanford,
– 06, undertaken during a Fulbright Fellowship held at the CA: Stanford University Press.
Department of Geography, Hong Kong Baptist University,
initiated this research, guided by findings from an ongoing Brown, J. (2012). City Versus Countryside in Mao’s China:
Australian Research Council Discovery Project. The author Negotiating the Divide. Cambridge: Cambridge University
is grateful to Puzhou Wu and Jane Zheng for identifying Press.
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Funding https://doi.org/10.1080/00420980220151637
The study was supported by the Australian Research Cartier, C. (2018). Zone analog: The state-market problematic
Council Discovery Project (DP170100871) and Council and territorial economies in China. Critical Sociology,
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Volume 6 Issue 4 (2024) 12 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.1995