Description
Book SynopsisPolitical winds shift, architectural styles change, and technological innovations influence waves of demolition and reconstruction in this analysis of Chang'an Avenue's metamorphosis
Trade Review"The book highlights radical changes in China’s economy and politics that have created new opportunities, new practices, and new debates in architecture. It will be of great interest to students of Chinese contemporary culture and architecture, and valuable as supplementary reading for courses on the global history of architecture."
* Choice Reviews *
"Presents evocative ideas through detailed accounts of various projects in different historical periods…[and]demonstrates that modernization has never been linear in regard to urban planning and architectural design in modern China."
-- Qiu Zitong * The China Journal *
"Shuishan Yu makes a compelling case for considering it as one of the world’s most significant streets, if not, like the Champs Elysées, on its architectural and urbanistic merits, then by showing what it tells us about the evolution of post-imperial and in particular, post-revolutionary China, about how China presents itself to the world, and, most revealingly, about how China contrives its self-image."
-- David Porter * The China Quarterly *
"By enlarging our understanding of the contexts, contradictions, and consequences of choices made by building Chang’an Avenue, Yu offers an effective multi-faceted view of changing modernity in Beijing."
-- Charles M. Musgrove * Journal of Asian Studies *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
A Note on Language
Introduction
1. The History of Chang’an Avenue in an Urban Context
2. National versus Modern: The 1950s
3. Collective Creation: The 1964 Chang’an Avenue Planning
4.: Modernization in a Postmodern World: The 1970s and 1980s
5.: Collage without Planning: Toward the New Millennium
6. Chang’an Avenue and the Axes of Beijing
Conclusion: Chang’an Avenue in a Global Context
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
