Thames Town, an English Cliché

Abstract

This article contributes to the development of a reading grid for the globalisation of urban models and their hybrid forms through an analysis of the urban production and social construction of a district in the suburbs of an emerging Chinese metropolis based on a casestudy of Thames Town, located in the new city of Songjiang, to the southwest of Shanghai. First, this contribution gives an account of the circulation of internationalised urban planning models and practices and the local development of public-private growth coalitions, that is to say, the establishment of new configurations of players promoting "urban marketing" both at the level of the Shanghai Municipality and that of the District of Songjiang. Secondly, this urban creation with its borrowed architectural forms raises questions with regard to both its morphology and its social reception/construction. The "Town on the Thames" presents a meticulous English-style layout that crystallises the tensions encountered in Chinese urban peripheries: gated communities, the staging of Western architectural styles and their appropriation by the inhabitants, the identity enhancement they represent, and over and above this, relationship of the self to others and of others to the self. What do these districts with their Western-style architecture teach us about the way Shanghai, a metropolis that wishes to transmit its own model of Chinese urban planning, thinks, produces, and appropriates the Chinese city?

Permeability and Its Measurements Tested in Abstract Forms and Four Chinese New Towns

“…The third cause accounting for the impermeability problem is the privatization of public streets. Take Thames Town as an example; although it adopted the "meticulous English-style layout" [56], the foreign architects did not anticipate that the "gated community" management style of Chinese housing will harm the vitality of the project. In Figure 20, the additional fence wall of Kensington Garden is colored by yellow lines.…”

“…The third cause accounting for the impermeability problem is the privatization public streets. Take Thames Town as an example; although it adopted the "meticul English-style layout" [56], the foreign architects did not anticipate that the "gated co munity" management style of Chinese housing will harm the vitality of the project Figure 20, the additional fence wall of Kensington Garden is colored by yellow lines cuts off the most important street in the new town (red line in the left figure) and theref undermine the liveliness of the whole neighborhood. A similar problem was also observed in Chuangzhi Tiandi.…”

Of Other Dreamlands: Vernacular Adaptation, Urban Exploration, and Alternative Spectacles in China's Abandoned Themed Spaces

“…More broadly, theming in China has followed the country's “great urban transformation” (Hsing 2010), with the development of transnational architecture and “mimicry” in urban and rural construction (Bosker 2013), leading the theming of new districts and new town suburbs (den Hartog 2010) as well as villages (Oakes 2006). Shanghai's “One City, Nine Towns” programme, composed of Western‐style architecture, illustrates this theming trend (Henriot and Minost 2017). In other words, theming has infused city construction in China to the point that “miniature theme parks can be found anywhere, creating a variety of spectacles and transforming the consumptive experience of the visitors” (Tang 2012:124).…”