The Analogical DNA of a Contemporary Metropolis

How to Imagine the City

What is Shanghai？ Or， to put it another way， what is a city composed of？ This question is perhaps even more difficult to answer than the perennial topic of debate among architecture academics： “What is architecture？”

A city is a complex synthesis and we may perhaps never be able to really comprehend the full true face of a city. It is both an actual constructed thing of steel and concrete and at the same time a phantasm that exists in memory and imagination. People are like the blind men and the elephant in the parable， imagining and reconstructing the city based on disparate individual experiences and perceptions， and from them is formed the“collective imagining” of a given city. Imagination of a city comes simultaneously from actual life experience and from its depiction in texts about the urban experience. “Texts” reproducing the city， be they literature， painting， film， still photography and maps， even the models and drawings of urban planners， all affect the way we form our image of a given city.

In traditional societies， along with personal experience about urban space， literature and paintings played a very important role in constructing vision of places we had never visited. The urban landscape described in so many classic novels and poems has entered people’s cultural imagination of the city： the fog-bound London of Dickens， Paris in the work of Balzac and Baudelaire， Joyce’s Dublin， and Shanghai itself in the novels of Eileen Chang and Wang Anyi. Similarly， Piranesi’s copper etchings of Rome or the canvases of Paris by Impressionists such as Manet have also become classic interpretations of the urban landscape. Modern photographic technology has reproduced the cityscape before our eyes in a still more realistic fashion， and the birth of film announced the presentation of a sort of full-spectrum reproduction of the urban experience in the cinema； sitting in darkness and silence， audiences are completely transported into the space depicted on the screen， setting aside any thought of the actual city outside the cinema or the space they occupy. These texts aid in the construction of our spatial imagining of distant places： Most of the people around us have not actually been to the great metropolises like Paris， London， New York or Berlin， but this does not prevent them from developing an image in seductive terms of such cities， and they are greatly aided by the torrent of information found in literature， film， television and a whole host of magazines.

People’s opinions of the city， and their actual un- derstanding of it， are constructed by the orientation of their values on a kind of collective unconscious level. Value is like a lens with its origins in the reader’s social role and life experience； when considered on the basis of different value perspectives， the reality of the city becomes distorted and remolded. A reader or an urban planner， throughout the process of imagining or creating a city， will not be able to approach that unburdened by their own point of origin or uninfluenced by their value judgments. The actuality of the city perhaps exists precisely in these multiple narrative texts， be they close to or far from reality. Or perhaps these refracted and distorted interpretations and imaginings are themselves the urban reality. In Calvino’s Invisible Cities， Marco Polo describes to Kublai Khan a varied plethora of cities， but his tales are actually drawn with elements of his own hometown， Venice. Put another way， the descriptions of these disparate cities are really just a condensed aspect of Marco Polo’s memory of Venice， cities he injects with the DNA of Venice.

Made in Shanghai

An urge to pinpoint the DNA of contemporary Shanghai led to the current ongoing urban research project， “Made in Shanghai”. It is the product of collaboration between architectural studio Atelier Bow-Wow from Japan and myself. In 1998， studio partners Moyomo Kaijima， Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Junzo Kuroda published a similar project， Made in Tokyo， which has become a model for architectural studies and urban research. For the Shanghai project， we sought to extend the perspectives and research methodologies of its predecessor， and to uncover the unique urban DNA of the great metropolis of Shanghai. The DNA of these buildings and structures comes from this city but has been filtered， so that the special qualities of the city that we lack the vocabulary to put into words can be communicated through them. They have both their own particular nature and are of the same type （a nature that is anonymous）. The DNA can be reconfigured in a simple way to produce a city that appears unlike Shanghai as it is now but that gives a sense of being an “other Shanghai”. It is， of course， no longer the small fishing village of the 17th Century， nor is it an early 20th Century Bund full of nostalgia-inducing art deco buildings； it is a contemporary Asian metropolis that has developed in its own particular fashion and has its own particular atmosphere， a magic city of the East with a clamoring myriad of buildings and structures， big and small， old and new， and beautiful and ugly beyond any description in mere words.

Over the course of two years， working together with my assistants and students， we uncovered both the most noticeable and the most easily overlooked urban DNA of this city： from the municipal landmarks to the illegal shanties， from public spaces to architectural ruins， we collected the bright callingcards of the city as if we were tourists， wandering public spaces like the Bund， the Lujiazui financial district and People’s Square. And like the flaneurs of Walter Benjamin’s work， we also collected the detritus of a city that people do not know， photographing temporary structures hardly deserving of the name‘building’ in its narrow alleys and back lanes. These standard and nonstandard buildings and spaces， their separations， juxtapositions， intrusions， intersections and coverings come together to make the blend of different qualities that is Shanghai.

Naturally， it was quite the headache when it came to categorizing our selections. As things stand， we have elected not to create a truly substantive taxonomy， as we believe that to do so inappropriately would ultimately harm the presentation of the richness we found. It was an exercise reminiscent of Borges’fanciful “certain Chinese encyclopedia”， The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge， with its categories for animals， “a. those that belong to the Emperor； b. embalmed ones...” and so forth， until we come to“those that from a long way off look like flies”. We are certain Borges too believed that only by categorizing the beasts in this non-existent typology could the richness of life be best shown. Contemporary Values of the Asian Metropolis

How should we then understand the contemporary values of this city， Shanghai？ After visiting much of Asia [primarily to lecture， but also to tour for pleasure， in China and Japan] Fredric Jameson wrote of the unease he felt when situated in those urban spaces and landscapes， in particular his astonishment at the human landscape in Chinese cities undergoing a rapid process of urbanizing transformation without historical precedent. He drew on this to construct a theory of the future urban landscape； the phrase he used being “dirty realism” or a kind of “replenished space”. Jameson held that it was necessary to revise the existing term “dystopia”， since the situation in China’s cities were dystopias built on wealth， with hundreds of millions of Chinese people living amid blind and random construction and consumption in a rapidly developing economy.

Jameson came to realize that in the present political and economic order of things， the middleclass-led rational and orderly “civil society” of the Western tradition faces disintegration and collapse， with a blurring of former classes， social strata and identities. The unprecedented way in which the cities of Asia juxtapose and fuse entirely unrelated elements and social groups are perhaps a replenishment of the deficiencies and crises of the Western model. Jameson believes that there is always a certain ‘interior-ness’to the Asian city street and because of this the city as a whole lacks any outline of external appearance， becoming rather an enormous， indeterminate and impossible to describe containing vessel.

Jameson went further with this， believing that space of this kind would replenish the American urban model， or to put it another way， that in the future， American cities would have to copy Japanese or Chinese cities. Futuristic Los Angeles imagined in the film Blade Runner included a mix of skyscrapers with street stalls selling noodles and sushi， Asian vendors speaking a global lingua franca that mixed Western and Eastern vocabularies， and giant screens showing advertising that employed imagery of Kabuki performers. The visuals of this film support the correctness of Jameson’s supposition.

Although I remain in broad agreement with Jameson’s understanding of the Asian city， I think there is a more positive significance in the types and transformations Asian metropolis that Jameson was not aware of. Not merely a supplement to the Western model， the study of the contemporary Asian city can， to a certain extent， overturn the traditional Western sense of the city， and give rise to still more contemporary perspectives and values to be used in urban critique.

Of course， the external appearance of Shanghai is different to that of Tokyo， the city that is home to Yoshiharu Tsukamoto. If we say that Tokyo has juxtaposed different built masses and spaces， thus creating urban districts with diverse properties， then we can find that the heterogeneous spatial types in Shanghai have been scattered and then mixed in a “pixilated”fashion. In Tokyo， one can clearly distinguish zones of tall buildings， multi-story or low-rise constructions， or of large- or small-scale buildings； in Shanghai， examples of all these can usually be found in any given parcel of land， making itself a city with continuously stretching dense mixtures of buildings of all types and sizes. Considered from another angle， if you have a general plan of a given scale at random， you are likely to figure out from which part of Tokyo it comes by making use of the information such as block scale， building height or combing mode of spaces. However in Shanghai， such would be impossible because different patches of mixed architecture are so similar to each other that they become almost “generic”. In Shanghai， the “gene” of any particular block differs little from that of any other.

We came to presenting case studies of the Made in Shanghai research project within the exhibition space. We made no deliberate efforts to embellish the state of the project as it was underway； quite the reverse， we emphasized this by using pin-ups when arranging our display. At the same time， we also fabricated a long scroll to be displayed outdoors， Analogical City， an urban landscape created by the recombination of samples of urban DNA. Having undergone refraction， filtering and mutation， it appears at the same time familiar yet strange， presenting us with a ‘heterotopia’. Different viewers can find within their own unique Shanghai memories， desires and images.

Ten Lectures on the United States

by Zi Zhongjun， Guangxi Normal University Press， January 2014

This book is neither a general history of the United States nor an academic work. It is a compilation of simple stories about a country through the eyes of a Chinese writer after years of observation. It’s an outcome of pondering and exploration rather than ideas seized on a whim. The author shares his insights and introspection on American history， seldom touched yet practically significant， with respect to detailed topics such as “Why is the United States done talking？”“From whence comes its spirit and ideology？” “reform during progressivism，” “mass movements of the 1960s，” and “American public welfare foundations.”

In his research， the author considers the United States a variation of a civilization or Western civilization as a whole. He has studied its political and economic system as differing from traditional China. He examines the current situation in China by comparing situations in his stories from the United States.

Zi Zhongjun is an expert in international politics and American studies， as well as Chinese and Western history and culture and issues in modern China. After retiring from the Institute of American Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1996， Zi has continued writing and participating in various academic activities. Over the last few years， he has published a great number of casual literary essays and translated literary works from both English and French.